Stirling Bridge

Stirling Bridge, Stirling, Scotland...
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The Old Bridge stands at the lowest fording place of the River Forth, one of the most critical crossing points in the country. The present stone bridge replaced a succession of timber bridges.
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Undoubtedly the most famous of these earlier structures was the one that stood nearby in the 1290s. At the Battle of Stirling Bridge (1297), Sir William Wallace and Sir Andrew Moray led a Scottish army to a resounding victory over Edward I of England.
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The present ‘old’ bridge was built in the late 1400s or early 1500s. Measuring over 80m long, it has four semicircular arches, supported by three piers. Each pier has triangular cutwaters. The central ones had pedestrian refuges which were originally roofed. At either end were arched gates.
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Stirling Bridge today (1st April 2015).
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The gates were removed, probably at the time when General Blackeney, Governor of Stirling Castle, ordered the destruction of the south arch in 1745. Blackeney was attempting to forestall Bonnie Prince Charlie’s forces as they marched south at the outset of the ’45 Jacobite Rising.
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The arch was rebuilt in 1749. The bridge was closed to wheeled traffic in 1831, and replaced by a new one downstream, designed by Robert Stevenson.
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Battle of Stirling Bridge...

The Battle of Stirling Bridge was a battle of the First War of Scottish Independence. On 11th September 1297, the forces of Andrew de Moray and William Wallace defeated the combined English forces of John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey, and Hugh de Cressingham near Stirling, on the River Forth.
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Stirling Bridge looking North with Wallace Monument in background
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The Earl of Surrey had won a victory over the aristocracy of Scotland at the Battle of Dunbar and his belief that he was now dealing with a rabble proved that he had greatly underestimated the Scottish forces. The small bridge at Stirling was only broad enough to allow two horsemen to cross abreast. The Scots deployed in a commanding position dominating the soft, flat ground to the north of the river.
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Sir Richard Lundie, a Scots knight who joined the English after the capitulation at Irvine, offered to outflank the enemy by leading a cavalry force over a nearby ford, where sixty horsemen could cross at the same time. Hugh Cressingham, King Edward's treasurer in Scotland, was anxious to avoid any unnecessary expense in prolonging the war and he persuaded the Earl to reject this advice and order a direct attack across the bridge.
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The Scots waited as the English knights and infantry made their slow progress across the bridge on the morning of 11th September. The disorderly Scottish army of 1296 was gone: Wallace and Moray's hold over their men was tight. Earlier in the day many English and Welsh archers had crossed, only to be immediately recalled because Surrey had overslept; the Scots held back and did not attack at that time. Wallace and Moray waited, according to the Chronicle of Hemingburgh, until "as many of the enemy had come over as they believed they could overcome".
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When the vanguard, comprising 5,400 English and Welsh infantry plus several hundred cavalry, had crossed the bridge, the attack was ordered. The Scots spearmen came down from the high ground in rapid advance towards Stirling Bridge, quickly seizing control of the English bridgehead. In the narrow space of the bridge, the massed English cavalry were incredibly vulnerable to the line of Scots spearmen holding the end of the bridge. Surrey's vanguard was now cut off from the rest of the army.
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The heavy cavalry to the north of the river was trapped and cut to pieces, their comrades to the south powerless to help Hugh de Cressingham, whose body was subsequently flayed and the skin cut into small pieces for souvenirs of the victory. The Lanercost Chronicle records that Wallace had "a broad strip [of Cressingham’s skin]...taken from the head to the heel, to make therewith a baldrick for his sword". Losses among the infantry, many of them Welsh, were also high. Those who could throw off their armour swam across the river.
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Stirling Bridge looking south with Stirling Castle in background
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Surrey, who was left with a pitiful contingent of archers, had remained to the south of the river and was still in a strong position. The bulk of his army remained intact and he could have held the line of the Forth, denying the triumphant Scots a passage to the south, but his confidence was gone.
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After the escape of Sir Marmaduke Tweng, an English knight from Yorkshire, Surrey ordered the bridge's destruction and retreated towards Berwick, leaving the garrison at Stirling Castle isolated and abandoning the Lowlands to the rebels. James Stewart, the High Steward of Scotland, and Malcolm, Earl of Lennox, whose forces had been part of Surrey's army, observing the carnage to the north of the bridge, withdrew.
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Then the English supply train was attacked at The Pows, a wooded marshy area, by James Stewart and the other Scots lords, killing many of the fleeing soldiers.

Taken From Wikipedia

All pictures taken by myself.

View a few more of my pictures of the bridge HERE