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jimmcginlay · Last edited by jimmcginlay on Mon Jan 26, 2009 10:15 pm; edited 1 time in total

Location: The Esplanade car park, Stirling Castle

sculptor: Andrew Currie

As can be seen in the photographs repairs have been carried out to the sandstone sculpture with the sword, battle-axe and the rim of the shield being replaced. The statue stands in a very exposed position at the summit of the castle hill.

'ERECTED BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION'

Andrew Currie
Scottish sculptor 1813 – 1891?

Works include:
King Robert the Bruce, Stirling Castle
James Hogg, St. Mary’s Loch
Mungo Park, Selkirk (later additions by T.J. Clapperton)
‘Old Mortality’ and ‘Edie Ochiltree’, The Scott Monument, Edinburgh

Andrew Currie must be one of the most remarkable artists ever produced in Scotland. Working in the late 19th century he was responsible for many works in Edinburgh and the Borders. Unfortunately I don’t have much information on Currie and what little there is does appear to be a wee bit far fetched, but I found the following two articles which appeared in The Scotsman Newspaper.

The following was a letter in response to a piece by a Mr. Barnett on the Borders and his omission of any mention of the village of Darnick.
The Scotsman, Friday 25th June 1920, page 6.
‘…I refer to Archibald Currie, the sculptor, who, as a boy, met Sir Walter Scott on more than one occasion. I made Currie’s acquaintance about 35 years ago, and found him a most versatile character. He was noted for his fine executive work in marble and stone, besides his penchant for literature. He had met at his studio many eminent men of letters and art, and when I met him he was finishing his memoirs, a part of which he lent me for perusal. Steeped in Border lore and saturated with the genius and personality of Sir Walter Scott, he was a fascinating companion for a quiet stroll around Abbotsford, when he would charm me with copious quotations from some of Scott’s best known novels. Probably Mr. Barnett was not acquainted with Archibald Currie, although I dare say he knows Darnick well.
Currie did not survive his removal from a life-long environment to the city, and shortly before his sudden death in the Melville Drive, I met him one day in the same spot, when he lamented having forsaken a pastoral quietude like Darnick – fit shrine for a man of his literary and artistic temperament – for the comparative distractions of city life.
J.H.H.T.’

The Scotsman, Monday 28th June 1920, page 8
‘Letters to the Editor
ANDREW CURRIE OF DARNICK
Sir – Your correspondent “J.H.H.T.” Mis-names my old and early friend Andrew (not Archibald) Currie, the Darnick sculptor, who died suddenly in the Melville Drive on the last day of February 1891, at the age of 78. Currie hailed from Howford, and was originally a millwright first at Denholm, and afterwards at Earlston, my native place, though it was long before I was born that Currie lived there. I knew him only after his removal to Darnick, and latterly in Edinburgh during my student days. It was while living at Earlston that he came into his kingdom as a sculptor – a small kingdom, no doubt, for he never established more than a local or Border reputation, but he did extraordinarily good work for one who, late in life, changed his occupation to carve a livelihood in the service of Art.
The late Mr. Cotesworth of Cowdenknowes was Currie’s earliest patron, and a symbolically-carved bookcase – still there, I think – attests his skill in design and handicraft. About 1859 Currie set up his studio at Darnick, and commenced work on a more ambitious scale, amongst his public commissions being the monument to Mungo Park at Selkirk, the Ettrick Shepherd’s statue at St. Mary’s Loch, and the Bruce monument at Stirling. Perhaps best of all were his fine conceptions of “Edie Ochiltree” and “Old Mortality” for the Scott Monument at Edinburgh. Among other works were “The Paschal Lamb” for Mr. Hope-Scott of Abbotsford, and the figure of a moss-trooper done to the order of Sir Frederick Graham of Netherby.
Your correspondent refers to Currie’s manuscript “memoirs”. I fear these are now widely scattered, if they are still extant. I have seen portions in the possession of descendants in Scotland, but the main pile is likely to be in Australia. Mr. Hume Nisbet, the novelist, who married Currie’s daughter, might know of the whereabouts.
Earlston helped to make Andrew Currie an artist and an antiquary, and to foster that love of literature, of poetry, and ballad lore which was his life-long passion. No matter where he lived, he said that his heart remained in Earlston, and in his last years he still spoke of it with romantic affection as a far-off haven of happiness surrounded with all the glamour of love and youth and early friend-ships, as fair and beautiful as the land of Fairy, to which the Rhymer so mysteriously departed. There are not a few who can echo the old sculptors word.
-I am, &c. W.S. Crockett.

As mentioned above Currie’s daughter married the Scottish Australian painter James Hume Nisbet and they had two daughters who in turn became notable artists, Margaret Henrietta Nisbet, and Noel Laura Nisbet, who is sometimes called the ‘last of the pre-raphaelites’.

Adam Brown · Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 12:48 am Post subject:

I hope the Bruce statue is moved at some point. It would be great shame to lose such a detailed statue because of it's exposed location.

Adam
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Scottish War Memorials Project
Scottish War Graves Project