Auld Kirkyard & Holy Rude Church

The Auld Kirkyard, has served the Church of the Holy Rude since the 12th-century, when Dominican friars built a wooden chapel on this site.

The oldest stone we can put a date to is a little more recent...1579.

A favourite haunt, according to legend, of Stirling’s Pink Lady. Supposedly a place of peace, it has been the site of battles between troops stationed within Stirling Castle and supporters of the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots (1571), Roundheads (1651) and Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobite rebels (1746).

The walls of the Holy Rude’s tower – and many of the older stones – are pock-marked by the musket-shot and cannon-fire of these conflicts.