The friends of Stirling’s old town cemeteries was established on 28th November 2006. The idea of forming a friends group had been suggested by Stirling council in September 2005 at a meeting held in the tollbooth, Broad St. Stirling.

Earlier that year Stirling council had submitted a successful bid for lottery heritage funding to prepare a detailed proposal for funding to restore and conserve many of the features of Stirling’s historic old town cemeteries. Part of the proposal was to encourage greater community involvement with the project and it was suggested that one of the ways to achieve this would be to establish a friends group which would support the council in its bid, and if successful with the project.

Since its inauguration, the group has secured charitable status with OSCR, received a start up grant from Stirling council and is in the process of working through a programme which includes the production of the web site, a guide to the Old Kirk graveyard and a grave stone data base of the Erskine Marykirk Cemetery in St John’s St., Stirling.

Some other proposals still to be achieved are to set up a series of talks, exhibitions and guided walks to help educate and involve the local population and visitors of the wealth of history available to them in Stirlng’s historic old town cemeteries.