Did Wallace walk this way?
The Peel of Gartfarran
Archaeology can often take a lot of imagination, to look at lumps and bumps and construct a house or a palace and then to imagine the people who built it, their lives and loves, the squeal of children playing.
Sometimes it’s easier, at Stirling Castle you can walk into buildings used by James IV and Mary Queen of Scots. But the further you go back the rarer the buildings.
So it is always astonishing when you come across something older. Last week I walked with my daughter Kirsty to the Peel of Gartfarran (NS 5361 9537). This sits on a low rise at the western end of Flanders Moss, just to the south-east of Gartmore.
This is a squarish defended settlement, like a small timber castle - it was meant to be hard to get to and it’s even harder today. We ended walking through heavy undergrowth and even along the A811 for a while. All that’s left is the boundary ditch and outer wall, which probably supported a timber palisade.
The owner of this structure - The Laird of Gartfarran - fought at the Battle of Dunbar and pledged allegiance to Edward I after his victory. Now remember, that at this point the Bruces were already fighting for the English and Wallace’s family wasn’t important enough to be worth asking for their allegiance.
So here we have the remains of a building that is contemporary with
Wallace and Bruce.
Who walked through its doorway? Did Wallace? We know he was supposed to have visited a similar one at Gargunnock. For me it takes very little effort to picture Wallace being welcomed here, people rushing to shake his hand, his every word capturing the crowd’s attention.
How many followed him to Stirling Bridge?