Stirling Castle is one of the largest and most important castles in Scotland, both historically and architecturally. The castle sits atop Castle Hill, which forms part of the Stirling Sill geological formation. It is surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs, giving it a strong defensive position. Its strategic location, guarding what was, until the 1890s, the farthest downstream crossing of the River Forth, has made it an important fortification in the region from the earliest times.

Most of the principal buildings of the castle date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A few structures of the fourteenth century remain, while the outer defences fronting the town date from the early eighteenth century.

Before the union with England, Stirling Castle was also one of the most used of the many Scottish royal residences, very much a palace as well as a fortress. Several Scottish Kings and Queens have been crowned at Stirling, including Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1542, and others were born or died there.

There have been at least eight sieges of Stirling Castle, including several during the Wars of Scottich independence, with the last being in 1746, when Bonnie Prince Charlie unsuccessfully tried to take the castle.

Fun facts:

Stirling Castle is known to many around the world as that place Mel Gibson fought for in Braveheart. While most Scots will cringe away from the horrific historical inaccuracies portrayed in those 177 minutes, here is a list of equally gory facts about one of the world’s most famous castles.

1. Mary, Queen of Scots spent much of her life here.

One of the more notable royal figures, Mary spent much of her youth and adulthood in the castle. The youngest ruler of Scotland - her father, King James V, having died when Mary was only six-days-old - she was crowned at the Royal chapel here. She returned here in her later years, when her son James VI took residence at the palace.

2. Stirling Castle was abandoned for many years. The castle is one of the few that has not had a constant occupancy through out the years. During the Wars of Independence in 1296, when Edward invaded Scotland, he found the great castle empty and abandoned. This allowed the English king to set up a Scottish stronghold with relative ease.

3. The castle esplanade has featured in several music videos

The parade ground outside the castle has been used as an open-air concert venue through out the years. This includes R.E.M., Bob Dylan and Runrig, some of who filmed their live in concert DVDs here. Stirling’s Hogmanay celebrations are also held here every year, and live broadcasted on TV.

4. The Battle of Bannockburn had a scaring effect on the castle.

In the aftermath of the famous bloody battle, King Robert the Bruce regained control of the castle. The impressive fortress had switched hands so many times during the Wars of Independence, that Robert ordered all of the defences to be destroyed so it could never be used against his efforts again.

5. A bloody murder took place here.

While we know many killings took place here, none seem as violent and intentional as that of William, 8th Earl of Douglas. In February 1452, James II had the Earl assassinated with the help of his courtiers. He was stabbed 26 times, and then his body was flung from a castle window down into the gardens.

6. The first attempt at flight in Scotland happened here.

In 1507, the very first record of an attempted flight took place on the castle walls. An Italian alchemist by the name of John Damian was in attendance at the court of James IV. He believed that with the aid of feathered wings, he would be able to take flight, and jumped from the battlements. Of course, this failed spectacularly and instead, John landed in a dunghill and broke his thigh bone.

7. The oldest football in the world was discovered here.

Mary, Queen of Scots loved sports and in particular, football. She even recorded playing a game in one of her diaries. Behind the panelling in the Queen’s chamber, the oldest surviving football in the world was discovered. No one knows how it got there, but speculation includes the queen hid it in a safe place to protect it from witch craft. The ball was made from an inflated pig’s bladder, wrapped with cow’s hide and is around half the size of footballs today.

8. There may have been a lion in the palace.

Many people argue that James Vs lion was kept here. The king was known to have owned a lion as it was the symbol of the King of Scots. Within the castle there is an open rectangular courtyard, known as the Lion’s Den. This is where James is thought to have kept his pet.

If that wasn't enough, how would you like one of these jobs from Stirling’s heydays?Whipping Boy:

Members of the royal family were much too special to be punished for anything they did wrong, so as Royal Whipping Boy it was your job to take their punishment when the prince or princess misbehaved.

Can you imagine that happening in school today?

Peat cutter:

As a Peat Cutter you’d be working in a bog. No, not a toilet, a peat bog!

Peat is a mixture of rotten grass, plants and small animals. It looks a lot like mud and is really soggy and very squelchy.

Your job as a peat cutter would be to help cut the peat into squares, which you’d then pile up to dry. Once it had dried out, you would carry it into the house to be used on the fire.

Shepherd Boy

This might sound like quite a good job at first: shepherds spent their time lying on the hills in the sunshine watching sheep graze all around them, right? Wrong! You were more likely to spend your time sheltering from the rain, soaking wet and freezing cold. But that’s not the worst of it. As a Shepherd Boy, it would also have been your job to ‘pop’ the sheep. As you might know, sheep like eating clover but it makes them very… well… gassy! Your job was to spot the swollen ones and ‘pop’ them in a certain place to let the gas out. Smelly or what?

Climbing boy: Sadly, this job didn’t mean you’d spend all day climbing trees! In fact, Climbing Boy or Girl was just another name for a chimney sweep. From the age of 5 or 6 you’d climb up inside chimneys with a big brush and sweep all the soot out. It was dark, dirty and very dangerous - lots of climbing boys and girls got lost or fell and hurt themselves.

Here at the castle there’s a tale of one young climbing boy who climbed into the Palace chimneys and was never seen again…

Gong-scourer’s Boy: This is officially the worst job in the world!

A Gong-scourer was paid to clean out cess-pits. A cess-pit is a big hole in the ground where all the poo, pee and other disgusting stuff ended up. There weren’t any pipes to take it away back then! As the Gong-scourer’s boy you’d be left with the jobs even your boss couldn’t stomach – like crawling into the smallest, dirtiest spaces of the cess-pit to clean them out! The yucky mess had two layers: squidgy solid goo at the bottom, and a yellow-brown liquid on the top. You would get covered in both. Ugh! As nobody wanted to see (or smell!) you during the day, you would have to work during the night. As if this wasn’t bad enough, rotting sewage gives off a gas called hydrogen sulphide (which smells like rotten eggs). If you didn’t get very ill or die from touching all the germs in the goo, chances were breathing in that gas might kill you.Silent but deadly’ has a whole new meaning now!

After visiting Stirling Castle we hiked up to the William Wallace monument, which commemorates the Scottish hero we know as Braveheart. The monument is on top of Abbey Craig hill, where Wallace gathered forces and won the battle against England’s King Edward I at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. It’s interesting to note that a lot of the information found in the movie Braveheart is not true. For instance the Scots did not paint their faces in Bluewater paint and run headlong into the English forces on a field. They actually drop the English on a small bridge. Wallace also was not a Highlander but was born in the low lands. He did not kill Andrew de Moray for deserting him at Falkirk. And Robert the Bruce did not betray Wallace to the English. Furthermore, Wallace did not impregnate the future King Edward the second French bride. And apparently the concept of freedom was basically unknown during the Middle Ages. Wallace wasn’t fighting for democracy or liberty; he simply wanted to trade one autocratic ruler from London for another autocratic ruler from Scotland. And Scottish people do not refer to William Wallace as Braveheart. We got our exercise in because to get to the monument there’s a 15 minute hike to get to the monument and then to get to the top there are 246 stairs on a spiral staircase. But it was worth the hike as the views were incredible from the top of the monument.