Category Archives: Scotland

Glasgow III – Glasgow Cathedral, Provand’s Lordship, and the Antonine Wall

We’ll finish with Glasgow by showcasing the really old.  The Glasgow Cathedral and nearby Provand’s Lordship are among the very few surviving buildings from Glasgow’s medieval period.  The Cathedral is the oldest building; Provand’s Lordship is the oldest house.  And the Antonine Wall?  Never heard of it?  We hadn’t either; it was the real northernmost wall (at least for awhile) that separated Roman Britain from those pesky Scots.

GLASGOW CATHEDRAL

The Glasgow Cathedral is a superb example of Scottish Gothic architecture, and the most complete medieval cathedral on the Scottish mainland.  The first picture below shows the Cathedral as it looked in 1820 (from a watercolor, “The Saving of the Cathedral”); the following picture shows how it looks today (the front towers seen in the watercolor were

demolished in 1840 as part of a grand restoration scheme that was never completed).

The history of the Cathedral begins with the construction of a small wooden church around 550 AD when St. Mungo started a religious community.  That structure was replaced by a stone church which was subsequently badly damaged by fire in 1136.  The walls of the nave in today’s church, up to the windows, are from the rebuilding that took place in the early 1200’s; the rest of the Cathedral was built in the mid 1200’s.  The Cathedral survived the Protestant Reformation relatively unscathed (as depicted in the first picture) not because the reforming mobs of 1560 were less zealous in Glasgow but because the organized trades of the city took up arms to protect it, the defenders outnumbering the attackers.  The title “cathedral” is now historic, dating from the period before the Scottish Reformation.

The cathedral interior is impressive, with a roof made mostly of wood.

Below are more views of the interior.

The many ceiling bosses of carved wood are all different, beautifully done, and colorful (and difficult to get in focus), as shown below.

There are lots of interesting carvings in nooks and crannies throughout the cathedral (see below).

Another fascinating feature is the lower church beneath the Cathedral.  The land on which the Cathedral was built slopes, which allowed a lower church containing a crypt to be built beneath the choir; the crypt contains the tomb of St. Mungo.  It’s a large area, and

beautiful in a very different way than the soaring upper Cathedral.  The stone bosses are also pretty cool, each one different.

Finally, there’s the beautiful Blackadder Aisle, built around 1500 on the site of  St Mungo’s original church and designed to be part of a transept that was never completed (it’s hard to tell from the introductory pictures, but the cathedral has no true transepts).  The beautiful,

stately, arching white ceiling is highlighted at intersections with very interesting and brightly painted carved stone bosses.

PROVAND’S LORDSHIP

Provand's Lordship, near the Glasgow CathedralThis house, the oldest in Glasgow, was built by (and near) the Glasgow Cathedral in 1471.  It likely reflects “the lifestyles of the rich and famous” for that time.  It was originally the home of one of the 32 canons who managed a part of the Cathedral’s vast diocese – in this case the land at Provan (the other 31 canons were similarly housed).  By the 1600’s it had become a private home; by the 1700’s, and for the next 200 years, it was used as an inn, with rooms on the upper floors and a wide range of shops on the ground floor.  A small extension housed the city’s hangman.  It’s a pretty cool place, all stone with massive, rough-hewn, low-hanging beams and fireplaces everywhere.  The entrance opens into the

kitchen – where it’s very obvious that cooking was not a big production!  And of course a

dining room.  The rooms upstairs are old-time, rustic gorgeous.  The room shown below belonged to a canon from 1501 – 1513; he was both a priest and a lawyer.  The room would have served as a living room, bedroom and office.

Other rooms are shown below.

Provand’s Lordship houses one of Scotland’s best collections of furniture from the 1600’s. The chairs below are examples.

Provand’s Lordship also had medieval stained glass windows (now obtained from elsewhere).  The windows below were from England in the 1600’s and commemorate marriages between notable families.

The window below shows 3 saints: St. Nicholas, St. Paul and St. Peter.  It was made in the Netherlands in the 1500’s; the trefoil and 2 quarterfoil panels at the top are from England, made in the 1300’s.

The windows below are from the 1300’s.  The left window has panels depicting an angel, St. John the Baptist (from France) and an unidentified female saint (from England).  The second window depicts an unidentified male saint (from England).  Strangely, there were no stained glass windows from Scotland.

 

THE  ANTONINE WALL

What?  Never heard of it?  Interesting how history does that to us.  Yet you’ve heard of Hadrian’s Wall, right?  That northern-most demarcation of Rome keeping those pesky Scots at bay?  Actually, that northern-most border was the Antonine Wall.

We discovered the little-publicized Antonine Wall when we visited a museum at the University of Glasgow; it’s a gorgeous university, as shown below.

Just for review, as noted in our Hadrian’s Wall post (Hadrian’s Wall), that wall was built in 122 AD; it was 73 miles long, went from coast to coast, and was built 15 – 20 feet tall from quarried stone (in the middle of nowhere), with 80 stone forts along its length.  Probably as a result of continued attacks from Location of Antonine Wallthe unconquered north, in AD 142 Hadrian’s successor Emperor Antoninus Pius ordered a new wall built about 70 miles further north of the existing wall.  Again these clever Romans somehow knew where the shortest distance would be, and the wall was built from the river Clyde just above present-day Glasgow to the Firth of Forth just west of present-day Edinburgh.  The wall was 39 miles long, about 13 feet high, and 16 feet wide; it took 12 years to complete.  It was built of turf and earth on a stone foundation.  Like Hadrian’s Wall it had a deep ditch on the north side and a military road on the south.  A wooden palisade is thought to have been on top.  It was protected by 17 forts with about 10The Antonine Wall and forts “fortlets”, very likely on (Roman) mile spacings.  In spite of the effort it took to build the wall, it was abandoned only 8 years after completion (162 AD), the garrisons being relocated back to Hadrian’s Wall.  Following a series of attacks in 197 AD, the emperor Septimius Severus arrived in Scotland in 208 to secure the frontier.  He ordered repairs and re-established legions at Antonine’s Wall (after which the wall also became known as the Severan Wall).  Only a few years later the wall was  abandoned for the second time and never fortified again.

Apparently the ruins are not much to see; the turf and wood wall have largely weathered away.  Still, the various legions that built the wall commemorated their finished construction and their victorious struggles with the natives (called the Caledonians) in decorative local limestone slabs, called “Distance Slabs”.  The slabs were set into stone frames along the length of the wall.  Dedicated to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, they identify the legion, the length of the wall they built, and with symbolic imagery they depict the might of the Roman army and the native population in defeat.  In the largest known slab (shown below), the inscription reads: “For the Emperor Caesar Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus Augustus Pius, Father of his Country, the Second Augustan Legion built this over a distance of 4652 paces.”

Other examples are shown below.

A number of stone statuary items from the bath houses and fort buildings attest to the Romans’ love of art even at their furthest outposts.

Other artifacts like coins and leather shoes were of course also plentiful.

That’s enough on Glasgow!  Next post is a change of pace, on England’s Lake District.

 

Glasgow II – Art Museums

Glasgow has 2 fabulous art museums, the Kelvingrove Art Gallery (and Museum) and the Burrell Collection from a wealthy shipping baron.

THE KELVINGROVE ART GALLERY

As you can see from the pictures below, the Kelvingrove is big!  To the point of overwhelming.  We spent a couple of days there.

The grand 100-yr-old Spanish Baroque building is sort of a condensed version of our Smithsonian.  It has a Spitfire fighter plane hanging from the ceiling, stuffed animals (elephants, giraffe, kangaroo, moose), the Mackintosh exhibits we showed in the last post, exhibits from ancient Egypt, “Scotland’s First Peoples”,  etc.  I’m going to show some of its amazing artwork, starting with Impressionists.  Below are different treatments of still life – it’s always fun to compare!  The first picture (alas, slightly out-of-focus – all of the lighting was really dim!) is by Francois Bonvin, a mostly self-taught French painter with whom I was unfamiliar.  The rest are by artists we all know.

