We travelled over the Forth Road Bridge to South Queensferry last Saturday, well the football had been cancelled due to hard frost.
You can’t go to South Queensferry and not take some photos of the Forth Bridge, so here they are!
The Hawes Inn appears in Robert Louis Stevenson’s book Kidnapped. As you can see the approach to the bridge is more or less straight above the inn but of course the bridge wasn’t there at the time that Robert Louis Stevenson was writing about.
The photo below is of the main street in South Queensferry, I think it’s quite unusual to have a two tiered street with a pavement and houses being situated over the top of the shops.
This vintage car came tootling along just as I was taking the photos, it was like something that Toad out of The Wind in the Willows might have driven. They must have been freezing! I wouldn’t mind going for a drive in it on a hot day though.
As you can see, they have some olde worlde streetlamps in South Queensferry which fit in nicely with the age of the buildings. Even although it was a cold day it was still busy with locals and day trippers, there are quite a few eateries in the town and I think it’s a favourite place for people living in Edinburgh to visit.
Some of the buildings are really quite ancient, as you can see the date on this pub is 1683.
This photo below is of Jack (husband) eyeing up one of the boats which has been lifted out of the harbour but I don’t think he’ll be taking up sailing.
This is one end of the town from the harbour. It’s a nice wee place to have a bit of a stroll around.
It was reading Margaret of Books Please review of a Catriona McPherson book which is set there which made me think it was about time we had another look at South Queensferry. The last time we were there was during the summer when we took a trip on one of the boats which sails regularly to the island of Inchcolm. It’s a good day out, when the weather’s fair. You really wouldn’t want to be stuck out on an island in the middle of the Forth if there was the chance of a howling gale and rain blowing up. You can have a look at my Inchcolm post here.
Beautiful pictures Katrina! It looks like such a lovely place to spend the day and that bridge is amazing. I looked up Catriona McPherson and I think I would really like her books. Our library doesn’t carry them of course:( I will add South Queensferry to my list of things to see if I ever get over there. And of course I would have to read Kidnapped before hand:)
Peggy,
I haven’t read any of Catriona McPherson’s books yet either but my library has them so I’ll be there soon. I think you’ll enjoy Kidnapped, there have been quite a few films made from it too. That list of places to visit will be getting quite long!
Lovely photos, Katrina. I didn’t know about Hawes Inn when we went there! ‘Kidnapped’ was one of the few books we ‘had’ to read at school that I really enjoyed.
That car fits in so well with ‘The Burry Man’s Day’!!
Did you visit the museum? There’s an exhibition about the Burry Man – or there was when we went there.
Margaret,
Thanks. We haven’t been into the museum yet, we’ll do that the next time, it’s such an easy hop for us. I’ve read Kidnapped a few times now and the sequel Catriona is worth reading too.
I love the street, and looking down on the shops from your own home would definitely be strange.
That bridge is a wonderful piece of engineering, from whatever view you look at it.
Jo,
I think the bridge is often called over-engineered but after the Tay Bridge disaster at Dundee people were wary of railway bridges, especially in such windy situations, so it had to look very strong.
What a lovely town! That bridge is beautiful, too – from the ground!
Joan,
That is the railway bridge of course and the trains look like toys on it but I think everyone sort of holds their breath whenever they go over it on a train. They’ve stopped painting it for the first time just recently, apparently the new paint should last for 20 years or so before it needs to be re-done. It has a lot of weather to put up with though so I have my doubts about that!
Great photos, Katrina! Lovely ones of the two tier High Street. I must try to get those views sometime! I don’t think I’ve ever been up onto the upper levels!
Wasn’t Catriona (by RLS) a MacPherson? or am I just thinking about Cluny MacPherson in Kidnapped? I must take a look at Catriona MacPherson’s books too.
Evee,
I’ve just had a look at my copy of Catriona and she was using the surname Drummond but mentions that her real name is not spoken so I think she was a McGregor as that was the only name which was proscribed – as you know I’m sure. My Granny was a McGregor!