Furness Abbey, Barrow in Furness, Cumbria

Posted on 2 November 2024 by Katrina

I must admit that I hadn’t even heard of Furness Abbey before we were planning our trip to Barrow in Furness in Cumbria in September. Barrow is an industrial area nowadays but 900 years ago when the Abbey dates from it was obviously rural with the abbey being fabulously wealthy, owning a huge amount of land. Although it’s just a few miles outside the modern town of Barrow it still feels very rural.

The abbey was of course wrecked on the orders of Henry VIII at the time of the Dissolution of the monasteries in 1537. As you can see there’s some seriously heavy metalwork propping up some of the walls in the photo below.

There’s still a lot to see though and the ruins attracted the Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth.

With the arrival of the railway in 1847 it became a popular destination for tourists. If you look carefully at the photo below you can just see the top of a train going past, so it must have been easy for travellers to get to the abbey.

In the photo below you can still see the burn which supplied water to the abbey, presumably that is why it was situated here.

There’s a lot to see at Furness Abbey and as you can see we were lucky with the weather.

It’s definitely worth a visit if you are in that part of Cumbria. I was very pleasantly surprised at how scenic the Barrow in Furness area is and it’s not that far from the Lake District if you want to brave the hordes of modern day tourists!

Crathie Kirk, Ballater, Aberdeenshire

Posted on 2 September 2024 by Katrina

We visited Crathie Kirk in Ballater for the first time when we visited Aberdeenshire a few weeks ago. I had of course seen it often on TV as it’s the nearest church to Balmoral, but somehow its surroundings didn’t look like I had imagined them to be. Unfortunately by the time we got there the kirk was closed.

There’s something more than a wee bit Scandinavian about the design of this wee church I think. Scottish churches aren’t known for having porches at all, but it’s an attractive design, and as the area is well known for rough weather it’s a handy place to shake off the rain or snow.

I didn’t tarry long at the back of the church as a large barking mad dog ran out of the undergrowth heading straight for me. No doubt he thought he was defending his territory, I quickly snapped the photo below and departed!

It’s a short walk over a bridge spanning the River Dee below, which leads to the gates of Balmoral.

As you can see we had really great weather while we were away.

People were just coming out of the gates when we got there, it was closing for the day. Maybe next time we’ll go to Balmoral first and have a walk around the grounds.

The gates have GR and MR on them for King George V and Queen Mary.

Perth Museum, Scotland

Posted on 11 May 2024 by Katrina

We visited the new Perth Museum a couple of weeks ago, it’s mainly for local interest I think and was opened because what had been an Edwardian concert hall was no longer fit for purpose, so it lay there, rotting and unused. Some thought the building should be demolished, but it has been repurposed, successfully. The big attraction is the Stone of Destiny which has been taken from Edinburgh Castle, but we had seen that before so didn’t bother with it, you had to book a ticket for a time slot . I took the photo below of the Pullar’s dye works and cleaners. It reminded me that in one of her books Deborah Devonshire mentioned that they used to send their evening gloves to this place to have them cleaned, and it was so famous the address was just PULLARS, PERTH. I think the building itself is one of those Edwardian, on the cusp of Art Deco, designs.

The St Madoes standing stone was dug up from a field where it must have lain for years undisturbed, hence it being in unweathered condition, I think some of the designs on it look a bit Mackintosh-ish.

The swords were all found locally, possibly gifts for a river god, but there were so many battles around the Perthshire area they could just have been lost in battle. When I read a book about Montrose fairly recently I was amazed by how many villlages in Perthshire Montrose had ridden into that I had visited. Places where battles had been fought in the Civil War, or Wars of the Three Kingdoms as it now seems to be called.

More finds, including an amazing leather shoe.

In 1633 King Charles I did actually visit Scotland, and they had a bit of a do for him.

Below is one of the costumes from that dance. I imagine it was a bit more colourful back in its day.

King Charles’ surcoat apparently, below. There must have been a contrasting silk fabric showing through the slashes originally I think.

These neolithic carved stone balls which must have taken ages to make are a mystery, they’ve been found in lots of places in Scotland, but what were they used for?

There was a ‘Unicorn’ exhibition on the top floor of the museum, but that had to be paid for separately and as neither of us are much into unicorns we didn’t bother to visit it.

Visiting art exhibitions

Posted on 11 February 2024 by Katrina

This coming week we’re going to Edinburgh to visit a couple of art exhibitions before they close, the time seems to go so quickly nowadays. So we’ll be going to the City Art Centre which is just at the back of Waverley Railway Station to see the Exhibition, and then on to the National Gallery on Princes Street to see The Printmaker’s Art from Rembrandt to Rego exhibition.