Discovering a “new” (to us) artist whose work we enjoy is always a special treat, and the Kelvingrove held several nice surprises hidden among the “masters”; maybe we should know these artists, but don’t?  Henri Le Sidaner, Othon Friesz, Armand Guillaumin?    Pictures of some of the paintings are shown below, pretty much arranged chronologically.

Another day and a change of pace – Flemish and Dutch Masters.  What a treat!  Below is a collaboration between Rubens and Brueghel (Rubens, of course, did the nudes).

Although we really like this period of art, we haven’t been very good students; there are a lot of painters here that we aren’t familiar with – like Pickenoy, below.

Another unfamiliar artist was the landscape painter Jan van Goyen; he was very poor, but became very influential.  In order to sell his paintings cheaply, he painted thinly and quickly with a limited palette of inexpensive pigments, sometimes churning out a painting a day.  His limited tonal range ended up being widely copied.  Impressive!

Yet another artist new to us was Jacob van Es.  Not much is known about this guy, but his paintings were in many collections of the times – Rubens owned two of his paintings.

OK, time for somebody we do know!  Rembrandt’s painting of his wife, pregnant with their first child, is shown below.  She’s dressed as Flora, Roman Goddess of flowers.  It’s fabulous.

Two other artists we weren’t familiar with are Egbert van der Poel and Willem Kalf; their paintings are shown below.  That last picture is by David Teniers the Younger; we didn’t know him either, but apparently he was considered one of the greatest painters in Europe

in his day, and hundreds of his pictures are in the museums of major cities.  Live and learn!

We discovered Rachel Ruysch earlier in our travels, and we consistently find her work in major cities.  She’s the daughter of a botanist (who had an insect collection and was, himself, an amateur painter); the rest, as they say, is history.  She was selling her still-life

paintings at the age of 18, and enjoyed great fame and reputation in her lifetime.

The last picture we’ll show from the Kelvingrove is one they’re very proud of.  Spoiler alert, it’s a bit more modern than the ones I’ve been showing you!  I’m sure you’re familiar with

it.  It’s a big painting, and very impressive.

THE BURRELL COLLECTION

Sir William Burrell was a Glaswegian shipping magnate who collected every conceivable form of art – including fireplaces and doorways.  The collection is incredible; the stunning amount of beauty would put most museums to shame, and it was hard to decide what to photograph.  The collection includes medieval The Warwick Vase, 100-200 AD, found in Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli; reconstructedart (stained glass, tapestries), Egyptian, Islamic and Chinese art, French Impressionist paintings, sculpture, armor, architecture, furniture….  Be prepared for ecclectic!  So where to start, eh?  How about this vase, found in Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli, from 100-200 AD (restoration in the 1700’s).  Fill it with wine and take a bath?

Next let’s visit one of my addictions, stained glass.  The Burrell Collection has over 700

medieval stained glass panels from across Europe, one of the greatest collections in the 3 panels from a French cathedral, ~1280world.  The 3 panels shown on the left came from a French cathedral from about 1280 (!), showing a wedding party in the center, with kitchen scenes above and below that referenced the trade guild that paid for the window.  The only paint on the glass is a brown metal oxide that defines the faces, hair and folds of the clothes.  The individual pieces of colored glass are small, and therefore the many lead canes holding them together made the panels strong.  There are few restorations, and the window looks almost exactly like it did 750 years ago.

Below are a few more really old panels.

The panels that follow are still from the 1400’s, although the late 1400’s.  In the first picture below, the floor pattern and the L-shaped table create good perspective.  Details of

the faces, clothes and food were added using metal oxide paint.  The yellow hair and musical instruments were painted on the glass using silver stain.  Below are a few more glass panels, from the early 1500’s.

We’ll end this medieval glass section with 3 (composite) windows.

We’re switching now to tapestries, and then embroidered clothes.  The pictures below are just two of many very impressive tapestries.   Both are wool and silk.  Gorgeous, aren’t they?

The early 1600’s were a period of peace and prosperity in Britain, and a time when aristocrats used clothing to flaunt their wealth.  Linen and silk garments were richly decorated with silk, silver, and gold threads – as you can see below.

The last set of pictures shows a “petticoat”.  It’s a lot of cloth, as you’ll notice below!  Then

again, dress fashion in the 1600’s was designed to display a lot of cloth.  The museum states that the prominent placing of thistles (Scottish emblem) at the top of the embroidered border suggests it was created for the wife of King James VI (of Scotland; alias James I of Great Britain – see previous post “Stirling Castle” for James’ history).

As mentioned earlier, there are fireplaces and doorways in the collection ….

There’s Burrell’s dining room, where the walls are carved wood.

Statues of course – here are some bronzes from Rodin –

And the pottery!  It was fabulous stuff.  I’ll just show a bit of old Chinese pottery (and some carved jade), shown below.

The pottery below is porcelain from China’s Qing Dynasty, Kangxi period (1662 – 1722) – with the exception of the last item that’s carved ivory.

There were of course the high-tech weapons of the middle ages ….

And now the paintings!  Oh my!  What a collection!  There are over 600 paintings in the Burrell collection.  Considering the length of this post, you’ll be relieved to know I won’t show them all.  The paintings from earlier centuries are sometimes from a famous painter’s workshop rather than from the artist himself, as illustrated by the first painting below.  Many others are from the masters themselves; the Bellini (!) is exquisite, as is the painting by Giovanni Battista Moroni, one of the great portrait painters (Italian) in the

Late Renaissance period.  I’ve separated out paintings from my favorite period, the masters of the 1600’s, shown below.

One of the strengths of this collection is French Impression painters, one of our favorite periods.  Some examples below.

 

We’ll finish this oh-so-long post with paintings by Degas.  The Burrell has one of the finest Degas collections in Europe, with 22 paintings, pastels and drawings.  The pictures below are of his dancers, all but the first being pastels – and that picture is one of Degas’ first paintings of the ballet.

Well, we generally exhaust the patience of anyone who accompanies us to a museum.  If any of you have made it aaall the way through this post, our congratulations!

The next post (and last on Glasgow) is on Glasgow’s churches.

Glasgow I, The City

Glasgow lives in the shadow of its royal, history-ladened neighbor, Edinburgh (post Edinburgh II).  However, we liked Glasgow better, for several reasons:

  • Glasgow is a “real”city –  it’s not a big tourist destination, so you won’t find costumed sales folk hawking tours, and souvenir shops on every corner.
  • the architecture is fascinating – Victorian, playful facades, visionary Art Nouveau, and modern riffs off the latter.
  • There’s a lot of the incredible art and architecture of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his  less-well-known wife, Margaret MacDonald.
  • And the museums aren’t bad either!

Let’s begin with some pictures of the streets and buildings of this interesting city.  Glasgow is a port city;  in its heyday (1800’s) it was a wealthy industrial powerhouse and Europe’s 6th biggest city.  Going into the 1900’s, while the rest of the UK was enthralled with Victorianism, working-class Glasgow veered into the modern, incorporating aspects of Minimalism, Art Nouveau, and even some Asian influence.  Today it’s an intriguing city that doesn’t take itself too seriously.  For example, look at the neoclassical Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art in the first picture below, with its Grecian columns; notice that the

equestrian statue (far left) sports a guy wearing an orange road hazard cone, and that the building’s mirrored mosaic is anything but neoclassical!  Or how about this building with the funky ironwork, from Glasgow’s days of iron forges?  Here, Glaswegians call sanded and polished concrete “Glasgow marble”.  There’s a lot of quirk and fun here.  More of the city is shown below.  OK, “more” is a lot of pictures, but then again the city is fascinating!

Even better, most of these buildings are covered with very artsy detail.  It pays to look up as you walk – a bit hazardous, but worth it; as shown below, the building facades are full of sculptures and friezes.

