The old Bridge of Stirling, although half a mile distant from the summit of the rock, has been too closely associated with the history of the castle to be overlooked in even a brief description of the buildings and their surroundings. The fortress watched and guarded the bridge for three centuries and a half, as it had watched and guarded the earlier bridge which crossed the Forth about one hundred yards above the site of the later structure. The early edifice, which seems to have been a platform of wood on piers of stone, was the scene of Wallace’s victory in 1297. During that great battle the beams gave way, plunging many soldiers into the river; and although Edward I. in 1305 issued a writ for the repair of the bridge,[99] it was apparently never rebuilt, as throughout the fourteenth century a ferry was in use at Stirling. [Illustration: STIRLING OLD BRIDGE.] The stone bridge of four arches, which is still to be seen, was erected in the early days of the fifteenth century, but in the course of many ages it has undergone repairs and alterations. Under Robert III. the building was begun, and was finished by his brother, the Regent Albany, about the year 1415. Its appearance to-day is slightly less imposing than it was before the middle of the eighteenth century, for in former times the road passed through an archway at each end of the bridge--the northern one containing an iron gate--and the buttresses of the central pier rose above the parapet and were made to form small guardhouses for those who kept the gate. On the southern bank of the Forth, at the end of the bridge, stood the Chapel of St. Marrock or St. Roch, in which in pre-Reformation days kings and others made their offerings before passing over the stream. As the road approaches the river from the north, it is made to take a double twist, the object of this arrangement doubtless being to throw into confusion any body of cavalry intending to force a passage at this important spot. Probably for the same defensive purpose the bridge is not straight but is somewhat bow-shaped; it seems to sag as if it had felt the current’s strain, for the centre is about a couple of feet further down the stream than the ends.