Hogmanay’s coming round again and I can’t believe it’ll be my 35th at the castle. I’ve seen so much happen in that time, starting out as an apprentice stonemason, and later becoming clerk of works. It was in that role I oversaw the huge projects to restore the Chapel Royal and the Great Hall. It’s when they were completed, around the Millennium, that stand out in my mind as a great, great time.

My daughter Kirsty was married in the Chapel Royal in June 1999, then in November I got to meet Her Majesty the Queen when she came to reopen the Great Hall. Then there were the New Year celebrations. The council organised a ceilidh and dinner for 700. Every part of the castle was used, the chapel and the hall, with people spilling out into the square. And when they’d danced themselves to a standstill and were all fully fed – then came the fireworks. It was spectacular.

A while after that I moved over to work in visitor services and started showing people round the parts of the castle I’d helped restore. More Hogmanays have come and gone since then. This year me, my wife and family will be up at the castle again, seeing the New Year in on the esplanade, listening to Sandi Thom and the other musicians. There’ll be fireworks and a pipe band. So we’re all keeping our fingers crossed for the right weather – dark, crisp and clear – just like that special night when we welcomed in the year 2000.

Willie McEwan, Visitor Services Manager

Lovely big roofs for landing and take-off, and large fireplaces suitable for a gentleman of ample proportions. They really knew how to do things when they built the new palace. Well, I still think of it as new, though some people speak about the 1540s as ancient history. But it was a world away from the old buildings the royals used to have up at the castle – barely room to squeeze an elf down the chimney. 

But, anyway, I’ve lost my thread, where was I? Oh, yes, delivering Christmas gifts to the new palace in the 1540s. I seem to remember there was a charming little girl living there at the time. Mary something or other, oh so full of life and hope, but there was sadness too. Her dad James had died when she was just a few days old. So, a single parent family, but mum was quite a tigress and was doing her best for young Mary. Hope it all turned out well, I tend to lose track when they grow up.

Anyway, times change, the royals and their servants left the palace and the army came in. Officers and other ranks. Quite a mix, some fine and wealthy gentlemen, and lots of poor lads, often down from the Highlands – struggling to do the best for their kids. And so many of them not knowing what the future held. Could be sent off at any time to fight in some corner of the British Empire they’d barely even heard of. So it was always nice to drop by at Christmas and deliver a few goodies, even if it was just something very simple. I remember a last-minute letter arriving in, oh when was it, about 1850 or so, some young dad about to be deployed overseas was wanting a set of little wooden guardsmen for his boy. We were out of stock, but one of the elves jumped to it and spent the night carving a set by hand. Kind gesture. I expect they were lost and forgotten a long, long time ago.

Merry Christmas to you all, Santa.

I have the unusual privilege of living with unicorns – more than that I create them. Oddly enough the first one took nine months to the day. He now hangs on the wall of the Chapel Royal, and even though he was cut free from the loom some years ago I still look at him and think ‘that’s my boy’.

As one of the three-strong team of weavers based at Stirling Castle I have spent eight years helping create new versions of the magnificent Hunt of the Unicorn series, which dates from the dawn of the 16th century, and is displayed in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. I have just returned from an annual trip there to study the colours of the originals, to ensure our own work is absolutely right. However our tapestries, which will eventually hang in the castle’s royal palace, are not straight replicas. They are fresh interpretations, so they contain our own ideas and artistry.

Each time I go and see the originals I am awestruck by the technical skill of those weavers of 500 years ago. I’m also sometimes amused to see bits where one of them was lazy – like an area my colleagues have just finished where the holly berries are bright orange, like the juicy fruit on the orange tree next to it. The weaver just used what came to hand rather than going and fetching another colour. All very human!

New York was fun, and we got to do demonstrations of our work for about 170 museum visitors, conservators and staff. We spread the word about Stirling and the seven tapestries we are more than half way through weaving. But it’s good to be back, creating 7.3cm square of tapestry each day, and slowly watching the hunters, the hounds and their quarry – the unicorn – as they emerge, grow and finally depart the loom.

Louise Martin is a senior weaver based in the Stirling Castle tapestry studio.