I was born Fiona Donaldson, but will be remembered as “The Carver’s Daughter”. My dad, John, is the craftsman Historic Scotland commissioned to hand carve copies of the 16th-century Stirling Heads which once adorned the ceiling of the King’s Presence Hall in the castle’s royal palace. His new versions are being used to recreate this masterpiece of Renaissance interior design. Just one problem though – there are 36 surviving originals but the ceiling has space for 37.

In fact, it turned out to be an opportunity more than a problem. The project had allowed Historic Scotland to learn an enormous amount about the work of the craftsmen of 450 years ago. But there was something missing, they had all been replicas and reinterpretations of existing heads, none was created from scratch. This was a chance to fill that gap.

Authenticity was essential, so the border is like that on the other heads, the style of workmanship is the same, and much of the costume and detail is taken from a stone statue on the outside of the palace. But the face, that’s me. Many of the originals were portraits of real people, some were famous kings and queens, but in other cases the names have been lost and we just have the image. If the carvers were anything like the stonemasons who worked at our churches, abbeys and cathedrals, they could well have sneaked in some images of their own loved ones.

The material Historic Scotland gives to visitors names as many of the heads as possible but with some – like the woman in masque costume – there’s little that can be said. It might be taking us back across the centuries to glimpse the face of a woman the craftsman knew and who possibly, as the costume suggests, loved dressing up for parties. The caption for the new head, my head, simply reads “The Carver’s Daughter”. Nothing more. It’s rather lovely to be the face of the one truly 21st-century Stirling Head. Like many of the others, my name will fade from memory, but my image may look down on palace visitors for centuries – always serene, and forever young.

Fiona Maybin, The Carver’s Daughter