The people have fun too – one often encounters parties, sometimes bizarre, going on.

Not to mention, of course, the pervasive and wonderful Scotch bars!

It’s time for a little (a very little) art history.  In the late 1800’s a backlash against industrialization led to the “Arts and Crafts” movement, featuring hand-made objects with simple designs from nature.  With the new century approaching there was a creative energy for new styles for the new age.  In painting, one expression of new style was Impressionism.  In the design world the new style was “Art Nouveau”, which extended the Arts and Crafts emphasis on nature, incorporating  female figures and embracing modern manufacturing technologies to create flowing, linear, and abstract forms.

In Glasgow during this time, the Glasgow School of Art became one of the most successful art schools in the UK, with one of its students, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, winning many awards.  Staff and students developed their own approach to Art Nouveau, known as the “Glasgow Style”, that incorporated stylized, linear motifs based on nature.  A decade after Mackintosh graduated he was given a commission to build a new home for the Glasgow School of Art, with the freedom to design every detail.  It’s a pinnacle of artistic and architectural achievement.  A model is shown in the first picture below; well, I was

underwhelmed at first look, but this is a 1909 building, remember, and much here is actually new for the times.  The over-riding theme is ‘letting in the light’.  As you can see in the picture on the right, there are protruding iron arms at the base of the multi-paned windows with stylized roses at their ends (a Mackintosh trademark).  The arms were a new invention that reinforced those very large, fragile glass windows and allowed natural light to pour into the studios.  Throughout the building the lines are Modernist, with Asian

influences and Art Nouveau flourishes; examples shown above.  Alas, it’s a working school, without free access; the pictures above are pictures of pictures.  I can, however, show you tea rooms that Mackintosh designed.

When in 1875 a tea dealer placed table and chair in his shop and sold cups of freshly brewed tea, the tea room was born.  The idea quickly caught on.  Many city-center buildings were converted to tea rooms for meeting, relaxing and doing business – and they were a much better option than a bar for unescorted women.  The face of Glasgow tea rooms was Miss Cranston, who owned 4 of the largest; she favored modern design and unique decoration.  In 1896 Mackintosh was asked to design murals for one of her tea rooms, and his daring designs became a public talking point.  From 1900 on he was the sole designer of every aspect of her tea rooms.  1900 also marked Charles Mackintosh’s marriage to Margaret Macdonald, another graduate of the Glasgow School of Art, and together they collaborated on interior designs and artwork.  The pictures below are from

the “Ladies’ Luncheon Room” that Charles designed in 1900 (now in a museum); pay particular attention to the decorative panel that he did with Margaret (mostly Margaret’s style).  I think it’s fascinating – made with oil-painted gesso plaster on burlap and scrim, twine, glass beads, thread, mother-of-pearl & tin leaf.  There is more art that came from the tea room, of course; the related panel shown below, and beaten tin panels shown

 

just above.  In “The Dew”, the first picture above, Margaret drew the women’s hair, clothes and plant forms as one continuous looped line, broken only by small cascading circles and droplets – the title’s “Dew”.  Nice.

Mackintosh's Willow Tea Rooms, todayOur final look at a Mackintosh tea room is “The Willow TeaRooms and Gift Shop”.  These rooms are not in a museum – they constitute a 1903 Mackintosh building that is still serving food and tea to the public.  Below are pictures of these rooms as they looked in 1905;

and here is how those first two rooms above – the Front (ladies’) and Back (men’s) rooms – look today.

That last archival picture from 1905 (3rd picture, above) shows the “Room de Luxe” that overlooked the street below; it was the more extravagant and exclusive ladies’ room – a “fantasy for afternoon tea”.  Below is how it looks today; the chairs are reproductions, but

the decoration is original.  It really is exquisite – I don’t think I captured it so well – but it is missing at least one of its artistic highlights, one of Margaret Mackintosh’s more famous works, a gesso panel inspired by a sonnet (Rossetti’s O Ye, all ye that walk in Willow Wood).  It’s currently in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery that we’ll visit in the next post, but I’ll include it here where it belongs.  I think it’s gorgeous.  The story of Willowwood

is as follows:  A man sits by a well in Willowwood.  As he looks into the green waters, his reflection changes into that of his dead beloved.  As his beloved’s gray image fades, he scoops at the water with his hand to drink and grieves over his loss.

One last topic – the Tenement House.  Urban working-class Glaswegians lived in tenements, multi-storied flats often consisting of just 2 rooms and a shared outhouse. It wasn’t until the mid-1800’s that landlords were finally required by law to supply water to the houses.  The Tenement House was built in 1892 and was designed for the slightly better-off, with 4 rooms and the added luxury of its own toilet.  In 1911 a Miss Townsend

and her mother moved in, and for 64 years she changed nothing.  When Miss Townsend died, a relative came to collect a set of chairs from the will, and “felt like Pip on witnessing the room of Miss Havisham in Dickens’ Great Expectations“.  Ultimately the National Trust of Scotland bought this otherwise ordinary row home as a time-warp display of life back then.  Alas, photos were not allowed; these pictures come from their booklet.

Heating and cooking were done with coal, and the all-purpose kitchen shared laundry duties – notice the wringer on the sink in the first picture below.   Clothes were

dried overhead in this, the warmest room.  Ironing was done on the kitchen table using the flatirons heated on the range, as shown above.  Larger laundry loads were washed in the communal wash house outside.

That’s enough for now, don’t you think?  Next post: Glasgow II, Kelvingrove Art Gallery.

 

Isle of Harris

The “Isle of Harris” is a misnomer; it’s not really its own island.  This largest of the Outer Hebrides Islands is actually called Lewis and Harris, one island, Harris being the southern part.  But what the hey, let’s go with convention and call it the Isle of Harris.  We’re going there in part for the scenery and in part because that’s where they weave the famous Harris Tweed – we’re hoping to buy some.  Sports coats and hoodies, here we come!

We mentioned the Lewis part of the island previously – remember the Lewis Chessmen (post of Edinburgh I)?

Coming from the mountains of the Isle of Skye, we were unprepared for the Isle of Harris.  It is so different!  Below are pictures of the coastline as we approached the city of Harris.

The mountains are anything but craggy; they’re weathered, with a very speckled appearance.  It does not look like good farm land!  As we travel inland, it’s all the same; mostly rock, with a little bit of heather and grass thrown in for contrast.

Layers of peat under that grassActually, at least in spots it’s not all solid rock underfoot.  Some exposed areas show deep layers of peat.

This southern part of Harris has a number of gorgeous unspoiled beaches, one of them shown below.  I think it’s pretty cool to see beach, sea and mountains all in the same view!  The beach goes on forever, and we practically have it all to ourselves.

Also in southern Harris is the medieval church Tur Chliamain (St. Clements Church).  The

church was built around 1520 by the MacLeod clan chiefs of Dunvegan and Harris as their future burial place.  Like most things that old, it’s not exactly the original structure.  The church fell into ruin after the Protestant Reformation of 1560; it was rebuilt 200 years later by a MacLeod, and restored again in 1873.  Still, it’s believably old, and beautiful in its simplicity, as shown in the first two figures below.

The church contains a number of tombs of important MacLeod chiefs outfitted in their battle armor.  The bottom left picture (above) shows the tomb of Alasdair MacLeod, 8th Chief of the MacLeods, who personally commissioned his tomb and its carvings and was buried here around 1545.  The last picture above shows 4 stones with sword carvings dating from the 1400’s and 1500’s that once marked the burial places for members of Clan MacLeod.  The swords represented strength and power.

In the pictures below you can see how picturesque this place can be, as well as to show that there are a few areas that aren’t covered by stones.

The northern part of Harris is more mountainous, as shown below.

