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This proposal answers a long-standing and widely-held desire that a major, state-scaled monument be erected in Paisley to the National Hero of the Scots, Sir William Wallace. This proposal has been put forward by Prof. Alexander Stoddart, Sculptor in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen, in association Jewitt, Arschavir and Wilkie Architects. This study has been part-funded by Renfrewshire Council and augmented by anonymous donation from elsewhere.

The design is simple in conception, and simple in form. Most importantly it procures for Scotland the first Equestrian Monument to this hero, seen in the round and at scale. On the broadest, compositional level this monument is designed as a kind of “circlet” raised in stone upon the brow of the Saucel Hill, graced with a heroic-scale equestrian statue of the Hero on a tall pedestal at its centre, with three subsidiary figures placed on the circlet’s rim, representing Sir Andrew Moray, Bishop Robert Wishart of Glasgow and James the Fifth High Steward of Scotland.