Annan, Dumfries and Galloway, South-west Scotland

Last Saturday we drove down to Annan in Dumfries and Galloway, the south-west of Scotland. It was a glorious day, a bit too hot really for me it was about 70F I suppose.

Annan Bridge, Scotland
Jack was going to a football match there so I decided to take a stroll along the riverside walk along the Annan which flows through the town. It has a lovely ancient red sandstone bridge.

River Annan, Dumfries and Galloway, ScotlandBridge

Just a stone’s throw from the bridge is the remains of Robert Bruce’s motte and bailey, it seems just to be a few lumps and bumps in the ground from a distance anyway, I couldn’t get any closer. I was interested because I had just finished reading Nigel Tranter’s book Footsteps to an Empty Throne and this is where the first battle of the Wars of Scottish Independence was fought.
Bruce's Motte and Bailey, Annan
I had the river all to myself with just a few swans and a heron for company, sadly the heron flew off before I could get a photo.

River Annan (south)

They are obviously proud of the Robert the Bruce connections in Annan and had this statue put up on the Town Hall, but Bruce also had a manor/castle at Cardross near Dumbarton where I grew up, although nobody knows exactly where it was. In fact that’s where he died.
Statue of Bruce at Town Hall

Below is the town hall from another angle, if you lok closely you’ll see it’s desperately in need of being weeded of budleias and various other plants.
Annan Town Hall, Dumfries and Galloway

I enjoyed my walk around Annan and Jack enjoyed the football because Dumbarton won – unusually!

10 thoughts on “Annan, Dumfries and Galloway, South-west Scotland

  1. 70F – gosh, you’ll be using £sd too then. The UK switched to degrees Celcius or Centigrade in 1965.

    Please oh please let it not be another concession to our US friends who seem incapable of learning anything about other countries. It is a pet hate of mine to see UK authors introducing Americanisms because they pander to US publishers.

    Imagine: “We were driving up the A9 highway to Aviemore to a trailer park when we got the tea things out of the trunk onto the sidewalk”. I’ve seen similar!

    • H,
      It must be an age thing, although I was definitely taught Fahrenheit in the late 1960s – and feet and inches. I tend to use Fahrenheit when it’s hot and Centigrade when it’s cold.
      I know that the UK authors have absolutely no say in what an editor does to their work and they even change the titles for the US.
      You’ll definitely not find any pandering to the US here, but I also get annoyed by all of those Gaelic signs such as in Queen Street, Glasgow, those are just for tourists because hardly any Scots speak Gaelic and the only people I know who can speak Gaelic can’t read or write it. The Gaelic signs at Dundee station are even in two completely different spellings!

      • It is curious how Fahrenheit stuck around. My background is science based where the Metric system is king.

        I am with you on Gaelic – Scottish political correctness methinks. Nonetheless it is just plain stupid to take a long established place name that has never been Gaelic and try to translate it.

        • H,
          You are probably like my husband then (PhD Chemistry, Glasgow) he shouts at people on TV when they say mls instead of ml. He’s also dead against baseball caps!

  2. Haha – in response to the earlier comment, I use Fahrenheit too! Maybe it’s a Scottish thing. 70 degrees means something to me – 21 degrees doesn’t. Anyway 70 sounds hotter… 😉 Great pics – too long since I took a trip down that way!

    • FictionFan,
      Maybe it’s an age thing! I think my school was full of old-fashioned teachers who didn’t teach us Centigrade. I use Centigrade for when it’s cold though as that sounds colder.

  3. I tend to speak of imperial or metric interchangeably, though Celsius has become easier for me than Fahrenheit as NZ adopted it in 1969.
    Although we changed to decimal currency in 1967 I can still think happily in £sd!

    By golly, they’d better clean up that vegetation on the Town Hall pretty quick – it’ll do immense damage to the fabric of the building if left.

    • Valerie,
      I do still think in £sd occasionally! Always when I’m shocked at the price of something.
      I don’t know why those common purple buddleias haven’t been put on some sort of ‘plant menace list’ such as Japanese Knotweed and Himalayan Balsam have been. Buddleias adore the lime mortar in old buildings and sometimes you can look along the roofline of a high street and see loads of them up there!

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