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RECORDING |
PHOTOGRAPHIC SURVEY |
Situated on the prominence of Abbey Craig, this neo-medieval monument to William Wallace was designed by J T Rochead of Glasgow. Begun in 1862 and completed in 1869, it was modelled on the format of late-medieval crown steeples such as that of St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh. Built of roughly faced coursed sandstone and set above a battered plinth, the tower is of four principal barrel-vaulted storeys and the access staircase, spiral above the first floor, is set at the NW corner. A single-storey caretaker's building is set to the S. The style of the building falls within the Scots Baronial ambit, but it represents considerable appropriation of Scottish architectural forms, including the crown steeple, corbelled turrets, cabled mouldings and fictive gunloops. The building houses a series of Scots worthies, and a bronze of Wallace, by D W Stevenson and Pittendreich MacGillivray. The Smith Art Gallery at Stirling holds a series of drawings of the building by J T Rochead. [...] |
7 November 2002 |
