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National Wallace Monument

Daily

Cost: £6; children & seniors £4; students £4.50; family ticket £16

Hours: Jan, Feb, Nov & Dec: 10.30am-4pm
Mar-May & Oct: 10am-5pm
Jun: 10am-6pm
Jul & Aug: 9.30am-6.30pm
Sep: 9.30pm-5pm

Built on the site of a Pictish hill fort, the National Wallace Monument - and particularly Stirling Bridge which marked William Wallace's first great defeat of the English in 1297 - was the result of resurgent Scottish nationalism in the mid-1800s. The tower, with 246 steps up to the tower top, 220 feet above ground, was completed in 1869 with a later addition, the Hall of Heroes, looking to other Scottish heroes for inspiration.

In the Hall of Heroes there are marble statues of the likes of Robert the Bruce, Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns and David Livingston, while William Wallace himself is represented by the his mighty two-handed broadsword, which was first displayed at the National Monument in 1888.

The real William Wallace - now thought to be younger son of Alan Wallace, a crown tenant in Ayrshire - was still in his twenties when he joined the nationalist swell against the designs of Edward I to rule Scotland. On 11 September 1297 the English forces, vastly outnumbering Wallace and his motley crew, met over the Forth at the Bridge of Sterling. Wallace's taunts brought the English over the bridge where they could be easily slaughtered and English casualties numbered some 5000. The Scots crowned a fantastic victory by then taking Stirling Castle, following which Wallace roamed wide over Northumberland and Cumberland to enact revenge.

Unfortunately his success was short-lived and his military prowess besmirched when, on 22 July 1298, his Scottish forces lost 10,000 men in the face of Edward's 90,000-strong army at Falkirk. Wallace escaped, perhaps to France, but was eventually caught and hauled to London for trial. On 23 August 1305 he was hung, drawn and quartered and - as an example - his head was impaled on a spike and displayed at London Bridge, his right arm on the bridge at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, his left arm at Berwick, his right leg at Perth, and the left leg at Aberdeen.

Becoming a martyr, Wallace's legacy was the triumph of Robert the Bruce, proclaimed Scottish king in 1306, with Edward I dying near Carlisle on his way back to Scotland to do battle once more.

The National Wallace Monument - funded from all over Europe by similar 19th-century revolutionary fervour - cost £10,000 and was designed by J T Rockhead.

National Wallace Monument