This is one of four caches in the Stirling area with a Charles Edward Stuart connection.
The first is St Ninians Clock Tower GC1ENVM
The second one nearby is The Bloody Fields GC1W0HT
The Third is Bonnie Prince Charlie's Cave GC1MRJ1
The History.
Bannockburn House is one of the most significant and historical buildings in Bannockburn. The exact date of its erection is not known, but two of the ceilings can be ascribed to about the year 1680 and this suggests that the house may have been built by Hugh Paterson soon after he acquired the property, although the strap-worked pediments of the dormer windows are a generation earlier in style.
It is one of the most striking houses in Stirling and it is steeped in Scottish history. In 1745 Prince Charles Edward Stewart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, on his march to the south, spent a night at Bannockburn House; and in January 1746, when on his return to the north, he made that house his headquarters. While lodging there he was shot at, and the mark made by the bullet is still shown in one of the rooms.
On the morning of the 17th January he drew up his army on Plean Moor preparatory to their march to the battlefield of Falkirk.
January 1746 at the invitation of Sir Hugh, Bonny Prince Charlie was to make Bannockburn house his headquarters after his army's long march back from Derby where he had tried to drum up English support for the Jacobites. It was during his stay at Bannockburn, after his victory on the 17th January against the Hanovarian army at Falkirk Muir, that he developed a fever.
He was looked after by Clementina Walkinshaw, who was an ardent Jacobite supporter. A bullet hole still remains in the wall where the head of the bed was in the room which Prince Charles had occupied. Tradition has it that it was caused by the bullet of an assassin fired through the bedroom window. It is thought that Charles and Clementina were first introduced at her father's mansion house at Shawfield Glasgow in December 1745, and that they had become romantically involved. Later she followed him and in 1752 the couple were living together in France. Their daughter Charlotte was born in 1753 and was the only acknowledged child of Bonnie Prince Charlie.
The Fun.
A.E. Pickard bought the house in 1962. He was known as one of the last great eccentrics. Pickard was a self made millionaire buying property in Glasgow, such as theatres and music halls, and it was in one of these, The Panopticon, that Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy made one of their first stage appearances.
He continued buying property, and by 1961 he said he didn't know how much property he owned or how much money he had.
He called his company A.E. Pickard of London, Paris, Moscow and Bannockburn.
The only landlord owning more property than him was Glasgow Corporation. He is also renowned as being the first man in Glasgow to be booked for a parking offence - for parking his car in the middle of a platform in Central Station. He was fined £1, which he paid for with a £100 note.
Originally from Bradford, Pickard moved to Glasgow in 1904, where he quickly gained a reputation for his eccentricity. In his theatre, he would sit at the top of a ladder at the side of the stage throwing nails at disorderly members of the audience. Sometimes he would stand with a long pole with a hook on the end and if the act was not good enough, he would hook them off by the neck!
Comedians Harry Lauder, Jack Buchanan and Jack Milroy all made their début at the Panopticon, or ‘Pots and Pans' as it became known locally. So too did Cary Grant, albeit in an unlikely guise as a dancing stilt-walker!
The square building in the field in front of the cache was originally the doocot for Bannockburn House and would supply them with meat and eggs.
Currently the Bannockburn House Trust is raising money to purchase and restore the house for the community.