IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Melville Terrace, STIRLING, FK8 2ND

Looking east at the south edge of the square. St Columba's, Church of Scotland (also in the square) visible through the trees.

From an information board nearby: "Local residents purchased the cast iron Black Boy Fountain, which could jet water 20ft into the air, in 1850. They were keen to increase their property prices by improving an area which had once been the site of the town gallows". The building behind is the former Allan Park Cinema which first opened in 1938.

Time for some extreme shopping. Beats getting hammered in the OMM down in the Lakes, which was suffering carpark flooding and later media hysteria on this afternoon. Those Highland green squares? They had to wait. The photograph does not show the wind.

The fountain was originally erected to commemorate those from Stirling who died in the Black Plague. In the 17th century, the Allan Park area was outside the city walls and was a place of public execution and burial known as the "Gallous Mailing". The fountain was manufactured by the Neilson Foundry of Glasgow. Restoration work was carried out 1997 and again in 2016. https://my.stirling.gov.uk/news/view/30634

The George Christie Clock. The man was provost of the town, 1870-79 and Provincial Grand Master Mason of Stirlingshire, 1893-1902. That gets you a clock.

The clock is in the angle between St Ninian's Road (foreground) and King's Park Road (just behind the clock). It was designed by Alexander McKenzie Lupton. For more about the clock tower, see Image (which was, by chance, submitted just a day earlier; there are also several earlier pictures of the clock tower). For details from the base, see Image / Image The building in the left background is the Image

For context and for further information about the tower as a whole, see Image; the detail is on the side facing the viewer in that picture. My own photographs taken on the same occasion as the present picture are Image, another view of the clock tower in context, and Image, showing another side of the base (the one that faces the left in the present picture). The inscription on that side explains why this side is replete with Masonic detail.

On the corner of Kings Park Road is the former Allanpark Cinema. Designed by Sam Runcie it was built for the Stirling Cinema & Variety Theatres Ltd and opened in 1938. It was acquired by Caledonian Associated Cinemas in 1969 and in 1977 the cinema was twinned with each screen having approximately 300 seats, by dividing the circle in half, with a false ceiling over the stalls, which were then used for bingo. In the late 1990s ownership passed to Carlton Bingo, who continued to show films until 2008. http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/50364

George Christie (1826 - 1903) was the Provost of the Royal Burgh of Stirling from 1870 - 1879 and the Provincial Grand Master of Stirlingshire from 1893 - 1903. The clock tower was erected in his memory in 1906. Restoration work was carried out in 2006. In the background is the Black Boy Fountain Image