Spectacular new images woven into the rich tapestry of Scottish history

FOUR "stunningly beautiful" tapestries, which have taken a team of experts more than a decade to weave by hand, have been placed on the walls of Stirling Castle's Royal Palace as part of its £12 million refurbishment.

The artworks, which depict the hunting and capture of a unicorn, are the first of a series of seven being created for the Queen's Inner Hall, one of six apartments within the castle's palace block which are being returned to how experts believe they may have looked in the 1540s.

The hanging has been hailed as "a key moment" in the castle's 2m weaving project.

Visitors will be able to see the tapestries in their new home during a weekend of special celebrations on 4 and 5 June to mark the reopening of the palace.

The event, called Stirling Castle Presents - A Palace Fit For A Queen, will also feature 60 costumed performers, including a young Mary Queen of Scots, who lived in the palace as a child along with her mother, Mary of Guise.

At that time the Scottish royal family had around 100 tapestries to hang on the walls of their favourite residences, of which Stirling's palace was the newest.

Peter Buchanan, Stirling Castle project manager, said: "The tapestries are stunningly beautiful and will be one of the great attractions of the palace.

"It has taken years to weave them and to finally see them in their new home, the royal apartment for which they have been specially made, is a great experience."

The tapestries are new interpretations of The Hunt of the Unicorn series, which date from the 16th century and are in the Cloisters Museum at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Scottish royal collection also included a series depicting "the historie of the unicorne".

The tapestries are being woven by West Dean Tapestry Studio in a specially created studio at the castle and at the West Dean studio in West Sussex. Louise Martin, senior weaver at Stirling Castle, which attracts more than 370,000 visitors a year, said: "This is a very special moment. We started the first tapestry in 2001, so this is the climax of a decade of weaving.

"What is so wonderful is that visitors will be able to step back in time and see what a Scottish royal palace was like in its heyday, when the tapestries, furnishings, furniture and decorations were colourful and new."

The remarkable weaving project has already attracted tens of thousands of tourists to the castle.

The four completed tapestries include The Start of the Hunt, The Unicorn is Found, The Unicorn is Killed and Brought to the Castle, and The Unicorn in Captivity.

A fifth tapestry is nearing completion and will be cut from the loom in Stirling this summer before joining the others in the palace.

The last is due to be finished in 2013.Stirling's original unicorn tapestries are believed to have been bought by King James V and appear in every Scottish royal inventory from 1539 to 1578.

Stirling historian Craig Mair said tapestries were an integral part of medieval and renaissance interior decoration in the chambers, state-rooms and great hall of the Stuart monarchs.

He said: "Tapestries provided decoration and a lavish display of wealth as well as keeping out the cold and damp.

"They also contained many vibrant colours and gold threads which would shimmer in the candlelight, to give at least an illusion of much-needed warmth in the cold stone rooms.

"The other advantage was that they could also be rolled up and transported in the royal baggage train, fitting in with the semi-nomadic lifestyle of the court."