 Hello, thank you for joining me. You can see where I am today. We're going to go in this video to visit the ruins of campus Kenneth Abbey and then we're going to go up to the Wallace Monument to see the fine views over Stirling. I've just come over the road bridge from the railway station. The video isn't really about railways but let's have a look at the railway north of Stirling. See Stirling north. It's all electrified now. It wasn't until only a few years ago they're electrified. I'm going to continue this way and then about a mile that way is campus Kenneth Abbey. That's the river Forth there which we're running beside. Course the Forth is quite famous for the bridges, the rail bridge and the two road bridges. I'm going to continue basically straight that way. The Forth meanders round there and campus Kenneth Abbey I believe is on the other side so we'll have to cross the Forth at some point. I'm currently walking along Abbey Road in Stirling not to be confused by any means of Abbey Road in London. Up there is Stirling Castle so we were up there in a recent video. Have a look at the link on screen now. We didn't go in the castle weeks. We explored it around the castle. We get to here at this junction. You can see up there is the Wallace Monument so that is obviously where we're heading and of course the reason this road is called Abbey Road is because of campus Kenneth Abbey which I think I just see the top of the tower off so we'll continue across the Forth and find campus Kenneth Abbey. Up over there is Stirling Castle. I'm now on the bridge over river Forth. That way is looking inland and that way is towards Edinburgh although actually Edinburgh is the river Forth that way but Edinburgh itself would be that way. So we're going to continue off the river bridge. We're leaving the main body of the city of Stirling behind. In front of us is the village of campus Kenneth where the abbey is. It is also known as Stirling Abbey sometimes and it's quite an interesting looking abbey. I've not been here before and there's nothing not a lot left apart from just a few fragmentary walls, foundations of the church but it had an external tower which seems to have survived pretty intact so I could see it. So I'm going to continue on up here. We're going to find this abbey. I've now come to the end of South Street in campus Kenneth. Quite clearly see the castle up there. There's another parallel street along there which is North Street. Ah and there is the Wallace Monument. Now the Wallace Monument stands up on the Abbey Craig which is a volcanic rock. The reason it's called the Abbey Craig is because of the abbey and there's the abbey there. The tower as I mentioned a moment ago just above the houses so as I record this video I'm going to see this abbey for the first time. So very nice. Street lots of flowers and everything. Shame about the weather but then you know it rains a lot in Britain and somehow it adds something about going to Ruin Abbey on a rainy day that I actually think it's nice. I like, well I mean I go to Ruin Abbey's. Just got a light going to them. There we are look at that. That's a perfect tower. I'm not sure how much or how little we'll be able to see but I'm pretty sure we can go and look around the ruins of the Ruin Abbey. We've basically come to the very edge of the urban area of Stirling. Now let's go through. I'm not going to walk over the category of a camera just in case I drop it. I should be awkward. So here we are. Here's Camberskin in fact and then looking up over there and just see the high town of the Stirling Castle. So let's have a look. It's one of the I like what I did. It's a picture of how the abbey would have looked before it was ruined and we'll just see that here. So let's have a look at that. So as we stand here that's what we see today. That's what the ones look like. So you can see the tower. It once had a spine on it. The Abbey church would have been here. Coisters just to there and then there was another monastic building. So let's go in and explore these ruins. So here we are. We've come through the gate into the abbey. The abbey was founded by King David I who lived not too far away up at Stirling Castle. So I keep pointing back at and it was a abbey. It later became Augustian. Well let's first go in there into the tower and see what we can see. So there's a nice vaulted ceiling. Now there's a door here which I'm assuming these are sparse decas unfortunately I can see it's locked. So I don't think we're going up the tower. So although the tower's open it seems you can't just walk up it. I hope that there is ever anyone here you know kind of supervising people going up and down the tower which I'd love to look into because if there is I've come back because I'd love to go up the tower but today we're going up higher and it's actually going up the Wallace Monument. Now let's go and have a look at the ruins of the church. So here it just says there it's a freestanding bell tower. An example I can think of which I've not actually been to but Chester Cathedral has a bell tower separate from the church itself. So this is the church. You can see the front of the church. There's some graves and this is how it would look to that. This abbey is what's quite unusual is it wasn't a cloistered abbey. So the monks were able to go out and about and do ministry work within the local area. They didn't stay in the abbey so yeah so it's slightly different because most abbeys the monks were stayed in the abbey coming up to here a royal murder. So King James the Third was buried here after one of the battles but the King's killer was never identified so that is the tomb of King James the Third. Let's go and walk through the cloister. So this is the south transept now and that's the north transept. So imagine me in the middle of not a massive church but a pretty big church standing inside as the tower of course. We're going to step through here now into the cloisters which is where the monks would have exercised. Imagine a fairly big church behind me and as I said down here it says that's where the Cannons dormitory was so that would have been possibly above up some steps. Sometimes you see that on abbeys you'll sort of see steps blocking the south transept or the window. You've certainly got that tincture. That's called a slope that's like a passageway between two parts of the abbey. I thought we'll go in here into the chapter house. It's quite a small chapter