Touch House

Gillies Hill is located west of Stirling and the M9, south of Cambusbarron, and north of the Bannock Burn in Central Scotland. Gillies Hill covers a 140 hectares (350 acres) crag and tail which rises from a height of 79 metres (259 ft) at the Bannock Burn Bridge near Sauchie Craig to an elevation of 162 m (531 ft) at a point which overlooks the former quarrying operation to the west and Stirling Castle to the east. The hill lies north of the Bannock Burn, northeast of Sauchie Craig (an area designated SSSI, Site of Special Scientific Interest), east of the Touch Hills and Murrayswood, south of Cambusbarron, and west of Stirling and the M9. Gillies Hill is the hill from which Robert the Bruce’s camp followers, or Gillies, descended onto the field of the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 turning the tide of the battle which granted Scotland nearly 400 years of independence. The majority of Gillies Hill has been classified as a Semi-natural Ancient Woodland by The Woodland Trust using aerial surveys and by a follow-up Phase 1 habitat survey conducted in 2010. To date 21 Scotland & 38 United Kingdom ancient woodland indicator species have been documented on the hill demonstrating that the woodland's understory and sections of its tree cover have been cloaked in woodland for centuries; the earliest mapped confirmation of trees on the site dates back to the 1580s Pont map.

Cambusbarron is a village in Stirling, Scotland. In the 2001 census, it had a population of 3,224. There is evidence of settlement at the site since the Bronze Age, and several forts dating from the Iron Age have been found near the village. One such fort is located at Gillies Hill, a large semi-natural ancient woodland area with a range of unusual wildlife, thought to be the site of Robert the Bruce's camp shortly before the Battle of Bannockburn. Cambusbarron grew during the nineteenth century due to the presence of the Hayford Mill, a large wool-spinning mill and tweed manufacturer, on the outskirts of the village. Several limestone mines and quartz-dolerite quarries have been active in the area around Cambusbarron during the twentieth century. There are three listed buildings in the village. Notable former residents include evangelist Henry Drummond, documentary writer John Grierson and footballer Frank Beattie.

The River Teith is a river in Scotland, which is formed from the confluence of two smaller rivers, the Garbh Uisge (River Leny) and Eas Gobhain at Callander, Stirlingshire. It flows into the River Forth near Drip north-west of Stirling.

Birkhill House is a historic house situated between the city of Stirling and the village of Cambusbarron in central Scotland.

Lecropt (Leac Croit in Gaelic) is a rural parish lying to the west of Bridge of Allan, Scotland. The population of the parish of Lecropt is estimated to be around 75, consisting entirely of isolated farms and houses, as well as the Keir Estate owned by the landed Stirling family. Lecropt today contains no town or village, though it lies on the outskirts of the village of Bridge of Allan. Historically, Lecropt's population was higher and was as high as 500 around the year 1800. The decline in population over the decades can be explained partly, but not wholly, by rural depopulation. However, in 1800 Bridge of Allan, then a tiny hamlet of no more than 100 people, was included in Lecropt. As Bridge of Allan grew during the 19th century, the whole village was eventually brought under the adjacent parish of Logie, reducing Lecropt's population. There had also been another village called Lecropt, the site of which was further north-west, on the other side of the line of the M9 motorway from the current parish church. This village hosted the parish church until this was moved to its present site in the early 19th century, on the A9 road. The village of Lecropt itself had been abandoned.

Torbrex is a small village in Scotland. Geographically Torbrex is enclosed within Stirling by Cambusbarron to the west, St. Ninians to the south, Livlilands to the east and Kenningknowes & Laurelhill to the north.The oldest bones of a human from the Stirling area were found in Torbrex in 2017. Archaeologists named the bones "Torbrex Tam". It is believed he died around 2152 to 2021 BC. The bones are more than 4000 years old.Stirling Cricket Club was based at Williamfield in Torbrex for 130 years, from 1877 until 2007.Torbrex has an Inn which dates back to 1726.

Keir House is a large country house near Stirling in central Scotland. It is located in the parish of Lecropt, 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) north-west of Bridge of Allan, in the former county of Perthshire. The estate was home to the Stirling family from the 15th to the 20th century. Keir House is protected as a category A listed building, and the grounds are included on the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland, the national listing of significant gardens.

Stirling Castle, located in Stirling, is one of the largest and most historically and architecturally important castles in Scotland. The castle sits atop an intrusive crag, which forms part of the Stirling Sill 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 1890s, the farthest downstream crossing of the River Forth, has made it an important fortification in the region from the earliest times. Most of the principal buildings of the castle date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A few structures remain from the fourteenth century, while the outer defences fronting the town date from the early eighteenth century. Before the union with England, Stirling Castle was also one of the most used of the many Scottish royal residences, very much a palace as well as a fortress. Several Scottish Kings and Queens have been crowned at Stirling, including Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1542, and others were born or died there. There have been at least eight sieges of Stirling 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 a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and is now a tourist attraction managed by Historic Environment Scotland.

