Stirling Castle (6)
I'm now almost due south of the castle, and visible in the distance to the right of it is the Stirling suburb of Causewayhead, with the Wallace Monument looking down on it.  The suburb of course is all modern, but it gets its name from the causeway that led through what was once swampy and otherwise impassible land, to the bridge across the River Forth.  

These days there are 2 road bridges over the river at this point, both of which are visible in this photo.  The more modern of the two, built in 1833 and still used by road traffic, is just visible near the edge of the photo, but to its left, and clearly visible, is 'Stirling Old Bridge'.  

Now if I were a betting man, I would wager that the average Scot, assuming they knew about William Wallace's famous victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 (and many Scots do, because the unpalatable fact is that Scottish victories over English armies were fairly rare events) - would believe the bridge visible here is the site of Wallace's battle.  But it isn't! 

(OK, it's fairly close to being the &quot;site&quot;, but it isn't the same bridge!)

The age of Stirling Old Bridge is not exactly known, but it was built somewhere  between 1400 and 1500 - at least a century after Wallace's ambush here.  There were probably several successive timber bridge before the stone bridge was built, and the bases of several piers have been found in the river, hidden below the low water mark, or buried in sand banks nearby.  Archaeologists believe these to be the stone piers that Wallace's timber bridge was built on.  They are about 60m upstream of the old stone bridge.  

The old bridge itself has seen a bit of history!  In December 1745, General Blakeney, the Lieutenant Governor of Stirling Castle, had one of its arches blown up to hinder the advance of Bonnie Prince Charlie's Jacobite army, as it advanced from the Highlands towards Edinburgh.  In the event, the prince crossed the Flanders Moss at the Fords of Frew, a few miles upstream from Stirling.  A wee bit river and bog were never going to hinder determined Highland clansmen!  It took until 1749 for the bridge to be repaired, which must have been a mighty inconvenience.  Local authorities moved just as slowly back then as they do today it would appear!
dji091314 stirlingcastle stirlingbrig stirlingoldbridge williamwallace sirandrewmoray scotland