This watercolour by artist John Bell shows a rural Dunblane of 1887. It is a recent purchase for the Stirling Smith collections courtesy of Dr Robin Campbell and the Stirling Common Good Fund.
Not much is known about the artist. There are some works by him in York Museum collections and a similar oil painting in the Dunblane Museum collection.
The artist’s viewpoint is looking south. On the left is Braeport, and the castellated building to the left of the cathedral is the old jail and police office, demolished in 1963. Beyond the jail in the left middle distance is Stirling Castle. The River Allan is on the right.
Dunblane Cathedral was left ruined by the Reformation of 1560. The east end of the Cathedral was restored in 1816 – 17 by the great Scottish architect James Gillespie Graham (1776 – 1855) who was born in Dunblane. The nave, or main body of the Cathedral, was restored by another great Scottish architect, Sir Robert Rowand Anderson in 1888- 1893. This was made possible only by funding from Janet Wallace of Glassingall, who insisted on matching money being raised and gave £19,000 herself. Otherwise, the Cathedral might still be a picturesque ruin today, like St. Andrews or Elgin Cathedrals.
The Year of the Rooster 2017 is now well underway. It was brought to Stirling by a huge Chinese dragon, dancing to the delight of the crowds at the Albert Hall, followed by a night of spectacular performances of Chinese song, music, dance, gymnastics and magic. This was organised by the Central Scotland Chinese Association and Stirling Council.
Stirling’s relationship with Chinese culture is young and strong, thanks to the students at the University of Stirling and the Confucius Hub concept in Stirling High and other schools, but there are also traces of older relationships to be found in the collections of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum. The punch bowl from which Bonnie Prince Charlie drank, at Bannockburn House in 1746, is of Chinese porcelain.
Even this is young in comparison to the lovely little porcelain cup from the Ming dynasty. It is 106 cm high but very rare, with markings confirming manufacture in the reign of the Emperor Jiajing, the eleventh emperor of the Ming dynasty who reigned 1521 – 1567. The cup is painted with four cranes which symbolise longevity, wisdom and nobility in Chinese culture. The cup, and many other artefacts and paintings were bequeathed by Stirling dentist L. J Platt in 1914.
Places change their geographical focus through time. For most of the twentieth century, Corn Exchange was the commercial, literary, ceremonial and municipal centre of Stirling. Shown here is a royal visit at the Municipal Buildings in 1929. The Municipal Buildings were opened less than 100 years ago in 1918, joining the Corn Exchange Hotel with its hiring market, the Carnegie Library (opened 1904), the Campbell Bannerman statue (1913) and the Burns statue (1914). The War Memorial completed the grouping in 1922.
One of the most important businesses in the area was McArees who owned property facing Municipal Buildings, as well as their large store in King Street. In 1937, they built the present red sandstone building opposite Municipal Buildings and for a century had a grand stand view of the historic visits taking place. This photograph is from a collection presented to the Stirling Smith by Mrs Elizabeth Young of McArees.
The entrance to Municipal Buildings where the Duke and Duchess of York are emerging has an outdoor seating area for the ceremony. The windows of the Council Chamber above are wide open, and three Halberdiers dressed in their distinctive red uniforms are on the front steps.
Today both Stirling Council and McArees have moved on.
The sterling silver President’s chain and badge of office of the Soroptimist International of Stirling Club 1959 -2016 was one of many fine gifts to the Stirling Smith collections last year. It is always sad when a long – running organisation ceases to function, but the Smith looks after the memorabilia, and Stirling Council Archives look after the archival records, of such local organisations.
Soroptimists International was founded in California in 1921 by business and professional women who wanted to help change the lives and status of girls and women world – wide. Today there are still 75,000 members in 133 countries, working to educate, empower and enable with the slogan ‘women inspiring action, changing lives’.
The Stirling chain and badge were designed by art teacher and founder member, Janet Reid Burnet (1913-2008) who, disabled herself, was a life – long champion of sporting opportunities for the disabled. She also hosted visiting artists from overseas and sponsored the first designer bench in the Smith grounds. Like each of the 49 women who held the chain of office, she made a unique contribution to the life of Stirling. Other office bearers include Helen Munro MBE, Director of Community Services with Stirling Council until 2005 and Lady Martha Bruce OBE TD, founder and first Governor of Cornton Vale Prison, 1975 – 1983.
At this time of year, many children are hoping for a bicycle from Santa. The Stirling Smith is no different, and a long – promised bicycle, made by George Elrick of Stirling for 16 year old Dick Clark in 1954 is on its way, with all the accessories.
George Elrick was in business as a bike builder in Stirling, 1935 – 1975, manufacturing his own frames from a workshop in an area known as ‘the Winchel’ at Lower Bridge Street, and making cycles to order. Elrick cycles were highly prized by serious cyclists throughout Britain . George Elrick had contacts with cycle retailers throughout the country, and also fulfilled orders from overseas. Dick Clark, who grew up in Lower Bridge Street, had his bicycle custom built, just before he went into Cycle Time Trialling. He won the George Elrick Novice Trophy in 1956. A member of the Central Scotland Wheelers, he also wrote the cycling column in the Observer for a number of years.
