Today we visited two famous historic sites, Stirling Castle and Inchmahone Priory. First stop was Stirling Castle which is one of the largest and most important castles, both historically and architecturally, in Scotland. The castle sits atop Castle Hill, a volcanic crag, which forms part of the Stirling geological formation. It is surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs, giving it a strong defensive position. Its strategic location, guarding what was, until the 1930s, the farthest downstream crossing of the River Forth, has made it an important fortification from the earliest times. Most of the principal buildings of the castle date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A few structures of the fourteenth century remain, while the outer defences fronting the town date from the early eighteenth century. Several Scottish Kings and Queens have been crowned at Stirling, including Mary Queen of Scots, in 1543. There have been at least eight sieges of the Castle, including several during the Wars of Scottish Independence, with the last being in 1746, when Bonnie Prince Charlie unsuccessfully tried to take the castle. Stirling Castle is now a tourist attraction managed by Historic.
It was quite an unusual trip for me as we were not there to look at the architecture but rather the models that Historic Scotland have placed to act as part of the education programme. Some of the models were created by previous Model Making HND years and are used to explain the built environment of the castle and how a castle is defended and attacked.
The Great Kitchen houses and extremely detailed series of figures and models which shows how the kitchen might have been staffed and what type of meals might have been made and how they were produced.
The figures are extremely detailed, each figure is a different height and mass and they all have different facial features. They are fixed in place and all are in poses of movement which would suggest that they have a solid internal support system.
The massing of the figures would more than likely made of some rigid, lightweight material like fibreglass or prehaps chicken wire with a hardening layer, the detailing of the bodies is not as important as the heads and hands.
Alot of detail has gone into the heads and hands. Each figure is different, obviously hand sculpted and then cast.
Each of the figures is coated in a pale cream coating form head to toe. The clothing appears to have an added texture.
I believe they are coated like this so as they don't become the focal point of the exhibition. The interest should be in the room and how it works, if the figures were painted to the same standard as they are crafted they could possibly overshadow everything else. The food and implements in the display are full colour because this is the information that is important.
Queen Anne Garden Model
This model show the entire castle and uses a series of fibre optic lights to identify the different areas, rooms and parts of the castle.
Kirsten Woods, the education officer at the castle gave us a short presentation outlining the role of education at Historic Scotland and how models are incorporated. we had a look at some of the learning aids that had been created by previous students. Kirsten was keen to commision some new models for Historics Scotlands newest site, Inchmahone Priory.
Inchmahone Priory.
Inchmahome Priory is situated on Inchmahome, the largest of three islands in the centre of Lake of Menteith, close to Aberfoyle.
The priory was founded in 1238 by the Earl of Menteith, Walter Comyn, for a small community of the Augustinian order (the Black Canons). The Comyn family were one of the most powerful in Scotland at the time, and had an imposing country house on Inch Talla, one of the other islands on the lake. There is some evidence that there was a church on the island before the priory was established.
Although most of the buildings are now ruins, much of the original 13th century structure remains, and it is now in the care of Historic Scotland, who maintain and preserve it as an important historic site. We got to the Priory by boat, which is operated by Historic Scotland from the nearby pier at Port of Menteith. We were asked to consider what form of educational models would best suit the site as Historic Scotland is looking at expending the educational aspects of the Priory.