The (very) small village of Arnol on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis used to be a thriving township with 40 crofts; now there are far fewer.  Crofts were plots of land rented to tenant farmers in the early 1700’s; rents were high, tenant rights were non-existent, and most were barely making it.  More than a century later their land was given to them via special legislation.  Here on Lewis the houses on a croft are called blackhouses, and Arnol has a lot of them – but most are deserted ruins.  One that has been preserved is now a state-owned Blackhouse Museum, shown below.  Alas it’s closed, but it is still interesting!  It’s huge!  But the doors are small – even Ginger would have to stoop to enter.

There’s an interesting attached circular “beehive” structure in the back; maybe a kitchen?  The next-to-last picture shows how small the beehive door is.  That hole in the roof just above Ginger’s head must be some sort of exhaust, unusual in these structures.  Finally, in the back there is a decent supply of drying peat logs.  A historical sign says that the peat fire was the center of family life in a croft and was never allowed to go out.  The smoke rising into and through the roof had benefits: it killed bugs, and when the roof was replaced, the smoke-ladened thatch made excellent fertilizer for the fields.

A coo, working hard to keep the grass lowNearby we spot another coo.  Isn’t she cute??

Further down the road we encounter the larger Gearrannan Blackhouse Village, consisting of 9 restored traditional thatched cottages.  The good news is that they’re open!  The bad news is that most of them are self-catered apartments for rent, not for sight-seeing.  However, the oldest blackhouse is a museum, and a chance to learn

more.  The low profile and insulating thatch of these houses were designed for the Hebrides weather, and for 300 years people eked out a living here; they paid their rent or were quickly evicted if they didn’t.  When the crofters were given their land in 1886, their approach to the houses – now theirs! – changed.  The blackhouses in this village date back only to those late 1800s (they seem much older).  Of note, these particular cottages were continuously lived in until 1974, when the last few elderly residents decided they no longer wanted to put up with the annual maintenance of thatch and stonework.Model of blackhouse interior

In earlier years the blackhouse  accommodated livestock as well as people.  People lived at one end and the animals lived at the other with a partition between them (the livestock would also add to the warmth of the house).  A model of such a blackhouse was in the museum and was pretty cool.  The central room contained the kitchen.

On to something different!  For those who do not know about the famous Harris tweed, here’s a little history.  For centuries the islanders of the Outer Hebrides wove cloth by hand, and by the late 1700’s cloth production was a stable industry for crofters.  With the industrial revolution, mainland manufacturers turned to mechanization, but not the Outer Hebrides, where the high-quality handmade fabric was ideal for protection from their cold, wet climate.  Because the cloth was hard-wearing and water resistant, a Countess of a north Harris estate had clothes made in the family tartan for her staff.  She was quick to see that the jackets would be ideal attire for the pursuit of country sports and the outdoor lifestyle that was prevalent among the landed gentry and aristocracy.  With promotion, it soon became the fabric of choice for the wealthy, and the rest is history.  Today, to be called Harris Tweed, the cloth must be made from pure virgin wool dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides, hand woven on a treadle loom by the islanders at their homes in the Outer Hebrides, and finished in the Outer Hebrides.  Every 50 yards of Harris Tweed are checked by an inspector from the Harris Tweed Authority before being stamped for approval.  As we drive around Harris and Lewis, we spot a sign from a weaver welcoming guests.  He’s in a small shed adjacent to his house.  Heating is by peat fire.  The encounter

was fascinating.  The treadle loom looks its age, with gears and many moving parts working in the best Rube Goldberg fashion, spinning and turning and clattering away.  The work seems slow and tedious; no wonder the weaver wanted company.  Alas, the particular cloth he was weaving was a single (vibrant!) color, and not our taste.

Those familiar with Harris Tweed know that one of their distinguishing characteristics is the use of a complex blend of colors.  What looks like a gray or brown jacket could easily have 20 or so colors in it, including deep red, purple, rusty orange, green, etc.  Clothes from Harris Tweed are amazing.  Take a look at that brown sport coat I bought.

On closer inspection, the cloth seems to have every color in it except brown!  Isn’t that cool?  We will be sooooo stylish in our dotage.

Callanish StonesOur last topic is the amazing Callanish (Gaelic: Calanais) Stones on the west coast of Lewis.  That aerial view to the left is a picture I took of a postcard.  I would describe the site as a low ridge on which there is an arrangement of standing stones placed in a pattern of a cross, with the long arms oriented north-south, encompassing a central stone circle.  Yeah, but that kinda misses the fact that they are 5000 years old and likely a focus for prehistoric religious activity for at least 1500 years (!).   The ritual landscape was wider than this site; within a radius of 3 miles are 12 other standing-stone sites, a couple of them just visible from here.  The stones were erected in the late Neolithic era, starting around

2900 BC (just for perspective, the earliest known Egyptian pyramids were started about 300 years later, around 2630 BC).  Up close, these silent vigil stones are impressive in

their massive size, ethereal beauty and mysterious function.  The purpose of the site is not known, although there are a number of folklore, religious and astronomical theories (petrified giants who would not convert to Christianity, a prehistoric lunar observatory …).  Note in the next-to-last picture how big those suckers are compared to Ginger!  That largest central monolith weighs about 7 tons (requiring a Herculean effort to transport, position and erect) and has an almost perfect north-south alignment.  The chambered tomb, or what’s left of it as shown in the last picture, was built somewhat later than the stone circle and contained ceramic pots holding cremated bodies dating between 2000 and 1700 BC.  Somewhere between 1500-1000 BC the complex fell out of use and was despoiled by later Bronze Age farmers.

Although the stones are stunning – almost haunting – it is not clear to me why our Neolithic people chose this particular site; the area is pretty, as shown below, but nothing

extraordinary.  Of course this is 5000 years later …..  I have to think these remarkable monuments from our ancient European ancestors attest to their – and humankind’s – need to better understand the world and their place in it.  We’re still asking those questions, aren’t we.

The Isle of HarrisThis is a last shot of the Isle of Harris.  It is a pretty place.  The next set of posts, and the last from bonny Scotland, will be from Glasgow with its fabulous Mackintoshes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Isle of Skye IV – Strathaird and Sleat Peninsulas

This post is a brief tour of the southern part of the Isle of Skye. I don’t have any stories to tell about the area, so I’ll just show you some pretty “drive-by” pictures. We’ll first make a quick visit to the Sleat Peninsula, then drive to Elgol (at the end of the Straithaird Peninsula) to view the Cuillin Hills from the other (east) side.  Previously we had visited these hills from the west (Isle of Skye II – Fairy Glen, Dunvegan, and the Cuillin Hills).

View of the mainland from the Sleat PeninsulaSleat is mostly flat, but it has great views across the water to the mainland (picture on the left). The series of pictures below capture Sleat nicely. They were taken from a single location, although the first picture was taken on a different day than the rest.

 

The pictures below are of the Cuillin Hills again, but this time from the eastern side.

On our way back we come across “Cill Chriosd” (Christ’s Church), a ruined parish church.

It’s small and simple, but the ruins are old.  Written records announcing the replacement of a chaplain for the church date back to 1505.  It’s interesting to compare these simple rural structures with the overwhelming, grand cathedrals of the cities, many of them built even before this parish church.  The impressive cathedrals are a testament to what humankind can achieve, given a purpose; these parish churches, like the beautiful Gallarus Oratory in Ireland (Southwest Ireland Tour III – Ancient Christianity), to me question what that purpose was.  Really, they’re both beautiful in their own way.

Have I mentioned that it rains a lot in Scotland? But there is an upside, as you’ll see in the pictures below, taken on this rainy day – the hills come alive with waterfalls!

Below are two final pictures as we leave the Isle of Skye.  I hope you enjoyed this beautiful island as much as we did!

Next post – the Isle of Harris (and Harris Tweed).

