Wallace and wall

After the competition Carrick's good friend the Glasgow sculptor Alexander Proudfoot sent a telegram to him which read:

' CARRICK'S WALLACE...STOP

...CLAPPERTON'S BRUCE...STOP

...LORIMER'S NICHES...STOP

...SAY NOTHING!...STOP'

Right - T.J. Clapperton's 'Robert the Bruce' in Lorimer's gothic niche on the left of the gateway.

There is a long tradition in stylised figures which abandon 'nature', from the Lewis chessmen to the figures of Chartres Cathedral and beyond but Carrick remained true to the figurative tradition and the Wallace figure retains a natural proportion despite Carrick's subtle adaption to the surrounding masonary. It was later sculptors such as Carrick's pupil Hew Lorimer who would break free from such restriction and create works such as the elegant and elongated 'Our Lady of the Isles' on North Uist while pursuing the beauty of line and form for its own sake.

Left - Carrick's William Wallace, Edinburgh Castle -

Again perhaps Carrick's design for the Wallace may also be based on a pun as at Killin and possibly Fraserburgh...the meaning of the words 'Wallace' and 'Wall' become intemixed.

There is a story that the King of Sparta Leonidas was conducting a visitor to the city. Sparta was the only Greek city to have no defensive walls and when the visitor saw this he was shocked and asked the king 'how can you defend your city without walls?' The king replied by pointing and saying ' you see that man there, in the street, and that man, and those women...each one of them is a stone, they are our city's walls.'