The Carse Viewpoint

This is the widest outward view on the walk, and the reason a flagstaff was once set here.

The ground falls away to the north and west across the Carse of Stirling — the flat, fertile carselands of the upper Forth, laid down as estuary mud when the sea reached far inland after the last glaciation. Beyond them, on a clear day, the Trossachs and the southern Highland hills close the horizon.

It is worth pausing to think about what this outlook meant. Stirling controlled the lowest crossing of the Forth and the gateway between the Highlands and the Lowlands, and from ground like this an approach could be seen coming a long way off.