Isle of Skye III – Return to the Quiraing

Because that bit of the Quiraing hike we took in the Skye I post was pretty fabulous (Isle of Skye I – The Trotternish Peninsula), I’m off to do the entire loop hike, expecting great things.  However, the trail has some pretty tough parts as we discovered in Round I, so Ginger is having none of this adventure and is opting for R&R.

Sgùrr nan Gillean in the morningThis morning I’m greeted by the Sgùrr nan Gillean peak looking quite spiffy.  It would be fun to climb that beast, but not this trip; I kinda doubt it’s a day hike, plus there would be mutiny.

The trip back to the Trotternish Peninsula is picturesque, with views of Raasay Island and behind it the mainland (below).

Here we are, and off I go.  You’ll perhaps recall this stunning scenery that one sees immediately at the trail start.  No long walk to the pretty parts here!

I want you to remember that long wall of cliff-face rock off to the left in the images above.  It’s impressive, but there is more to the story that I’ll come back to later.  The view ahead is gorgeous, but the view to the right is dazzling, as you may recall.

Those mountains are the Trotternish Ridge, receding into the distance.  OK, time for new territory!  I’m now where no Warner has gone before, making it to The Prison (many of the

rock formations have names).  Now over the ridge – and it’s beautiful.  That’s probably the

Outer Hebrides (islands) there in the distance, which we will be visiting.  The view on the left is all rock cliff, imposingly close, as shown below.  That thin vertical rock formation in

Narrow trail with crumbled edgethe first picture above is called “The Needle”.  As you can see in the other two pictures, we’re following the cliff wall to new mini-mountains up ahead.  The trail is easy enough but it’s narrow, and occasionally when the hillside is quite steep, the downhill edges of the trail become a bit unstable.  The trail shown in the left picture is less than a foot wide; walking across it is not unlike walking a gymnast’s balance beam, with consequences for slipping off.

The trail continues counter-clockwise around the rock cliff, and I’m in the shadow of that cliff surrounded by a jumbled but interesting terrain – and a nice spot for a lunch break.

The trial rounds the bend and starts steeply up – below is rock cliff, above is grassy slope.  Then, Voila! – I’m through a notch, and turning left I’m at the base of a huge ridge.

Really it’s more like a very long sloping plateau; this is where the trail starts to loop back.  The trail heads to the top of the cliff and continues along the cliff edge.  Before long I reach a spot where I can look down and see where I ate lunch.  From here, the combination of mountain, lake, sea, island and rock create views that are amazing, as shown in the first two pictures below.  They were taken while standing in the same spot, the second one

turned 90°.  Wish I had taken the 360!  Even better, the higher you hike up that sloping plateau, the more awesome the views become (last picture above).

Near the top of the sloping plateau, looking back downI love this picture!  The view is fabulous, but it also helps you appreciate the huge “sloping plateau” I’m on, which is very much like one to the far right in this picture, but much bigger.

A surprising observation is that, in spite of the plateau’s steep slope and the lack of rain today, the ground is a marsh, even near the top!  I’m trying to walk on clumps of grass to keep my feet dry.  If the ground is usually that wet, it might help explain the relatively low diversity of plant life.

View from the topI’ve finally reached the top; this high up, there’s a commanding view, shown on the left.

There’s not much of a trail anymore.  As I continue along the edge of the cliff, I’m surprised to discover that I’m not on the cliff I thought I was on.  In front of and some distance below me is a secluded green plateau that’s hidden from the first part of the trail by vertical rocky projections.  Those projections are the back side of the long rock cliff the trail followed at the beginning of this hike – it’s a cliff in front of the cliff I’m on!  The secluded plateau is called “The Table”, and I discover later that

“Quiraing” is from Gaelic (“cuith raing”) meaning “a pillared enclosure”.  It is that!  I’d like a better picture of the Table, but the ground slopes down ever more steeply toward the cliff edge.  So, discretion being the better part of valor, I’ll have to be satisfied with the pictures above.  Besides, Ginger would kill me if I slipped over the edge!

It’s pretty up here, as shown below.  The two hikers in the first picture below should

provide some perspective.  Distance and height are greater than they seem.

Finally, a last view from on high, looking down the Trotternish Ridge.  Impressive, isn’t it?  A spectacular finish to a spectacular hike.  That last picture shows the trailhead parking

lot at the far right.  Still a ways to go, bushwhacking down the mountainside.

Hope you enjoyed this long description of the Quiraing Loop.  As you can tell, I certainly did.

Next post: Isle of Skye IV, Strath and the Sleat Peninsula

 

Isle of Skye II – Fairy Glen, Dunvegan, and the Cuillin Hills

FAIRY GLEN

We’re off to explore some of the Dunvegan Peninsula, but first we’ll detour to the Fairy Glen that we’ve heard about.  As we find out, it’s not so easy to find those fairies!  We’ve driven Waterfall on adjacent hills near Fairy Glento a rural setting, and after traveling back and forth on a narrow winding road devoid of signs or parking lots, we decide that two cars parked at the edge of the road must mark the spot, and off we hike up some hills.  Behind us in the distance is a pretty impressive waterfall!

Scrambling up through ferns The Fairy Glen coming into sightand scrub trees, we begin to see a unique landscape of furrowed conical hills.  The glen itself is a small secluded area – fitting for small fairies, right?  It has a rocky pinnacle that will provide an overview, so up I go.  The scramble is a bit precarious, with edges on both sides, and Ginger decides to explore from below.

Well, climbing the pinnacle was fun, and the textured hills are interesting, but I don’t

see any fairies, alas.  Ginger is in the glen below, still looking for fairies while waiting for me to come down.

Based on what we saw in New Zealand, I believe the interesting texture on the hills is nothing more than years of sheep walking more or less horizontally across the hills.

DUNVEGAN

Share the roadNow on to the Dunvegan Peninsula!  The roads here – like many of those on Skye – are one lane, making driving more interesting.  Usually the roads are paved, but not always.  And as shown in this image, I think “traffic jam” on this island means nose to butt sheep on the road.

The Dunvegan Peninsula doesn’t have the bigger hills, but it’s pretty enough, as shown below.  We’re off to hike to the Coral

Beaches.  That’s the name, but in reality this is just UK wistful thinking; coral isn’t quite right (have you heard of the coral reefs of Scotland?  No?  Truly, their closest thing here to a tropical fish is called a “herring”).  As you can see below, the beach is distinctively white,

and indeed attractive, but it’s actually composed of white shell and calcified seaweed.  We hike further to an overview of Lovaig Bay, but the most interesting thing is simply the abandoned wall shown below.  Whatever it contained is no longer there, but the wall itself

is beautifully constructed.  Returning home, we pass Dunvegan Castle, home of the MacLeod clan, and continuously occupied by them for 800 years.

THE CUILLIN HILLS

On the road to the Cuillin HillsWe’ve relocated further south to be near the Cuillin Hills, shown here off in the distance.  Notice that these “hills” are on the big side.  They’re only about 3000 ft high, but they’re as craggy and jagged as any alpine range.  They dominate the skyline of most of Skye.  I’d say they’re at least mini-mountains, yes?  Can’t wait to go climb one.

We’re staying at the Sligachan Hotel, a 100-yr old hotel that is a haven for hikers.  Other than a very impressive view of some of the hills, there’s not much here – it’s pretty isolated.  Below are two views from outside the hotel – not too shabby.

Other views below.

Today we’re off to climb Coire Lagan, a hike from the south side of the Cuillin Hills.  Another view of Cuillin Hills“Coire” is a Scottish (Gaelic) name for a cirque, an amphitheater-like basin gouged from a mountain by glaciers – see the first picture of the Cuillins a couple pictures above – the Sgùrr nan Gillean peak.  To get to Coire Lagan we have to circle around the Cuillins, enjoying the views of the mini-mountains such as those shown here.

