The Forth is key to Stirling’s importance
You all of course know why Stirling is so important, don’t you?
Just in case any visitors are reading this column, it’s because we sit at the lowest major crossing point of the Rover Forth so if you wanted to go north or south, or stop someone going north or south, you did it at Stirling. A hard geographical fact for everyone from the Romans to Bonnie Prince Charlie.
‘Forth’is Gaelic for edge, though it has a hard end from the Norse fjord, when the Vikings controlled the area. We therefore sit at the edge of Scotland and as late as the 14th century it was possible to talk of Stirling being on the border with England. But the river had lots of other names, more than any other in Scotland: from Bodotra (Roman) to Scottewattre (Old English) and even The Sea of Scotland (Medieval).
I have spent a lot of the summer canoeing and walking the Forth, exploring its twists and turns, spotting deer and otters, red kites and herons. Outside spates which can double its depth, its normally slow placid and sluggish, it might almost be described as boring but for the absolutely astonishing views and the battles that raged to control it.
The oldest weapons from the river are 3000 years old and include a sword and a spear tip - the spear tip gifts to the gods, perhaps even to the Forth itself. Might the river have been a god once?
Certainly, I can appreciate why such a majestic river would be considered so. The river is harder to get to these days - fences and hogweed block the way but it’s well worth it, or why not even stop on one of the bridges and just look?