Elrick, born in 1908, came from Yorkshire. Many people knew Stirling only through his cycles, which carried a decal transfer of the Wallace Monument. Redevelopment closed the business, but as 2017 is the 200th anniversary of the invention of the bicycle, there will be ample opportunity to recall its achievements.
Featured today is a watercolour by the eminent Glasgow artist, Alexander Kellock Brown RSA RSW RI (1849 – 1922), purchased recently for the Stirling Smith collections. The artist’s viewpoint is from the Cornton area, looking across the Forth to what was Winshel Place at Laurencecroft (now Drip Road) in the late 19th century. All of the little vernacular buildings, some with red pantiled roofs, were swept away by new local authority housing at Laurencecroft and the rest of Raploch in the 20th century. The magnificent tenement at the south end of the Old Bridge was demolished in 1963. The only building which remains from that time is Campbell’s building at what is now the foot of Lower Bridge Street. There are cattle grazing on Laurencecroft.
Besides its topographical importance, this work is a good example of the broad wash ‘wet’ watercolour technique developed by Kellock Brown and favoured by many of the other Glasgow painters of his generation. Brown was one of the founders of the Scottish Artist’s Benevolent Association and also President of the Glasgow Art Club. Most of his work is Scottish, and his views of Arran are particularly well – known. Like every landscape artist of his time, capturing the beauty of Stirling was on his ‘to do’ list, and the Smith is lucky to have caught this lovely work, courtesy of Dr Robin Campbell and the Common Good Fund of Stirling.
Andrew Hay is a well-known Scottish artist with paintings in several museum collections. This work of his is in the Smith collections and depicts the brutal murder of Wallace at Smithfield on St. Bartholomew’s Day 1305. Bartholomew was the Patron Saint of the Butchers, and Wallace was butchered as part of the St. Bartholomew’s day entertainment on the instructions of King Edward I.
The artist has depicted Wallace’s death like that of St Andrew, the Patron Saint of Scotland, for, as the writer Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham said:
‘Wallace made Scotland. He IS Scotland. He is the symbol of all that is best and purest and truest and most heroic in our national life. You cannot figure to yourself Scotland without Wallace. So long as grass grows green, or water runs, or whilst the mist curls through the corries of the hills, the name of Wallace will live’.
[Wallace Day speech 1920]
King Robert Bruce is shown at the top right of the painting, waiting to take on the challenge of Wallace and waiting to inherit the spirit of freedom which he instilled into the Scottish people. Without Wallace, the struggle of Bruce would not have been possible, and this is worth remembering today, on St Andrew’s day.
‘The Great Church at Veere, 1914’ by John Munnoch (1879 – 1915) is a recent purchase for the Stirling Smith collections, made possible by grants from the National Fund for Acquisitions and the Common Good Fund of Stirling. Scottish artists were well acquainted with Veere, as from 1541 it was the Scottish staple port for trade, and to this day, cultural ties remain with Scotland.
Munnoch was born in Port Street, Stirling and attended Craigs School and the High School of Stirling. He studied at Edinburgh College of Art where, in 1912, he gained the Carnegie Travelling Scholarship and the Maclaine Watters Medal. The following year he won the Keith Prize for the best student work exhibited that year at the RSA, and again the Maclaine Watters Medal.
Munnoch was one of the most talented artists of his generation. This was possibly one of the last works he painted before he enlisted for active service with 5th Battalion, Royal Scots and was killed at Gallipoli in June 1915. His name is on the Stirling War Memorial, and at this time of year we remember the massive loss of life, energy and artistic genius caused by the Great War.
‘Stirling, Scotland’s Heart’ was an advertising campaign of 2012, but the idea has been current for much longer. In 1799, Gartincaber Tower was built by William Murdoch of Gartincaber House on a hill to the east of Doune to mark the centre of Scotland. There are different ways of calculating the centre of Scotland, but for many generations, Gartincaber Tower was believed to mark the true centre.
The tower was built as a two storey gothic octagon with a parapet, possibly as part of a local employment scheme. This photograph from the Stirling Smith collections is by Stirling solicitor Thomas W. J. Leishman (1885 – 1965), taken when the building was still intact and before it received its wartime coat of paint in the 1940s. It was used as a lookout tower during World War II and continued to be used for military purposes until the 1960s.
The two rooms in the building were reached by a cast iron stairway, and both had fireplaces. In 2005, a rescue attempt was made but in January 2012 the tower toppled in a fierce gale leaving nothing but rubble.
Last week, Stirling Council launched a mining heritage website , which features information held in Stirling Libraries and Archives, and the information boards from the Stirling Smith’s Polmaise exhibition of last year.
The collection is always growing. A recent gift to the Smith is a rope-suspended wooden swing of the late 1930s made by Polmaise colliery craftsmen for five year old Jean Russell who lived in the blocks in Fallin.
The photograph here shows the award-winning Bannockburn Colliery Silver Band in 1928, just after the purchase of their new uniforms, posing beside the mine manager’s house. The colliery, sunk as a deep mine in 1894, was in the village of Cowie where households shared washing facilities, and where there were no colliery baths until 1931. In spite of the brutally hard, dangerous and dirty work, the miners still managed to dress smartly, play good music and win prizes for it.
In the centre with his baton is Conductor James Currie. His son, brothers and cousins – six Curries in total – were band members. His great granddaughter Jacqueline lives in Cowie, and runs the coffee shop at the Smith.