Our hike starts at a pretty point on a beach, the first picture below.  Actually, we’ve already

hiked up a pretty steep hill to get to this vantage point.  Where we’re going is Coire Lagan, the right picture (above); notice in that picture that the trail is tough – it’s uneven and laced with protruding rocks; you really have to watch where you put your feet.  Below are

looks back out to sea, one with Ginger chugging along.  The only sign of life, other than us, is a single sheep in this wide expanse.  The views keep getting better as the trail goes

unrelentingly up.  The hike approaching Coire Lagan is shown below.  Notice how quickly the sky changes from overcast to sunny!  This is Scotland, and the weather can turn on a

dime.  Also note there is a rock wall up ahead that’s going to have to be climbed!  The last picture above shows another sign of life, a deer.  Unlike the US, they are not prevalent here.

The trail has been a lot steeper than it looks in the images above; perhaps the first picture below gives a better perspective.  Now we have to scramble up that rock wall, and it too is

going to be a lot harder than it looks from that last picture above.  Ginger decides she will wait at the base and let me tell her about what I see (it hasn’t been an easy hike!).  I’m hoping there will be a small but beautiful lake at the cirque base, which is usually the case.  Water sluicing down says there should be.  And there is, although it’s quite small and a bit

disappointing.  Still, it’s pretty enough.  The view from up here is quite a window on the world.  It feels like being half-way up to the space station, even though I know I’m just a

few thousand feet high.  One last look, and then back we go.  Ginger is really tired, but is

still enjoying the view back down, with a setting sun.

The Cuillin Hills, driving home, are pretty in this light, as shown below.

This last shot is of Sgùrr nan Gillean back at our Sligachan Hotel.

Our next post will feature a return visit to the beautiful Quirang.  The little piece of it that we saw in the last post was just too outrageously gorgeous not to revisit for the full loop hike.

 

 

 

Isle of Skye I – The Trotternish Peninsula

ISLE OF SKYE

The word “skye” means “cloudy” in Old Norse, and for those not familiar with Old Norse, this island is also fondly known as “The Misty Isle”.  We did experience its namesake conditions, but we were lucky; the weather was good most of the time.  The island is gorgeous, atmospheric and dramatic, with stark mini-mountains dotting the landscape.  Although the island is large, the shoreline has many lobes that jut out into the sea; no spot is more than 5 miles from a beach.  Even better, with the mountainous mainland nearby (previous post), and a number of small islands scattered offshore, views off to sea are pretty awesome.  Below are pictures from our drive into Skye.

That last picture is the view from our B&B; off in the distance is the Old Man of Storr; we’ll visit it tomorrow.

THE TROTTERNISH PENINSULA

We’re going to do a circuit around one of the island’s loops, the Trotternish Peninsula, which sports a rugged, unique landscape formed by massive landslides thousands of years ago.  Our first stop is The Storr, the highest Storr, and the Old Man - on a sunny day(2400 ft) mini-mountain on this peninsula, anchoring the southern end of the Trotternish Ridge.  In particular we’re visiting the Old Man of Storr, that little spike of rock on the right side of this picture.  During the landslides, the Old Man landed on its end; after much weathering it’s still a 160 ft high vertical chunk of stone.  This picture of the Storr, by the way, is from a different day that was sunny.  Today it’s overcast and gloomy, as you can see in the pictures below.  However, even in these misty

clouds The Storr is a strikingly beautiful sight – and The Old Man is pretty impressive.

Traveling further, we are treated to beautiful views that combine the sea, off-shore islands and mainland.  The mountains behind us aren’t bad either.

A bit further we come to ruins of an old tannery (below), abandoned during the Highland Clearances that began in the 1800’s; many residents were forced off the island by aristocratic landowners who wanted more room for their livestock.  Nearby is Kilt Rock, a 200 ft cliff; its vertical lava columns look like pleats on a skirt, and paired with those horizontal striations, it resembles a kilt.  There’s also the spectacular Mealt Waterfall doing its lemming thing off the cliff.  The views are awesome.

For a change of pace, we dip down to stroll on the beach at Staffin Bay.  It’s a pretty place.

Next we take an inland road to Quirang, a name from the Gaelic for “pillared enclosure”.  The road rises steeply, and we’re now at the upper end of the Trotternish Ridge.  The view is stunning, and we decide to investigate further by hiking the trail that starts from the road.  The trail is a loop, about 6 miles long but with 1400 feet of climb, and we’re not

at all sure we’ll do it all, since time (sunlight) and effort are an issue.  We think we’ll go at least to that center rock formation in the right image (above), called “The Prison”, and look over the edge to see what we can see.  As we walk, the views to our right become

increasingly stunning, as shown above.  Alas, we will not make it to The Prison.  It’s not an easy trail.  From the first and last pictures just above, you will note that we’re on a really, really steep hillside – sometimes disconcertingly steep.  Worse, parts of the trail are quite difficult to navigate, particularly where the water flowing from those waterfalls cuts though the trail, requiring a transition from hiking to (wet) rock climbing over a crevice.

Those traverses are tough, and after doing the first one, Ginger decides she has had enough and heads back.  I decide to push on to The Prison, but after awhile I realize it’s further than it looks, and I too turn back.  The view going back is just spectacular, as you can see below.  Note to self – do this loop hike another day!   It’s too pretty to miss!

Near the tip of the peninsula are the crumbling remains of Duntulm Castle (below), built in the 1300’s and 1400’s when the area was subject to feuds between rival MacLeod and

MacDonald clans.  In the 1600’s the castle was the seat of the chiefs of Clan MacDonald.  It was abandoned in 1732 when the MacDonalds built a new castle further south on Skye (taking much of this castle’s stone for the new one).  As shown below, the mountains are still gorgeous even way out here near the peninsula tip.

A bit further on, we encounter the Skye Museum of Island Life consisting of several thatched stone huts, some of them original (200+ yrs old), illustrating how a typical Skye family lived back then.  Alas, the museum was just closing as we arrived.  The largest hut, The Old Croft House shown below, consists of 3 rooms: a kitchen, also serving as the main

living area (where a peat fire would be lit every minute of the year); the parents’ bedroom off the kitchen; and beyond that the children’s bedroom (for as many as 12 kids).  Note the clever design; the stones that hang from the roof keep the thatch from blowing away, and the edges of the buildings are curved to redirect the wind.

Crofts in the village of UigWe’re nearing the end of the loop, here looking back at the village of Uig.  Note, near the center of the image, the parallel strips of land with a house at the top.  In the old days the land was owned by Scottish clans or English aristocrats who divided it into these crofts and rented it to tenant farmers who eked out a bare living.  Today they’re privately owned plots, but their history is still visible.

Back at our B&B, I take a few final shots of The Storr as evening sets in, and then a couple of night shots of the nearby city of Portree and its Loch.

 

Next post: Isle of Skye II – Fairy Glen, Dunvegan, and The Cuillin Hills.

 

Highlands III – Scotch Whiskey & Eilean Donan Castle

WHISKEY

We’re off to see Scotland’s Isle of Skye – taking yet another path through the Highlands – and whiskey distilleries are on the way!  I’m excited: I love learning experiences.  First stop is for whiskey, in the small town of Pitlochry.  Just outside the town is Blair Athol Distillery, which makes a 12-yr old single malt – but in very limited quantities.  Almost

all of the production of this smooth and mellow scotch is used in their Bell’s Blend whiskey, probably the most popular blend in the UK – it’s prominently featured in all the bars.  Like almost all Scotch distilleries, pictures of their internal processes are forbidden, but I’ve included a picture of two of their stills (above ) from their website.  I’ve described the process of making Scotch in an earlier post (“Oban, and the Highlands I“, Aug 31, 2015).

But wait!  There’s another distillery nearby, the Edradour Distillery, the smallest in Scotland.  It’s maybe an hour walk uphill, through woods, and off I go (Ginger opts out since the skies are threatening).  It’s a great walk through pretty woods and includes a side

trail to the “Black Spout”, a nice waterfall (shown above).  The fields here are beautifully pastoral, and in this gloomy light are not just green but impossibly green.

