We need to celebrate city’s 900th birthday
DIGGING INTO THE PAST with Dr Murray Cook
An important birthday
So, do you have your diaries out or am I showing my age? Perhaps you prefer the calendar in your smart phone? Regardless, I want to let you know that in 2024 Stirling will be 900 years old and I’m sure you’ll agree the old place still looks great!
While Stirling has been lived in for millennia, Stirling Burgh, which was the predecessor to the council was (we think) founded in 1124 by David I. One of his elder brothers: either Edgar or Alexander, probably built the castle but David founded the High School and Cambuskenneth Abbey and I think built the first bridge over the Forth (the one that was burnt down during the Battle of Stirling Bridge).
I think that all of us and all our public bodies and institutions should put our heads together and have some kind of celebration of everything that makes our proud city unique.
So what exactly are all these superlatives I hear you cry - let me run through them.
Home of tartan, the world’s oldest football, the world’s oldest curling stone, Scotland’s first powered and unpowered flight, Scotland’s best preserved city walls, Scotland’s oldest and best preserved Royal Park, one of the best preserved Renaissance places in Europe, the best preserved late medieval almshouse in Scotland, saw the use of the world’s largest trebuchet, birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots, coronation place of James VI, birthplace of the modern bible, the site of Scotland’s two most important battlefields, burial place of James III and Scotland’s third oldest High School.
Remember at no other place in
Europe can you walk from a medieval battlefield to the site of a Jacobite siege, a visiting a Celtic fort and city walls built to deter Henry VIII’S troops all in 15 minutes! So let’s all start planning now for what really should be a very big party!