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Gargunnock (Stirling Council, Scotland)

located by Valentin Poposki, 9 June 2012

Description of the flag

Description of the flag

The website at http://www.gargunnock.com/Bugle21.pdf reports the winning proposal in a flag contest.

In the Stirling Observer (http://www.stirlingobserver.co.uk/2012/05/25/gargunnock-flag-to-be-unfurled-as-vandalism-probe-continues-51226-31039776/) we find:

May 25 2012 by Johnathon Menzies, Stirling Observer Friday
Community-spirited residents in Gargunnock will gather in the local Square tomorrow (Saturday) to witness a flag-raising ceremony. The new village standard, which features a bugle and a drum on a claret and blue backdrop, was chosen as the best following a competition featuring about 30 entries. Community Council chairman Douglas Coupethwaite said that the contest was run over several months and added that Saturday's informal ceremony is to take place at 7pm, featuring music from local piper James Letford.

Valentin Poposki, 9 June 2012

And at: http://www.gargunnock.com/Bugle20.pdf:

THE GARGUNNOCK DRUM ON THE FLAG
As you read this voting for minor variations to a design for a Gargunnock Flag is nearing its conclusion and we await results with interest. The new flag will have the Gargunnock Drum & Horn at its centre. But there was actually a Gargunnock Flag hundreds of years ago, probably in the 18th century at the time the village Drum & Bugle were first bought. No sketch of that flag has survived, just a brief description of it having upon it a depiction of the sacking of the "Peel Tower of Garganow" by William Wallace, who had camped with his followers within the village at Keir Hill to the southwest of the Rest Garden. This tower, situated near the joining of the burn with the river Forth, was garrisoned by English soldiers and their families so he slaughtered them but freed their families. So what might the design look like? I wondered if there might be a clue on the drum. The story of the Drum and Bugle are well enough known locally, see (www.gargunnockvillagehistory.co.uk). The drum and Bugle have survived down through the years through being stored in various houses throughout the village then latterly in Gargunnock House for a time before ending up in the Smith Museum, Stirling. In the museum the lighting is not sufficiently bright for a close study of the painting, the colours of which are dark and muted. At first sight the painted design on the drum might be construed to be simply a thistle head, the national emblem. There are stylised leaves climbing up both sides and in the centre there is more than a hint of a thistle head surmounted by a crown but some of the detail is intriguing. Normally the bulbous part of a thistle head is green and beyond that the part which fans out is the colourful purple part. On the drum it is not. Instead what should be fine purple filaments fanning out are coarse rod-like elements, almost like a palisade fence with the posts cut at an angle to sharpen them. Above that is a narrow, jaggy bright orange band followed by white then the crown. Is my imagination running away with me I wonder, when I begin to interpret this as a thinly veiled reference to a fortified place held by soldiers of the crown which had been set fire to and sacked? We'll never know for sure but it's an intriguing possibility. Unfortunately the drumsticks, especially the right hand one in the photograph obscure parts of the design so I am in communication with Dr Elspeth King of the Smith Museum to request permission to re-photograph it with a view to gleaning more information about the design. I'll report back in a further edition as well as (in colour) on the above website. Wouldn't it be interesting to discover that way back in those days, not long after the quashing of the '45 Jacobite rebellion, the inhabitants of a wee village in central Scotland were having a little nationalistic dig at the powers that be!
John McLaren