Designated 4 November 1965 Designated 1999 Address Stirling FK8 1EG, UK Built for John Erskine, Earl of Mar | Reference no. 41348 Reference no. 90289 Year built 1572 | |
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Location St John Street, Stirling, Scotland Similar Argyll's Lodging, Church of the Holy Rude, Cambuskenneth Abbey, Old Stirling Bridge, Stirling Smith Art Gallery a | ||
Exploring mar s wark ruins by the church of the holy rude
Mar's Wark is a ruined building in Stirling built 1570–1572 by John Erskine, Regent of Scotland and Earl of Mar, and now in the care of Historic Scotland. Mar intended the building for the principal residence of the Erskine family in Stirling, whose chief had become hereditary keeper of the nearby royal Stirling Castle where the princes of Scotland were schooled. Wark is a Scots language word for work, and here it means building. The house is also called "Mar's Lodging."
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Mar s wark cemetery student tours scotland sts 167
Description
The building fronts the kirk yard of the Holy Rude Church and sits at the head of the processional route to Stirling Castle above the town's tollbooth. The windowless front façade survives lacking its upper storey, access is possible to the first floor. The basement vaults have doors and windows to the street and may have been intended for shops.
The façade is nearly symmetrical around a gatehouse frontispiece with two polygonal towers. Liberal carved stone decoration is based on European print-sources or decorative arts with royal and Erskine heraldry, and wry inscriptions. A motif of the letter "A" with the earl's coronet points to a variant version of the family name, as "Areskine," or possibly the initial of Mar's countess, Annabella Murray. Traditionally it has been alleged that the carvings include stones re-cycled from Cambuskenneth Abbey.
The general articulation and architectural mouldings closely reflect royal buildings, especially the palace at Stirling Castle. The Earl of Mar may well have called upon the skills of the royal Master of Work to the Crown of Scotland of the time, William MacDowall.
The Wark is now protected by the Scottish Government as a category A-listed building, and as a scheduled monument.
Inscriptions
The middle Scots inscriptions carved on the gatehouse centrepiece refer to the onlooker's appreciation of the architecture and the eminence of the Regent himself in the building's own voice:
South tower
I pray all luikaris on this luging
With gentile E to gif thair juging
I pray all lookers on this lodging,
With gentle eye to give their judging.
North tower
The moir I stand on oppin hitht
My faultis moir subject ar to sitht
The more I stand on open height,
My faults more subject are to sight.
(As I am so prominent, so my faults are more obvious)
Internal (exit) arch
Esspy speik furth and spair nocht
Considder veil I cair notht
See, speak forth and spare not (or possibly; question not),
Consider well, I care not.
History
It is often said that the building was never finished, but there is little evidence for this, although it was probably unfinished at the death of Regent Mar in October 1572. It seems from the records of Stirling burgh that Countess Annabella continued to use the building. As the lodging commands Broad Street and the town it was later used to mount artillery during civil unrest.