| Stirling Castle |

In my end is my beginning - Mary Queen of Scots

Hello lovelies, I hope you had a wonderful weekend? Over my weekend, my family and I went to Stirling Castle for a day out. It was a chilly but sunny time which made exploring the grounds a lot of fun. With my love of unicorns, one look into this castle and anyone would know why I love it, there are unicorns everywhere but, my favourite of all are the Stirling tapestries that hang in the Queen's Inner Hall of the royal palace. They are closely based on the Hunt of the Unicorn series that were created in the low countries in the early 1500's and are now in the cloisters museum in the Metropolitan Museum of New York. These tapestries took 13 years to complete. Only the wealthiest of people could afford tapestries and James V had a large collection, 2 sets which showed unicorns. There is a brilliant video about the making of these tapestries on the website that is worth watching too! These tapestries were made by proper weavers and not any modern machines, they were really impressive.

Stirling Castle is one of the largest and most important castles of Scotland - both historically and architecturally. Most of the principle buildings date from 15th & 16th centuries, a few structures of the 14th century remains, while the outer defences fronting the town date from the early 18th century. Before the union with England, Stirling Castle was the most used of any Scottish royal residence. Several Scottish Kings and Queens have been crowned here, including Mary Queen of Scots in 1542. (Note of interest for anyone who watched the tv show Reign, even though there were some inaccuracies in it). There have been at least eight sieges on Stirling Castle, including the Wars of Independence, the last being in 1746 when Bonnie Prince Charlie unsuccessfully tried to take the castle.

What I loved about this castle the most is how lively it was, the colours that have been restored and the time dedicated to keep life flowing through the castle instead of letting it go to aging was wonderful. As soon as I saw the first unicorn, I was squealing away, all happy. Everyone that works there is so friendly and very happy to take the time to talk about the castle and it's history with you. Seeing them dressed in clothes to fit the timeline & mood of the castle is such a great touch to bring it alive even more. There was one room where you got to dress up in clothes to fit the castle's era & it felt more like rummaging in my own closet as I would have worn everything in there & have similar pieces - I almost felt the need to ask them how much they wanted for everything that was hanging up in there, haha! You're allowed to take all the time you need wandering around, you can either join a tour or go at it on your own. I didn't feel like I was being rushed or intruding in any way. There's lot of fun things for children as well, my girls loved it and had a fun time seeing all the unicorns and running around outside as well and of course dressing up. You can spot Lily running in one of the court yard like spots where according to information is where a lion used to be held.

Have you been to Stirling Castle before?? If not, I definitely recommend going for the day. I'm going to go again in the spring to see how the surroundings change outside. See The Sterling Castle website for more information including prices and how to get there. Happy Monday dolls, I hope you have a great start to the week!

Loves & Loves

xoxox

P.S. All photos taken by me - except ones of me, taken by Gorgeous Gavin. Top picture from here.

With Love from The Dainty Dolls House <3