Edradour Distillery is as charming as a distillery can be, nestled in a picturesque setting in The Edradour Distillerythe middle of nowhere.  It’s one of the few independently owned distilleries left in Scotland, and prides itself on using a minimum of machinery.  Unlike other distilleries, this one allows photos!  So now I can show you the interior!  The first two pictures below show the two-story vats where mashing and fermentation occur.  The vats are wood!  I’ve only seen stainless before.   Fermentation goes to about 8% alcohol (and has a strong beer aroma).  The fermented “wash” then undergoes double distillation.  The two

stills in the following pictures (stills for the 1st and 2nd distillations) have noticeably different shapes.  The first distillation produces a “low wine” condensate, alcohol content around 20%.  That picture of glass chambers shows where the condensate from the second still is separated into “cuts” – the stillman physically throws a lever to direct the flowing distillate to different places.  The lower alcohol 1st cut (the “head” and the higher alcohol 3rd cut (the “tail”) are returned to the still for further distillation; the middle “heart” cut is the good stuff, which goes to American bourbon barrels to age for about a decade.  One of the distillery’s clever use of resources is the creek that zooms through their property.  It’s the source of their water, of course, but it’s also used to form the still’s condensate; the cooling pipes from the still are looped into the steam’s running water.  Now, with yummy

Scotch in my tummy, there is a nice downhill walk home through that luscious green landscape.

The edge of Cairngorms National ParkWe travel onward, and we’re back in the Highlands for sure, at the base of Cairngorms National Park.  It’s beautiful, but also stark, treeless, barren, empty.  Further on, still at the edge of Cairngorms, what do we find?   Whoppeee, Dalwhinne Distillery!  It’s one of the highest in Scotland (at 1200 ft above the sea, Scotland thinks it’s high.  But let’s be clear; it’s not much higher than Cleveland).  Another whiskey tour, another tasting,

another great learning experience!  Good stuff.

THE HIGHLANDS

On! On!  We’re now on a  Mountains in the distancebroad plain, but mountains beckon in the distance.  As we enter a hilly region, we encounter our first coo, a hardy breed of shaggy, red-coated cattle that survives well in these hostile Highlands.  With their long hair and rakish look they’re adorable!  Not often one can say that about a cow.

We’ve left the national park, but the landscape keeps getting more beautiful, with lakes and rivers everywhere.

We come to a long lake (Loch Laggan? Lochy?) and decide to take a short hike.  It’s pretty, with birch trees, ferns, moss and even a small waterfall.

As we travel further there are even more lakes, but in the distance we begin to see the bare, spare hills of the Highlands.

And then we’re in a Highland moor, defined by its openness, poor drainage, and

ubiquitous heather.  It has a rugged, other-worldly beauty.  Have you noticed that the skies are threatening in all of the pictures in this post?  Apparently that’s the norm; the inn shown above has a brochure that reads “And when you’ve had a long day on the hills, you can relax in warmth and comfort in our lounge and whisky bar … and get a refreshing night’s sleep while your equipment dries off, ready for the next day’s activities.”   My italics.

More Highland scenery.

EILEAN DONAN

In the early 1200’s the Eilean Donan Castle was built on a small island at the strategic junction where 3 sea lochs meet, likely as a defense against Viking raids.  It became a stronghold of the MacKenzie Clan and their allies the MacRae Clan.  Today it’s one of Scotland’s more beautiful castles due to it’s picturesque location; indeed, it has become

an iconic image of Scotland.  It comes with some history (of course; this is Europe).  When James IV of Scotland tried to exert his authority over outlying clans in early 1500, sending an Earl and garrison to take Eilean Donan, they were defeated by the Mackenzies (10 years later son James V was peacefully hosted at the castle).  In 1539 Clan MacDonald sent 50 ships against Eilean Donan, attempting to claim “King of the Isles”, but just 3 men within the castle repelled the attack (two surviving).  In 1719 Eilean Donan was used as a supply base for the Jacobite army and a garrison for its Spanish allies, but government frigates (48-gun and 44-gun) bombarded it, captured it, took the castle’s own gunpowder and blew it up; a month later the Jacobite army was defeated just a few miles away.  200 years later a MacRae descendant restored the castle to its present state.  The pictures below show a peek inside.

These last pictures show Loch Alsh and the mountains (big hills, really) of the Isle of Skye in the distance.

Next post – the beautiful Isle of Skye!

 

Edinburgh II – the castle, St. Giles’ Cathedral, and the Hogmanay

Edinburgh Castle (and Ginger posing)We’re off to tour Edinburgh Castle.  From the craggy heights of Castle Rock, this mighty fortress dominates Edinburgh’s skyline.  It is believed that a stronghold existed atop this volcanic rock since 600 AD; there has been a royal castle on the site since at least 1100.  As one of the more important strongholds in Scotland, Edinburgh Castle was involved in numerous historical conflicts, suffering through 26 known sieges in its long history.  It claims to be the most besieged place in Great Britain (and one of the most attacked in the world).  I’ll illustrate by covering just 45 years.  In 1296 English King Edward I invaded Scotland during the First War of Scottish Independence, capturing the castle when it surrendered after 3 days of bombardment.  Nearly two decades later in 1314 it was recaptured in a surprise night attack by the Scots, who scaled the near-vertical north cliff face; the castle’s defenses were destroyed to prevent re-occupation by the English.  Twenty years later in 1333 the English King Edward III occupied and refortified the castle during the Second War of Scottish Independence.  In 1341 the Scots, disguised as merchants bringing in supplies, retook the castle and killed the garrison of 100.  And so it went.

The castle was both royal residence and fortress, but beginning in the 1400’s it was increasingly used as an arsenal and armaments factory.  The The monster cannon, Mons Megmonster cannon Mons Meg was delivered to Edinburgh in 1457, and by 1541 the castle had a stock of 413 guns.  Increasingly the royal family stayed not at the Castle but at the Holyrood Abbey. In 1501 King James IV built the Holyroodhouse palace by the abbey at the end of the Royal Mile (see the previous post Edinburgh I) and made it his principal Edinburgh residence.  Edinburgh Castle was then used by royalty only for safety or state functions.  Pertinent to what the Castle looks like today was the Lang (long) Siege of 1571, precipitated by the reign of Catholic Queen Mary – a reign opposed by many of the Protestant Scottish nobility.  A year after giving birth to King James VI at Edinburgh Castle, Mary was forced to abdicate and fled to England (well, not only was she a Catholic, but soon after her husband’s murder she did marry the chief murder suspect …).  Her infant son was now King, but Scottish loyalties were divided; some supported the Catholic Queen, others the Protestant Regency that ruled for the infant King James.  The Keeper of the Castle, Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange, switched sides to support Mary and occupied the Castle and the town for the Queen.  The town was put under siege by forces loyal to the King over the course of a year (for a month here and there), with occasional skirmishes; the castle was blockaded, and the Palace of Holyroodhouse was garrisoned by the King’s men.  Grange destroyed homes outside the castle to create a “killing ground”.  The King’s supporters, lacking resources and fearing that Grange would get help from the French, petitioned English Queen Elizabeth I for aid (Queen Elizabeth I ultimately had Mary Queen of Scots executed).  A truce was negotiated that lifted the blockade, gave Edinburgh to King James and confined Grange to the castle.  However, when the truce expired the following year, Grange began bombarding the town.  The King’s men responded by laying siege to the castle.  Grange’s  supplies of powder and shot were running low, there were only seven gunners available to man the 40 cannon, and the castle’s well had been poisoned.  All other supporters of Queen Mary had surrendered, yet Grange continued to resist and the garrison continued to bombard the town, killing a number of citizens.  Sorties were made from the castle to set fires, 100 houses were burned, and anyone attempting to put out the flames was fired on.  Finally 1,000 English troops arrived with 27 cannon and, over a 12 day period, 3000 rounds hit the Castle.  Walls and towers collapsed.  Grange finally sued for peace, but when informed he would not be freed, he resolved to continue resistance; the garrison had other ideas, and threatened mutiny unless he surrendered.  He and several others were subsequently hanged (at the Mercat Cross described in the Edinburgh I post).  The Castle suffered considerable damage; only a few buildings remain from the period before the Lang Siege, the most notable being St. Margaret’s Chapel from the early 1100’s (the oldest building in Edinburgh), the Royal Palace, and the Great Hall from the early 1500’s.  From the 1600’s on the Castle was principally used as military barracks with a large garrison.

