The Abbey Craig is the hill upon which the Wallace Monument

Wallace Monument

The National Wallace Monument is a tower standing on the summit of Abbey Craig, a hilltop near Stirling in Scotland. It commemorates Sir William Wallace, the 13th century Scottish hero....

 stands, at Causewayhead, just to the north of Stirling

Stirling

Stirling is a city and former ancient burgh in Scotland, and is at the heart of the wider Stirling council area. The city is clustered around a large fortress and medieval old-town beside the River Forth...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

.

The Abbey Craig is part of a complex quartz-dolerite

Quartz-dolerite

An intrusive rock, similar to dolerite, but with an excess of quartz. Dolerite is similar in composition to basalt, which is eruptive , and gabbro, which is plutonic. The differing crystal sizes are due to the different rate of cooling, basalt cools quickly and has a very fine structure, while...

 intrusion or sill

Sill (geology)

In geology, a sill is a tabular sheet intrusion that has intruded between older layers of sedimentary rock, beds of volcanic lava or tuff, or even along the direction of foliation in metamorphic rock. The term sill is synonymous with concordant intrusive sheet...

 within carboniferous

Carboniferous

The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Mya . The name is derived from the Latin word for coal, carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing"...

 strata, at the western edge of the Central Coal Field, known as the Stirling Sill

Stirling Sill

The Stirling Sill is an outcropping of a large quartz-dolerite intrusion or sill that underlies a large part of central Scotland, and may be contiguous at great depth. The sill is of very late Carboniferous age or more probably Permian, as it penetrates the coal measures, often in bedding planes...

. The quartz-dolerite, being much harder than the surrounding coal measures, has been exposed due to erosion, including by glaciation. The characteristic crag and tail

Crag and tail

A crag is a rocky hill or mountain, generally isolated from other high ground. Crags are formed when a glacier or ice sheet passes over an area that contains a particularly resistant rock formation...

 shape of the crag reflects this glacial shaping.

Craig, or crag, describes a post-glacial Crag and tail

Crag and tail

A crag is a rocky hill or mountain, generally isolated from other high ground. Crags are formed when a glacier or ice sheet passes over an area that contains a particularly resistant rock formation...

 landscape feature. The abbey

Abbey

An abbey is a Catholic monastery or convent, under the authority of an Abbot or an Abbess, who serves as the spiritual father or mother of the community.The term can also refer to an establishment which has long ceased to function as an abbey,...

 is Cambuskenneth Abbey

Cambuskenneth Abbey

Cambuskenneth Abbey is a ruined Augustinian monastery located on an area of land enclosed by a meander of the River Forth near Stirling in Scotland. The abbey is largely reduced to its foundations. The neighbouring modern village of Cambuskenneth is named after it.Cambuskenneth Abbey was founded...

, on the north bank of the River Forth

River Forth

The River Forth , long, is the major river draining the eastern part of the central belt of Scotland.The Forth rises in Loch Ard in the Trossachs, a mountainous area some west of Stirling...

, about 1 km to the south.