The photo at the end of this post clearly shows the details of the monument to William Wallace.
Just this evening, Dad told me that his father, James (our grandfather) told him that our great-grandfather William worked as a mason on the monument - it may have been the reason William moved to the Stirling area (the monument was mostly finished by 1869 but perhaps there was still work to do around the site? So, Tom Henry's hunch seems to be correct. (Some time ago, Tom sent a letter to the Masons Grand Lodge in Stirling to ask if they have records of the names of the masons who worked on the monument. They don't, but they told Tom that if William was a mason, there is a very good chance he did work there as hundreds of masons were employed in building it.)
The Wallace Monument is situated on the top of Abbey Craig, a volcanic crag, overlooking the river Forth and the Forth Valley. This Craig at one time was the site of a hill fort, and in 1297, William Wallace camped there to watch the gathering of the army of English king Edward 1, just before Wallace defeated the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.
The design of the monument is in the Scottish "Baronial" style and represented a Scottish medieval tower, rising from a courtyard, with a representation on the top of the Crown Royal of Scotland.
The monument is 220 feet high, 54 square feet at its base, with the tower 36 square feet. The walls are 16-18 feet at their thickest; more than 30,000 tons of stones used in the construction. The monument is open to the public - visitors climb the spiral staircase (246 stairs, so be prepared) to the viewing gallery inside the monument's crown - the prize? A spectacular view of the Ochil Hills and the Forth Valley.
To see more pictures and learn a little bit about the history of the monument, you can visit this website:
http://www.nationalwallacemonument.com/
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