house so this is where you know they would have had meetings and it's not a religious room not for prayer or anything like that. I did in a more recent video when I was last time I was up in Scotland I explored the ruins of Elgin Cathedral and there the chapter house was complete so have a look at link on screen now if you'd like to see that video. So we're going to leave the ruins of the abbey behind because there's a little bit more ruins to find as we come out the back of the abbey. The river forth is taking this very meandering course so it's now behind us so it's sort of done a huge circuit around there. I think the way it works the Wallace Monument is on this side of the river but sterling as we know isn't so if I go out this little gate here there's just a few more ruins to see or one stack of ruins. Nice view of the abbey there behind us and then out into these fields there's one more section of ruins. It's got a fence around it that's possibly one of the monastic buildings. These houses here which may be become a farm that would have been parts of the monastic buildings. There's also a wall here or remains of a wall. You can see a better step down here so that's no doubt we can see on the picture parts of the monastic site. Oh there is something over there we're going to have a look over there so it's one of those abysses where you've got to use a lot of your imagination. The sciences we regret this area of the monument is closed but there's not really, I mean we can see it fairly well anyway behind the fence. Let's walk around it and see what we see. It's the corner of a building, one of the outer buildings of the abbey so that's quite interesting to see now and get my feet wet but I'm going to walk through this wet grass anyway because I want to see what's here. There is some form of building here. I expect what it was was this was a long building along here. I saw it on the pictures as we came in on the outer buildings and just these foundations here of the building have survived and then there's a lower abbey. You can just see that would have been the door. I'm actually standing on the wall now if I step across to here across over the big wall if I can get that high put back there's some cows in the field and there is the city of Sterling over there so I'm going to now make my way back through the abbey and we're going to walk up to the Wallace Monument. I'm now leaving the village of campus Kenneth behind me and following this very straight road which leads towards the Wallace Monument so when I get to the end of the road here I find a winding path up the abbey craig so as I said the abbey craig takes its name from the abbey and the abbey was founded from the other castle which is just over there so it's quite interesting to walk this now probably I won't come back this way I'll take the main road along there so over that way it's the bridge of Allen and this down there the um a bit below the monument is Sterling University here look welcome to campus Kenneth historic village abbey arts and orchards it says so well we saw the abbey so I'm just going to continue following this road now until I have to start climbing up to the monument so I'm now following the road out of campus Kenneth this is the road I was on a moment ago she only rode in and out of the village you can of course get there on foot the way I came along there's uh well the little board is up cottage there over there Sterling castle we're coming to the railway line that goes to Allowa just called the way through it is a through line but for freight only beyond Allowa there's talk of reopening it and having a station at King Cardin I was thinking that it'd be quite useful to have a station here because it'd be useful for tourists visiting the Wallace Monument which is somewhere here there it is very much with the finicular as well but anyway um that's me getting a bit carried away with wanting more railway infrastructure be a little station here now be used by students at the university no doubt no train coming it's called the water side level crossing so yeah it's across the railway line as you can see it is electric mostly looking that way don't like to hang about too much on railways because you shouldn't really I've now got to find my way up through the trees to Wallace Monument I crossed the road I'm in this little park here I think any minute some serious climbing is going to begin because this has been apart from the railway which has been the only gradient I've had and it's been a dead flat walk but now I've got half a mile of steeped mist and it's going to probably be up steps so it's been a bit of a contrast now it's all dead flat this was all glaciers but the volcanic activity I believe was too hard to be destroyed by glaciers the bus going on there I might get a bus back on the side yet yeah so here we go and I'm going to start to climb these steps I'm not going to count the steps and I'm not going to talk the whole way up soon I'll prove you we're puffed out but yeah onwards and upwards so here is the visitor center for the Wallace Monument there's a gift shop there's a tea room but we're not yet the Wallace Monument there it is up there I've got a lot more climbing to do if I wanted to and it is raining I could do those people over there and get the free shuttle bus but I'm going to walk up there and enjoy the view so there's a few different paths it's going to take me up there and then I might be lazy and get the bus down just because it'd be fun to have a bus ride so now it's time to really go up to the Wallace Monument so that's the path I'm going to follow up to the monument up there this is the back of the visitor center I'll show you this map here so I'm there I probably could go that way that might be more sense I might go this way around this red path to see a bit more but I'll decide as I go but as we go up before I get too puffed out from walking uphill the one question you may have been thinking was who is Wallace why what's the Wallace Monument all about well the Wallace Monument commemorates Sir William Wallace he's Scottish hero and he was known for his sort of heroic what's the word but you know he basically did well at the battle of Sterling Bridge in 1297 my Scottish history or history isn't great I just like to go and explore places but I know historians so I try and remember a few facts to you so he's seen as like a Scottish icon for you know Scotland becoming Scotland as