The Allan Water (Scottish Gaelic: Uisge Alain) is a river in central Scotland. Rising in the Ochil Hills, it runs through Strathallan to Dunblane and Bridge of Allan before joining the River Forth. It is liable to cause floods in lower Bridge of Allan.It shares its name with a tributary of the River Teviot. The name is similar to the Ale Water in Berwickshire, the River Alness in Ross-shire, the Allander Water in Stirlingshire, the River Alne and the Ayle Burn in Northumberland, the River Ellen in Cumbria, and several names in the south of England, Wales and Cornwall. Ptolemy, who wrote his Geography about 150 AD, gave the names of some of these rivers as Alauna or Alaunos. Ekwall says that Alauna or Alaunos are British [i.e. Brythonic or P-Celtic] river names. Nicolaisen says that the name Allan is of Pre-Celtic Indo-European origin. Its original form was Alauna, from the Indo-European root *el-/ol-, meaning "to flow, to stream". Several European rivers and settlements have names that may come from that root. Others say that Alauna was a Celtic river goddess, also found in Brittany; Alaunus was a Gaulish god of medicine and prophesy. Two broadside ballads refer to the "Allan Water". According to one, a Scottish ballad, the "Allan Water's wide and deep, and my dear Anny's very bonny; Wides the Straith that lyes above't, if't were mine I'de give it all for Anny." The other, more familiar, English ballad begins "On the banks of Allan Water" and relates the death of a miller's daughter whose soldier lover proves untrue. This version, popularised by C. E. Horn in his comic opera, Rich and Poor (1812), is sung by Bathsheba Everdene at the sheepshearing supper in Thomas Hardy's novel Far From The Madding Crowd (1874). A similar rendition was recorded with church organ accompaniment by Italian singer Ariella Uliano in 2008.

Stirling High School is a state high school for 11- to 18-year-olds run by Stirling Council in Stirling, Scotland. It is one of seven high schools in the Stirling district, and has approximately 972 pupils. It is located on Torbrex Farm Road, near Torbrex Village in the suburbs of Stirling, previously being situated on the old volcanic rock where Stirling Castle lies and on Ogilvie Road. The headteacher of the school is Ally Macleod. The school operates a house system. The five houses are Douglas, Eccles, Randolph, Snowdon and Stewart.Originally established for the training of ecclesiastics, it began as the seminary of the Church of the Holy Rude, founded in the reign of David I in 1129. Both the church and school, along with those of Perth, were brought under the charge of the monks of the Church of the Holy Trinity of Dunfermline in 1173.

The Stirling Sill is an outcropping of a large quartz-dolerite intrusion or sill that underlies a large part of central Scotland, and may be contiguous at great depth. The sill is of very late Carboniferous age or more probably Permian, as it penetrates the coal measures, often in bedding planes between the various strata. In places, it rises through fractures in the strata to a new level, forming features that, at the surface, would be called dikes. At its outcrop on the west, the sill generally lies towards the base of the Carboniferous sequence, and just above the calciferous sandstone deposits and lavas, as can be seen in the upper part of the valley of the Bannock Burn. However, to the consternation of miners, it occupies a higher position amongst the useful strata towards the east, and in places has destroyed the coal, while in others the effect of the sill has been to convert the coal to more valuable anthracite. The slope of the Abbey Craig, or the Stirling Castle rock, gives a general idea of the angle of dip of the coal measures at the extremity or the coalfield, and the thickness of the sill can also be seen, which is approximately 100 metres.Geologists have had various theories about the formation of anthracite, as the coal has been most effectively baked near the Ochil Fault, however the theories are not necessarily incompatible.The source of the sill, where the molten rock rose from below, is not known; however it is known that there are risers in the Ochil Fault, although these are inconsistent with the overall structure. The main origin of the sill may be in the region of the eruptive centre that formed the Ochil Hills in a much earlier period, which geologists postulate is somewhere to the east of Stirling, possibly in the region of Kincardine. This ties in with subsidence following the first round of eruptive activity that lead to the formation of the coal basins, with a much later outbreak of intrusive activity from the same magma feeders, however the truth will remain unknown because it would take very many deep bores in hard rock to probe the depths and find the necessary evidence.The western extremities of the sill can be seen at the Abbey Craig, Stirling Castle, Kings Park, Gillies Hill, Sauchieburn and various points to the south. The quartz-dolerite was once quarried at several places including Cambusbarron and Murrayshall, but is quarried today at Northfield, primarily for roadstone.

The second Battle of Stirling was fought on 12 September 1648 during the Scottish Civil War of the 17th century. The battle was fought between the Engagers who were a faction of the Scottish Covenanters under the command of George Munro, 1st of Newmore and who had made "The Engagement" with Charles I of England in December 1647, against the Kirk Party who were a radical Presbyterian faction of the Scottish Covenanters who were under the command of Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll.