Great visit to Stirling Castle - part 4

Stirling Castle - the Royal Apartments

Having now explored most of the castle it was time to visit the Royal Palace.  We entered via the doorway in the upper close and ascended the stairs.
The Royal Palace was started by James V of Scotland shortly after his marriage to Marie de Guise in 1538.  It is unlikely it was completed before his death in 1542 after which time his wife Marie took control.

The Royal Palace Stirling Castle

The Royal Palace. Building commenced in 1538.

There was already Royal accommodation at the castle in the form of the Old Kings House (in which we visited the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders exhibition) but James V was keen to create something which would echo the palaces of the French king with whom he had been staying.

The Queen's Outer Chamber

The Queen's Inner Hall

The ceiling of the Queen's Inner Chamber

Tapestries in the Queen's inner chamber

The palace consists of six large rooms round a central courtyard.  The King and Queen each had an outer chamber, an inner chamber and a bed chamber.  Depending on how high up, how important or how well-liked visitors were the choice of reception room was decided.  In the Queen's apartments the furnishings and tapestries are replica, some of the painting refurbishment.  Little remains of the original fixtures and fittings - not helped by the fact that castle was used as military accommodation for over a century.

The Queen's bed chamber

The Queen's bed chamber was where Marie de Guise and her successors were able to conduct the most private and personal engagements.

The central courtyard or "Lions' Den" of the Royal Palace

The central courtyard of the Royal Palace was also known as the Lion's den.  It is unclear as to whether a lion was kept in this space.  Nonetheless it might have been handy to have a lion on standby to meet and deal with any awkward visitors.
The Kings bedchamber is connected to the Queen's bedchamber - each had a small dressing room / washroom ensuite.  

The Kings Outer Hall - note the two unicorns above the fireplace

Scottish Royal Coat of Arms (up until the Union of the Crowns 1603)

The King's Inner Hall - note the ceiling.

Another painted ceiling and a unicorn adorn the King's bed chamber

The Stirling Heads

Most famous in the Kings set of apartments is the ceiling of the Inner Hall.  This is adorned with 37 carved heads - known as the Heads of Stirling - completed in the 1540s and now replaced by replicas.  
Each of the heads is about one meter across.  The originals - many which can be seen preserved in display cases in the castle - consisted of two or three layers of wood.  The heads which were taken down and stored following a ceiling collapse in 1777 are understood to be representative of real people of the time as well as fictional characters

A section of the ceiling of the King's Inner Hall showing some of the reproduction Stirling Heads

Detail of one of the Stirling Heads in the castle museum display.

Unsurprisingly Stirling Castle has been used as a location for many television and film productions:  Game of Thrones, Outlander, The Thirty-nine Steps (2008), Colditz, The Outlaw King and Monty Python and the Holy Grail to name but a few, although the latter was principally filmed at Doune Castle.

Look-out defence tower on the corner of the castle ramparts.

Castle drawbridge and entrance

After our great whistle stop tour of Stirling Castle it was time to return to Appletree Cottage, only about half an hour drive away.  We look forward to returning another day.