In 1708, Prince James Edward Stuart, son of the exiled James VII and II, tried to regain the throne of Great Britain. His bid failed, but it alarmed his half-sister, Queen Anne. She ordered that Stirling Castle be refortified using the latest military technology. The Outer Defences are the result.

The defences that greet today’s visitor to the castle are largely the work of the military engineer Theodore Dury. The central six-gun Overport Battery defended the approach from the town. Three guns pointed towards the town itself. The other three faced the church of the Holy Rude, where a gun had been mounted during the siege of 1651.

Some older defences were retained by Dury’s engineers. They included the French Spur, on the castle’s south-east corner. These were probably built by French soldiers just before 1550, on the orders of Mary of Guise, mother of Mary Queen of Scots.

The cast-iron guns on display on the Outer Defences are not the original armament. These muzzle-loaders were made around 1800 by the world-famous Carron Ironworks, in nearby Falkirk, the largest ironworks in the world at the time.