St. Ninians is a long-standing settlement which is now a district of the city of Stirling in central Scotland. It is located approximately one mile south of the city centre. It was originally known as Eccles (i.e. 'church'), and may have been a Christian site from an unusually early date (possibly 5th or 6th century). Later called 'St. Ringan's' (a variant of St Ninian's). This church was the administrative centre for churches across the strath of the River Forth. Church A document dating from 1147 refers to "the church of Egglis St Ninians with its chapels of Dunipace and Lithbert". The famous fight between the forces of Sir Thomas Randolph, 1st Earl of Moray and Sir Robert de Clifford, 1st Baron de Clifford on the first day of the Battle of Bannockburn on 23 June, 1314 is generally placed at St. Ninian's Kirk. During the Siege of Stirling Castle, part of the 1745 Jacobite rising, the church was used to store munitions and this blew up when the Jacobites began retreating on 1 February 1746. Despite claims it was deliberate, it was more likely simply due to carelessness. Only the tower survived; it was later restored and can be seen to this day. A few years after the Church was rebuilt it became the scene of another drama. The local landowner 'presented' a new minister, Mr Thomson of Gargunnock. He was not chosen by the heads of families and a dispute arose. After years of wrangling the Presbytery was forced to appoint him. The Moderator of Presbytery addressed these words to him "Sir, we are met here this day, by a former appointment of Presbytery, in obedience to the same sentence of the General Assembly, to admit you minister of St. Ninians- a sentence pronounced by the highest horn of ecclesiastical authority or power. That Assembly have assumed to themselves higher power than the Parliament-by some profanely styled omnipotent-that wise, that august body, never enacting any laws without consent of the people. There has been a formidable opposition made against you by six hundred heads of families, sixty heritors, and all the elders of the parish, I believe, except one. This opposition has continued for seven years by your own obstinacy, and if you should this day be admitted, you can have no pastoral relation to the souls of the parish; you will never be regarded as the shepherd to