Last Saturday Mrs S indulged me by agreeing to a trip to Stirling Castle. Despite living in Scotland for over seven years and having made many trips to Stirling in that time, I had never visited the castle before.There was one thing in particular that I wanted to see in the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders Museum that I first read about in the January 1969 edition of Miniature Warfare. It was a set of small blocks used to train infantry officers that dated from 1797.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBajbwxmxZVXOT8hyY4yv0o2JIHaVMX1vrp0QK1JFrM8Qr8Vf1tmwL_iUuXG94Bs_pACZHzgDco627ccMW0tX_R_A4FE-LekiMgwYMie5ouC1h2ld7MKDUW243dKZn-xdAbYxmJIC1DrrmpM_6kuJ_dzTvG1C0KMHMEb8wlf-zV3RzjfIpE0zvuL0_Mtc/w400-h300/stirling%20castle%20blocks0.jpg) |
Fast forward 55 years and the blocks are still there! What I wasn't expecting is just how bright the colours are - I want these... |
For some reason this really stuck in my mind and when I recently went through my old copies of the magazine (to make an index of interesting stuff) I was reminded of it and clocked the fact that they were housed just up the road. Here is the original article by John Tunstill, reproduced without permission but hopefully he won't mind.
Apart from the Regimental Museum (which is one of the best I've seen) the castle itself is well worth a visit. I had no idea before going that it was such a big site. If you want to make a day of it you could combine it with a visit to Bannockburn (nice visitor's centre and you can walk the dog over the battlefield) and the Wallace Monument (if you like Gothic and lots of stairs).
We will be going back but probably in the winter when it's not quite so busy.