As a water supply within the walls was essential to every medieval castle, the well in many fortresses is the oldest piece of work that has come down to the present day. Stirling Castle possesses two wells, both of them of great antiquity, but the probability is that the one in the Outer Square is older than that in the Nether Bailey. The earliest stronghold doubtless occupied only the higher part of the rock, and when in later times the lower ledge was enclosed the additional well would be made. Both founts are known to have been used before the middle of the fourteenth century, but the older one must have been hewn out of the rock many hundreds of years earlier than the days of David Bruce. To-day the wells in Stirling Castle are not exposed to view, but it is likely that in the near future one at least will be uncovered, and will remain open as of yore. The first mention of a royal park connected with Stirling Castle occurs in the reign of King William the Lion. That monarch, as has already been stated, acknowledged in a charter to the monks of Dunfermline that he had appropriated some of their land when he first enclosed the chase. This piece of ground, to the south-west of the castle, was afterwards known as the Old Park to distinguish it from another royal hunting-field made by Alexander III. The New Park of King Alexander lay to the south of the other, and its position brought it prominently into history at the time of the Battle of Bannockburn. Towards the end of his life King Robert the Bruce granted the lands of Old Park and New Park to his faithful servant, Adam the Barber;[96] but during David Bruce’s reign the estates by some means became for a time Sir Robert Erskine’s property. The King resumed possession of the royal domains by giving Erskine in exchange the lands of Alloa and others, but soon afterwards David bestowed the New Park on Alexander Porter, who was obliged to present to the King every year _arcum cum uno circulo pro alaudis_--a bow and apparently a snare for catching larks. A portion of the Old Park was granted by James IV. to the burgesses of Stirling in compensation for the lands of Gallowhills (or Gowan Hills), which they had allowed him to enclose.[97] The table-land lying to the south-west of the castle rock is known to this day as the King’s Park, and, along with the Gowan Hills, is still the property of the Crown. As a short cut to the Park and to the King’s Stables, which lay not far from the village of Raploch, a path was made in 1531 down the steep hillside from the north-west angle of the castle. The built-up doorway can still be seen in the wall of the Nether Bailey, and it was doubtless by this postern that the boy James VI. passed out to hunt on the summer day of 1579 when his wardens allowed him to go forth without a guard.