Argyll's Lodging

Our day in Stirling, Scotland (Saturday, June 28, 2008) was jam packed with things to see!!! One could actually spend several days seeing it all. We hit the "big ones", but will probably go back to see some other things. This post is about a place called Argyll's Lodging.

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/stirling/argyllslodging/index.html
http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/properties_sites_detail.htm?propertyID=PL_276

It is the best surviving example of a 17th century Renaissance mansion. It was built circa 1630, by Sir William Alexander, the founder of Nova Scotia. He became the Secretary of State for Scotland and was appointed the first Earl of Stirling. Upon his death, the residence was passed on to the Argyll family and later extended by the 9th Earl in 1666.

It is located behind a wall on the approach to Stirling Castle. From the castle we took a walking tour, with the guide you see in this photo. It was really interesting. We walked down the backside of the castle, through the cemetery (that you saw in the "Stirling Castle" post) and onto Argyll's Lodging. This mansion was the home to the Earls of Stirling through the ages, beginning with the 1st one. It was a household of noblemen serving the Royal Stewart Court within the castle. As you can see, it is very stately for a residence of its time!!!

It was a neat place to visit. Everything was so old...the floors creaked, doors squeaked, etc. The Bed Chamber was very interesting...explaining the significance of the color purple. The walls were draped in it, as was the bed. This room was only accessible to VERY important people of the time. The boys thought it was very cool to get to sit on the "royal" furniture!

The guide explaining how old the components of the house were. I forgot to catch a piture of the stairs, but they were extremely wide! And the reason was the ladies and their big dresses need them to be wide in order to walk down and join the company for the feast held there.

The Bed Chamber - In these times, this was the room that often had the most expensive furniture. The Earl would invite important people to his bed chamber to show it off and to be sure the visitor knew the high societal stature of the Earl

The kitchen - the huge fireplace were the servants cooked the food. He explained to us that there would often be a young boy or girl, that would sit and turn the spit for hours, while meats toasted on it! Trevor was his little volunteer...:)

We had a great time!