Stirling Castle (13)
I'm going to do a bit of an aerial guided tour of the castle, but not necessarily in any particular order - just as it comes up in the photos.

For most of Stirling Castle's history, the front or south face of the castle, ran along the line of where the forework gatehouse now stands, marked by its two prominent round towers.  Nearly everything to the left of that was added in the last 300 years, and mostly in the early 1700s.  The exception is the small grass covered bastion at the bottom of the photo, known as the French Spur and now housing 8 cannons on its upper level.

The 16th century French Spur was so named because it was built using French money, sent to Mary of Guise, the widow of King James V.  Influenced by Italian military design, it is one of the best-preserved early stone-built artillery bastions in Scotland, with 2 tiers of guns.  The guns on the left cover the approach to the castle, while those to the right face Stirling Bridge.  The Spur was probably built by French troops, fighting for the Scots, and a fleur-de-lis tablet can be seen in the eastern prow from the Ballengeich road below.

I will write more about the Outer defences later, but I will just mention here, because it is visible in this photo, the Caponier.  An important feature of 18th century military defensive design, was the dry ditch.  Crossing a dry ditch and then climbing the high wall beyond it, even after the wall had been breeched by artillery, was a perilous occupation for assaulting infantry.  However, once in the ditch, the infantry were somewhat protected from the guns above their heads, particularly if the siege artillery had managed to knock out the guns firing along the ditch - the guns on the French Spur in this case.  Part of the defender's answer to this problem, was the caponier.

The Caponier is a tunnel, extending out across the dry ditch from under the rampart.  I have indicated its position on the photo, to the left of the entry bridge.  It has gun loops in its side (not visible here because of the shadows), through which the defenders could shoot along the line of the dry ditch.  The are only 2 or 3 caponiers in Scotland.  There is one at Craignethan Castle I recall.
stirling stirlingcastle scotland fortress outerdefences caponier frenchspur marydeguise