John Clark for Smith and Elder

The Town of Stirling.

28 x 22 inches

For those of us from London and the south of England, Stirling conjures up romantic notions of a distant citadel, ruled by a barbaric people, set in a remote and rugged landscape. In the early C19th there would have been an equal fascination with the north and this splendid print would have been the only way that much of the population got a feel for what it was like. With a pastoral foreground of cattle herding, the city rises majestically from the river valley beyond with the castle dominating the skyline. Even if Robert the Bruce didn't say "He who holds Stirling holds Scotland" we can surely appreciate its strategic position, set as it is, slap bang between the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland.