The Castle Exhibition

Revealing the castle’s story from its earliest times to the present day and exploring four key themes:

  • The Wars of Independence: How the castle changed hands eight times in 50 years, during the long and bloody struggle between the Scots and the English.
  • The royal chapel burials: A knight, a lady and seven others – mysterious medieval burials beneath a lost royal chapel. A cold case investigation uncovers the gruesome truth of how one of them died about 700 years ago.
  • Men who would be king: What made James IV and James V successful, where James III had failed.
  • Castle artists: Discover John Slezer, 17th-century artist and draughtsman, who created impressive images of the castle. Learn about Jane Ferrier whose illustrations were essential to our knowledge of the Stirling Heads, and whose beauty inspired Robert Burns to write her a poem.


The exhibition is housed in vaults accessed via the Queen Anne Garden. Known as casemates, they were built as part of the castle’s massive Outer Defences in 1708–14.