A historic Scottish castle that underwent a multimillion-pound refurbishment has beaten attractions including the Tower of London and the Houses of Parliament to be rated the UK’s favourite heritage attraction.

Stirling Castle was restored to its Renaissance finery at a cost of £12m and re-opened in August 2011 to bumper visitor numbers.

Now a survey of Which? Members has put the castle to the top of the UK's heritage attraction lists, as published in September's issue of Which? Travel.

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Parts of the castle were restored by a specialist team of craftspeople.

Morris & Spottiswood of Glasgow, specialists in fitting buildings out, were the main contractors for the painstaking restoration.

Livingston-based John Donaldson carved an oak replica of the Order of the Thistle, which was painted by MacKay Decorators, a Perth company with expertise in listed buildings.

Graciella Ainsworth of Edinburgh was subcontracted to advise on sculpture conservation and Cannon-MacInnes of Glasgow provided stained glass.

Embroidery was taken on by Malcolm Lochhead of Glasgow Caledonian University, and The Conservation Studio were responsible for furniture painting.

Stephen Duncan of Historic Scotland said: "It's fantastic to see the response by visitors who have visited the castle in their hundreds of thousands since the reopening of the palace and to be recognised as the UK's favourite heritage attraction is a huge honour and testament to the hard work of all the team."

(NE)