OK!  Into the Castle!  In typical castle fashion, once you get past the gate, there is a long,

walled, and exposed corridor to another gate, in this case the Portcullis Gate built in 1574 as the main entrance to the castle after the Lang Siege (that different-colored top Heading up to the buildingsstory added later).  And then of course there’s another gate, Foog’s Gate from the 1600’s.  It leads to the highest point and heart of the old castle, Crown Square, laid out in the 1400’s (James III) and formed by Scotland’s National War Memorial, the Royal Palace, Great Hall, and Queen Anne Building (previously the site of kitchens for the Great Hall, now a 1700’s building, extensively remodeled).  They’re shown below.

Below is a peek at the Royal Palace interior.  Scottish royalty lived here until James IV built the Palace of Holyroodhouse – and thereafter whenever safety or protocol was

required.  That last room is Laich Hall, created in its present form in 1617 to serve as an outer reception room and dining chamber for James VI.  Also at the Royal Palace were Scotland’s crown jewels consisting of crown, scepter and sword.  Joining a long line, we weaved past replicas (poorly made) where we could take pictures, and then (keep walking) zipped past the originals, no pictures allowed.  I should note that Scotland’s crown, scepter and sword of antiquity were taken by England and melted down when Edward I captured Scotland in 1296 (noted above); the current crown jewels are from two centuries later, and only survive because they were hidden from Oliver Cromwell when he defeated Scotland in 1652.

Below are pictures of the replicas.  The first is a silver-gilt scepter; the original was given to

King James IV by the pope in 1494; it was refashioned for James V in 1536.  The sword is also a papal gift, presented to James IV in 1507; the handle is silver gilt.  The origin of the crown is uncertain; it was refashioned for James V in 1540.  It’s made of Scottish gold, engraved and enameled, and ornamented with diamonds, garnets, amethysts, quartz and  pearls.  The bonnet is velvet and ermine.

The Great Hall was the castle’s ceremonial meeting place, built by James IV beginning in 1503.  Following Cromwell’s seizure of the castle in 1650, the Great Hall was converted into a barracks for his troops, and after more conversions it became a military hospital. Restored in 1897 as medieval (with Victorian sensibilities), it nevertheless has it’s original

hammerbeam roof, one of only two in a medieval hall in Scotland.

St. Margaret’s Chapel is the oldest building not only in the castle but in all of Edinburgh.  It was built in 1130 by King David I as a private chapel for the royal family, dedicated to his mother, Saint Margaret of Scotland, who died in the castle.  It is wonderfully simple, in

classic Norman style such as the zigzags decorating the arch between nave and sacristy.  The chapel was used as a gunpowder store from the 1500’s – it is well positioned near the cannon batteries.  The small windows feature St. Margaret and St. Columba who brought Christianity to Scotland from Iona.

In order to build the Crown Square in the 1400’s, a foundation had to be laid that took the form of vaults.  These vaults were used to hold prisoners of war during a number of conflicts from the mid 1700’s through WWII.  They have been re-created to look as they

would have in 1781.  Objects made by prisoners at that time were also on display.

Finally, a look over Edinburgh from the castle heights, and a look back at the castle.

St. Giles’ Cathedral

St. Giles CathedralSt. Giles’ Cathedral is Scotland’s most important church, functioning similar to that of England’s Westminster Abbey.  Its oldest part dates from 1124; much of the current interior was built in the very late 1300’s after the English set it on fire in 1385.  Subsequently many chapels were added, enlarging the church but giving it an irregular plan.  The Scottish crown steeple, a proud part of Edinburgh’s skyline, was added in 1495.

In 1559 at the height of the Scottish Reformation, the firebrand John Knox was chosen to be minister at St Giles.  In addition to founding an austere Scottish Presbyterianism, Knox was also a great reformer.  His insistence that every person should be able to read the Bible forced Scotland’s education system to be 3 centuries ahead of Europe (Subsequently Scotland led the way in math, science, engineering and medicine).   Under Knox the

church was simplified, with an emphasis on sermons rather than rituals.  He replaced the medieval stained glass with clear glass windows (darn it!) – to allow people outside the packed church to participate in the service.  The last picture above, a new window from the 1800’s, shows Knox preaching to a standing-room-only congregation.

In subsequent centuries St Giles Cathedral was subdivided into as many as 4 separate churches, and by the 1800’s it was in poor condition.  Extensive renovation in the 1800’s, including installing its beautiful stained glass windows, gave us the church we see today.  Pictures of the impressive interior are shown below.

In the center of the nave are 4 massive pillars from 1124, shown below.

Stained glass windows are everywhere, and gorgeous.  Beginning with the restoration in the 1800’s, the clear windows of the Reformation were replaced by what we see today – involving considerable controversy.  Stained glass was a radical move for a Presbyterian church abhorring flippant decoration; they were finally allowed if they illustrated Bible stories.  You know that I love stained glass windows, so I’m going to show off a bunch (there are many many more I’m not showing!).  So feel free to skip forward if you – ah –

don’t do windows.  Above are three examples, along with a panel detail from the 2nd and 3rd windows.  The gorgeous window below is from the end of the nave.

Really, almost all of them are pretty spectacular, another example shown below.

There are just an amazing number of beautiful windows here.  I’m going to simply dump a bunch of pictures into one large grouping showing windows with their panel details.  I hope you’ll agree they’re fabulous.

Finally, the Thistle Chapel within St. Giles is relatively new (1911), built for Scotland’s “Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle” (the order founded by King James VII in 1687).  The chapel is exquisite, as shown below.

We’ll end this looooooong post with the finale, the Hogmanay.  This is Scotland’s celebration of the New Year that lasts until the morning of Jan 1, and in some cases Jan 2 (grin).  It goes back to the celebration of the winter solstice among the Norse, along with Gaelic celebrations.  Hogmanay is more traditional than Christmas, which was not celebrated here as a festival – likely for being “too Papist” during the Protestant People on a bridge, waiting to join the paradeRevolution.  The Edinburgh Hogmanay is BIG – its celebrations are among the largest in the world; the Guinness Book lists it as the world’s largest New Year’s party in ’96-’97 (approx. 400,000 people).  That picture on the left shows people on a bridge (center of picture), waiting for the line to move in a parade that has been going on for some time by now.  We’ve left that parade for the comfort of our hotel’s roof.  So here we go, back to the start.  It all begins with bands and a Viking parade – torches are always a part – and

continues with a lot (LOT) of Vikings.  You can get a better experience of this parade from the following link – Hogmanay Parade (son Brian showed me how to do this; we have a lot to learn from our kids!).  And then come the people.  LOTS of people.  The river of people is hard to capture from our vantage points.  Most of the people are going up to Calton Hill (previous post) for the overview of fireworks both at the castle across the

city and at this hill (overhead).  And here we go!  Happy 2015!  (Note that I am a year

behind in writing these blogs!  Hey, quit your bitchin’.  I’m still doing it, right?).  And then the fireworks start.  They are spectacular, and we’re between the two sites; the castle in the distance, and Calton hill nearby on our other side.  Below are some shots, both directions.

So we’re off by a year, but it’s almost timely!  Happy 2016, everybody!

Next post – back to the Highlands!