2013 Magazine - Royal Caledonian Ball

More documents

Recommendations

Info

and the best craftsmanship of the day. After all, James V’s intention was to use the design of his Palace to demonstrate his wealth, knowledge, power and taste as a leading European ruler. The Stirling Heads: One of the most ambitious elements of the Palace project was the recreation of the Stirling Heads – often referred to as Scotland’s other crown jewels. The heads – a series of metre-wide carved oak medallions - depicted images ranging from classical heroes to contemporary portraits, originally adorned the ceiling in the Kings Inner Hall. There is nothing quite like them anywhere else in the world. 12 After Stirling Castle fell from favour as a royal residence it found a new role as an army garrison. The royal lodgings were not maintained as before and the ceiling collapsed in 1777. Some of the heads were lost or destroyed, with others being dispersed. But even during the darkest moment of their history there were those who recognised their importance. Some were saved as curiosities, others ended up in private homes. But by the 1970s all the remaining heads were back in public hands. Many were displayed at the Smith Gallery in Stirling and three are owned by National Museums, Scotland One of the most important parts of the project has been to display the original Stirling Heads in their own gallery, allowing visitors to see the heads much closer-up than any of the select few who would have been admitted to the King’s Inner Hall five centuries ago. A new ceiling was also painstakingly created from 34 newly carved copies of the originals. Created over 4 years by expert woodcarver John Donaldson they offer a spectacular and stunning insight into the palace’s past.
The Stirling Tapestries: Historic Scotland also undertook an exciting project to recreate one of the world’s finest surviving sets of medieval tapestries as part of the palace project. The new versions of The Hunt of the Unicorn series have been woven to adorn the walls of the Queen’s Inner Hall – where Mary of Guise held court in her palace at Stirling Castle. This separately funded £2 million initiative will see a total of seven tapestries, each measuring 3.3m by up to 3.8m being handwoven at the castle itself and at the West Dean Tapestry Studio in West Sussex. They tell a tale of the hunt and slaying of a unicorn to obtain its horn, which has magical powers of purification, after which the creature returns to life. Inventories from 1539 show that the Scottish royal collection included a set depicting ‘the historie of the unicorne’ which may have been very similar. The new versions are based on tapestries of a similar period from the Low Countries and which are now on display in the Cloisters Museum, at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each new tapestry takes between two and a half to four and a half years to make, depending on its width. Four are currently 13 on display in the palace, with the final two tapestries in the series due to be complete by August 2014. Weaving can be seen in the Tapestry Studio at Stirling Castle from Saturday through Wednesday each week. The tapestry project is a collaboration between Historic Scotland and a range of sponsors, principally the Quinque Foundation and the Guild of Weavers with funding channelled through the Historic Scotland Foundation. The Met has been vital to the project by giving HS permission to copy the originals and allowing the weavers unique access to study them. One of the tapestries from the series is currently on temporary display at the Fleming Art Gallery at Mayfair in London until June 1st <strong>2013</strong>. Appearing as part of a wider exhibition entitled ‘Finding the Unicorn’, the exhibition is a great opportunity to find out more about the tapestry project and its role as part of the wider Stirling Castle Palace project. The Opening: The completed palace was honoured with a <strong>Royal</strong> Opening by Her Majesty The Queen in July 2011. Since opening the palace Stirling Castle now attracts over 400,000 visitors per annum, offering a truly unique experience unlike any other in the Scottish tourist attraction industry. The castle has won a number of awards since the re-opening including being voted the UK’s best loved heritage attraction by members of Which? magazine. For further information on Stirling Castle please visit www.stirling-castle.gov.uk
Page 1 and 2: THE ROYAL CALEDONIAN BALL MAGAZINE
Page 3 and 4: Welcome to the 165th Royal Caledoni
Page 5 and 6: Her Royal Highness The Princess Roy
Page 8 and 9: Silent Auction This year our Silent
Page 12 and 13: Stirling Castle, home to the famous
Page 16 and 17: The Scottish Colourist: S. J. Peplo
Page 18: A friendly boarding and day school
Page 21 and 22: One of the joys of the role, and th
Page 23 and 24: You seem to have carved out a uniqu
Page 25: irs 1 3 7 9 11 Band Side Band Stage
Page 29 and 30: Roasted saddle of French farmed rab
Page 31 and 32: Our responsibilities contain and co
Page 33 and 34: In 2012 The Committee of the Royal
Page 35 and 36: St Andrew’s Children’s Society
Page 37 and 38: In 1979 we were awarded the Queen
Page 39 and 40: managers look after their salmon st
Page 41 and 42: Mrs Christopher Boyle Mrs Evan Bruc
Page 43 and 44: Dafydd Jones Photographer Parties,
Page 45 and 46: The Ball is held under the patronag
Page 47 and 48: FRANCIS CAMPBELL BOILEAU CADELL REF

2013 Magazine - Royal Caledonian Ball

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?