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| Stirling Bridge - flood tide |
11th - 12th May
After two nights in Edinburgh and climbing up Arthur's Seat in warm sunshine with my heavy rucksack, I took the train to Stirling. On my arrival, I was drawn to draw in Holyrood Cemetery.
I could see the River Forth from the car park outside the Castle and during my walk around the Abbey Craig: very sinuous, meandering on a broad flat, fairly built-up and cultivated floodplain. The water lwas milk chocolate brown and looking fairly full, meaning it could only be tidal. Initially, I was put off going down to it, cut off from the city centre by busy roads and roundabouts. In the early evening, though I tried going down there, following a sign to Stirling Bridge. A subway under the busy intersection, well used by walkers and cyclists. This brought me out near green area along the river between the old (C15th) Stirling Bridge, now foot-cycle bridge and the newer, busy stone road bridge. Just downstream of that, the railway bridge which I must have crossed during the very delayed and somewhat unsettling train journey from Pitlochry to Edinburgh last year. Alongside the old bridge, a big LED sign with the day's cycling stats: they were doing well today: 19C, 410 cyclists when I arrived, 417 when I headed back into the city centre.
The tidal cycle on the River Forth meanwhile began to ebb, strongly so. The current rapidly built up, with vortices at various scales, including metre scale ones just downstream of the bridge. swirling around the pillars between the arches. In the wake of the pillars, the current doubling back. Strong tidal currents didn't surprise me, given that the tides flow out to the Firth of Forth. I wondered what the floodtide might look like, that funneling in from the broad Firth. The following day, Friday, I was to find out.
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An interesting day on Friday, exploring around and above the River Forth: Cambuskenneth Abbey and the Wallace Monument. These are my notes from the day:
Dry, though
cooler, much cloudier, though cleared later, then milder. Cloudy evening.
More sites around
Stirling
The Boys
Club (1929), mock mediaeval
"Play
the Game" etc.
John Cowane Hospital, near Holy Rude Church
Holy Rude
Cemetery - glasshouse - Victorian - angel standing over two girls and two
sheep. Story of another execution by drowning Margaret Wilson, age 18, and sister drowned in the Solway for refusing to renounce their
Protestant faith. We came across her dreadful fate, as the younger of the two Wigtown Martyr women, when we were in Galloway last September.
After admiring the view north
from castle car park across the valley towards the Ochill hills and the Wallace Monument, I headed down
the hill towards the river. I crossed main road near railway station; across railway towards Riverside
area; left at end (counter intuitive because of sheer loopiness of river), meeting the river near the 1935 concrete footbridge across to Cambuskenneth. Sat on bench and did a quick sketch looking upriver (I think) to Wallace Monument. Tide out, water level low, hardly any current, just gentle wind movement.
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| The Wallace Monument from the Forth, near the Cambuskenneth bridge |
Cambuskenneth conservation village
Followed the lane through the village, passing some conserved lamposts and turned right
to have a quick look round the Abbey. A restored bell tower still standing, the
rest of the Abbey was ruins, further to the Scottish
Reformation 1560.
Followed the
lane north to the busy Alloa Road, the Abbey Craig, with the Monument ahead. Past
close to the Forth, tide now well down, with a few small gravel shoals exposed. Crossed main
road (with difficulty, though later saw pedestrian crossing further up where
more houses etc.), Then took a path through
a small park / play area up the Abbey Craig towards the Monument. Came out at the
visitor centre-cum-Legends Coffee Shop. Bought ticket for Monument (£10) and
followed the path up the hill (also a minibus).
Abbey Craig and Wallace Monument
246 steps in
total to the open top (Crown) of the 67m tower, albeit not all the way up in one
go, with displays on three levels before the top. The spiral stiarcase was narrow. Had to take care. I didn't meet many people coming the other way, but when I did it was a squeeze. For the way down, I tied the handles of my tote bag with my sketchbook in to my waist to free up both
hands.
The Monument
was Victorian (completed 1869) to commemorate / celebrate the legend of William
Wallace who, with the help of Andrew de Moray and the River Forth (see below),
defeated the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, 11th September 1297.
First Floor
- William Wallace and all that. Late C13 / C14 - England vs Scotland battles,
including Battle of Stirling Bridge - Edward I'd English army led by
Cressingham and de Warenne Earl of Surrey, had the upper hand, being on
horseback. The Scottish, led by William Wallace and Andrew de Moray, were on
foot. Yet they won the battle thanks in a large part to the local geography:
meanderings of the Forth right for trapping the English, especially as the
horses floundered in the marshy ground. The Scots corralled them onto the
bridge, then a timber bridge, a bit
upstream of the old stone bridge (c15). From the pictures, it looked
very rickety. Soldiers fought on the bridge, either thrown off it into the
river, or trapped when the Scots torched it / it collapsed. Battle site near
the now rugby ground.
Wallace
executed (gruesomely) in 1305 by Edward I, for refusing to bow to his terms
(which favoured the English).