it is so that's why they built this tower it's a Victorian Gothic tower and we're going up to it so I've just got to follow this path now up through the trees so I'm enjoying the pleasant walk around the crag through the bluebells and the gorse and here we get to a viewpoint now it's a pretty good view here it's probably going to even better than we get on the monument but it might be really windy it's a bit sheltered here so I thought I'd point out what I can well fairly obviously here's the meandering on the fourth just over there it's hard to see plants canvas Kenneth Abbey so you can see the road yes the abbey's about there we walked along that road to down there and um we crossed the railway just below and then obviously it's castles over there so you can see now how um this glacial valley has formed well you were in the second one which is formed and left these volcanic rocks so we've got this one which we're on there's the one over there which the city and the castle see it's on there's another one over there you can see a big urban area of sterling down below us you can probably just see running kind of parallel to fourth just there the railway line to Alloa nice the train came so perhaps I'll hang around see a train before I continue and so so that's the urban the housing estates of sterling one of them's here some nice gorse bushes if you look at the flowers they look great uh yeah there's a bench so the main path's a bit in the woods but I will I'll follow around but I just really like this view I know it's going to be great from the top of the monument of course we'll see the other way but I'm just thinking it might be it's windy here it's possibly going to be too windy to talk so might as well do a panorama but we'll find out when we get there but anyway that is the view over sterling I want to hang around to see a train that was good just like looking at a model railway I'm almost there now there it is in front of us so the monument was opened in 1869 designed by the architect Thomas Rochehead it's 250 feet high so and obviously we are already very high anyway so let's have a look it's very like this Victorian Gothic style I'm excited because I always enjoy climbing up towers and seeing the views so um I don't know what's going to be like it's going to be be wet obviously but then that's all part of the fun so what we'll do we'll have one more look at the view this way out over before we go up and we should see a very spectacular view so look at the building look at that it's really yeah very spectacular really like that so we are going up there but firstly let's just see this side of sterling so come round to Craig a bit here's the castle the sterling's urban area those um 60s 70s buildings over there that's the university over there is Bridger Valen if you ever go to Bridger Valen you want a pub to go through the Alanwater brew house is very good they brew their own beer and it's brilliant so do go there if you end up in Bridger Valen but right now I'm going in there and up there I'm just paid to go in now so not the spiral staircase just yet going up along sort of straight staircase but then nothing I get to hear it becomes spiral I'm not going to film all the way especially if someone comes down the camera might be a bit just too much so here can we so let's go up up we go up and up well we're getting higher and higher up the spiral staircase continues on up but here's another one of the rooms there's one down there where I watched a film of about William Wallace here's another Wallace was a hero to Scotland I'm not going to comment on all of them but some of them like Sir Walter Scott who designed Scott's monument in Edinburgh which I went up when I was a child and I've heard of William engineer and of course James what he's quite well known especially people who like you know engineering side things David Goodingston I've heard of William Benson this is Scottish hero so it's quite a nice room and Thomas Carmichael of course the author I've been to his house his house where he was born at Ecclfekken this was a visit his national trust of Scotland and there's also his house in London where he lived and made some life and of course his Robert Burns I always enjoy Haggis on Burns night so what I'm going to do now I'm going to continue on up to the top of the tower we'll go and see the views which are somewhere above there coming into another room now here I can explain a bit more about the Battle of Stirling Bridge how William Morris came to Edinburgh so the English one one side the fourth Scottish one the other just like I did an Englishman today I crossed the fourth so did those Englishmen all those years ago I got much more friendly welcome because there was no battle but the British Stirling collapse and that's how that was like William Wallace's first victory and from then on he basically became a hero very several things happened I'm not going to go through them all there's a picture of how I recognize that but there's a film showing it shows that meander on the fourth how it looked in what was it 1297 I'm going to continue on I think it's two more floors to go up to the top well I'm now almost at the top of the Wallace monument oh I'm quite expect to be like this come out into here and you can't really see much of you see tower continues so yeah let's go have a look through it's not too windy okay I should get our first view and there we are there's the urban Stirling looks like a school down there so the city centre is that way and over there is Bridge Valley look at this though it's oh yeah look at that that's the what are we going to go up to let's go through here there's the view of the fourth certainly Castle is just over there there's a better view over towards Stirling we'll just see Campus Kenneth Abbey down there let's go round these next course that's looking out towards Allover and we're going to continue around here so yeah Allover will be that town in the distance over there I went there on the train once but never in a long train was delayed and we come round here and yeah that that's Stirling University down there and then oh I see yes we're going to run up some steps up you won't be able to hear me when I get in there I don't think because it's very very windy but I'm going to go in there anyway and show you what it's like we'll look up so here we go up the final few steps and while it's warm and I hope you enjoyed this video thank you very much