There then
followed the Battle of Bannockburn, to the south, in 1314. The victor there (for
Scotland again) was Robert the Bruce. His statue outside the Castle.
Both Wallace
and RtB went down in history as national (Scottish) legends / heroes), their
stories retold, and adapted, to suit the narrative, usually pride, nationalism,
strength, heroics. Hence the building of the WM in C19th. By then,
Scotland-England union, therefore Wallace seen as a kind of
Up-the-British-Empire hero.
Second Floor
- Scottish heroes (busts), and heroines. The men all cast in marble busts,
overlooking Monument-goers. All well-known names in Scotland and beyond. Among
them, Walter Scott, poet; Robert Stephenson (engineer); Robert Burns (poet);
Adam Smith (Economist). Until the public
vote for the top 14 Scottish women to redress the balance earlier this year,
women didn't figure whatsoever. Shamefully I can't remember any of the names,
though I noted one of the top two set up cancer centres and several of the
physicians, scientists and engineers were barred from doing / being awarded a
degree / qualification, or only got one after great difficulty (one of the
doctors qualified in Geneva after no luck in Britain). This went on well into
the last century.
Third floor
- building of the tower. As is usually the case with building projects, there was a substantial cost over- run.
The Crown - plein air, therefore closed when very windy. 360 degree views - the
Ochills to the north, along the valley of the winding River Forth, towards the
Firth / Grangemouth (hazy / misty that way), taking in Stirling Castle, the
three Stirling Bridges, farmland, the residential area along the A9 / Alloa
Road. A very narrow neck in the meander near the bridges and 1297 battle site
(now rugby ground area). I did a plein air
pencil sketch (diagram), surround seating, pillar provided shelter from NE
wind. When drawing, it was confusing trying to follow it all. Came down,
about half-one taking great care on steps, though now quieter.
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| My sketch from the Crown of the Wallace Monument |
Woodland walk / view points
Stirling
viewpoint - overlooking the Forth, across to the Castle. Had my Sheltered from
the wind, therefore midges /buggy. Did the woodland walk and had my fruit at
the Ochills viewpoint, looking north - more wind, therefore midge-free.
The Forth brings a new meaning to the school
run.
From the
road below the Monument, I took the more direct route back, along the A9, here a residential , though still very busy, A'road, with footways. The through traffic
goes on the M9. This led nicely to the bridges. Staying on the north side (left
bank), I went onto the green area between the old bridge and the road
bridge (Robert Stephenson, 1831). It looked very
different from yesterday evening, with the tide still low, the water very
shallow, the pillars of the old bridge exposed almost to their bases. However,
the tide had turned, the flow upstream I looked under
the nearest arch of the old bridge and I noticed the flow was dislodging sandy
/ silty sediment beneath the pillar. It was also speeding and roughing up: within ten minutes of arriving here, it was racing. Beneath
the arches, frothing waves of white water . I went up onto the bridge and watched the vortices ensue, along with turbulent flow patterns. I made a video, which I've uploaded to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZSmKZtbAfE
Meanwhile another tide was ensuing, at the end of the school day. Mainly
primary school children, a few cyclists, though mostly on foot, heading north
along the A9 and other nearby residential streets. Most of them passed the
river by and didn't look over the bridge. A few did. I may have been imagining it, but thought I heard one of
the boys say "Look at the Leckie flow". I can't remember the correct spelling, but it sounded like I'd come across in an old book about tidal bores around Britain, there being quite a few of them in addition to the Severn Bore, albeit all smaller. I checked Fred Rowbotham's 1964 book about the Severn Bore, which briefly mentions some of the others, though not the Forth. Perhaps it was a book of about the same vintage borrowed from the library during the 1980s when I tried to find out as much as I could about Britain's rivers, pre-internet. Because of the funnelling and shallowing of the estuary and river moving westwards from the Firth, a bore wouldn't surprise me. As yet, Google searches on the Forth, tidal bores, tidal currents and variations in spelling of "lekkie" have failed to turn up anything. The only mention I've found of bore waves north of the Border has been along the Solway Firth.
The turbulence was short-lived, the peak of it lasting no more than 20 minutes and, an hour after it all started the water was fairly calm again. It was also localised: much less rough away from the old bridge, a pinch point with the pillar supports narrowing the channel. Certainly compared to the Severn (or even our local coast back home, the rise was small. It looked about a metre at most, though the tide though was probably 1m tops, though the online tide table for Stirling predicted just under 2.5m at high tide, just before 6.00pm. I could
tell from the dusty mud coating the weeds growing along the banks that it
hadn't got as high as yesterday's tide. With a waning gibbous moon last night,
the tidal cycle is falling. This was by no means an exceptional tide, just a
regular spring in the later spring.
As the flow began to calm down, I crossed the
bridge to the community mural / panels of poetry, local history (1297
and all that) and salmon fishing in the Forth. I sketched just upstream of the bridge,
trying to record the peak of the action as far as I could remember it (pictured at the top of this entry).