But soonish we hope to be travelling further afield, weather permitting, maybe even down to England, so I’ve been doing some research. There are plenty of places we haven’t visited before. As a good Scot I like to get my money’s worth, and as a member of the Scottish National Trust and Historic Scotland I/we can get into the English versions free too. I’ll be happy to get recommendations from any of you who have enjoyed days out in any of them.

English Heritage Collections

National Trust Collections

Dumbarton Castle – info boards

Posted on 13 January 2024 by Katrina

If you want to see some photos of the castle, including the Georgian part which I took back in 2018 on a blue sky day have a look here.

There are plenty of information boards to read if you visit Dumbarton Castle. If you want to read them more easily click on the photos.

The photo below was taken from inside the guard room which has only fairly recently been opened to the public.

Dumbarton Castle has had famous prisoners over the years, including William Wallace and Mary, Queen of Scots. I believe that it was one of the many places that she managed to escape from. In fact she escaped from so many places that I suspect that it was a bit of a cat and mouse game which was being played on her.

Dumbarton Castle and environs

Posted on 5 January 2024 by Katrina

Back in September Jack wanted to go to Dumbarton to watch a football match there, he’s a loyal supporter of Dumbarton Football Club – through thick and thin and at the moment it’s quite thin! Anyway, I’m not a huge football fan so I opted to visit Dumbarton Castle which is situated right at the football ground. As you can see below the info board names it Dun Breatann, Fortress of the Britons. Over the years the town which grew around the fort became known as Dumbarton, it’s a bit easier to say I suppose.

Although it’s called a castle it isn’t anything like Stirling or Edinburgh, but in its day it was one of the most important fortresses in Scotland. Ships sailed from here to France and elsewhere. Mary Queen of Scots sailed for France from the castle, she was also imprisoned here, and of course escaped. There have been lots of drawings of the area over the centuries and in some of them the patch of grass in the photo below has a house on it, it was demolished long ago. Behind the wall to the right are steps, when I was wee they used to say there was a step for every day of the year but now they say there are over 400. As a wee girl I tried to count them, but I always got a different tally.

And here are some of the steps in the photo below, these ones are right at the beginning and are possibly some of the steepest. It’s not a good place to visit if you aren’t good with stairs! On the other hand it will keep you fit.

The photo below is of a small part of the rock face. The whole thing is a volcanic plug.

At the moment some areas are cordoned off. The building below is known as the French Prison because during the Napoleonic wars it was used to house French prisoners, it’s apparently going to be refurbished and will then be open to the public, it never has been in my lifetime. The sunken area below with the metal bars in it is part of it too but is in much worse condition.

More rockiness!

There are still cannons in place. This has always been a very strategic place, at the confluence of the River Clyde and River Leven. The Romans were here, and the Vikings and it’s amazing how often it’s mentioned in historical fiction.

It was low tide at the River Clyde when I was there.

Below is a photo of some of the stairs seen from above. The small white building is a guard house and that hadn’t been open to the public before. Looking at this photo it strikes me that you need a head for heights!

Below is the River Clyde again. It’s a pity it was such a grey day as the views are spectacular when it’s bright.

Looking to the other side of the river in the photo below is a small part of the town, Dumbarton. I lived close to this area and it was my playground when I was a wee girl, but all of these houses and flats are new, sometimes the rivers pay them a visit! The Sunderland aircraft factory took up a lot of the land where these houses are now.

If you cast your mind back to when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle got married you might remember thet the Queen bestowed the Scottish title on them of Earl and Countess of Dumbarton on them. It was supposed to be an honour for the town I’m sure but they were unimpressed. It was expected that they would pay a visit to Dumbarton soon after they married as that’s what normally happens, but apparently (if you can believe the tabloids) the couple took it as an insult instead of the honour it was meant to be – something to do with the word ‘dumb’ apparently. Honestly, how daft can you get!

Ring of Brodgar

Posted on 19 November 2023 by Katrina

Last week when I wrote a brief post about our fairly recent visit to Avebury in Wiltshire I wanted to link to my previous visit the The Ring of Brodgar on Orkney in 2022, for comparison. It was only then that I discovered that I had never got around to blogging about it, either in 2017 or 2022. Or if I did the posts have disappeared!

So here are some photos that I took, the Ring of Brodgar in the distance.

A bit closer.

Looking across the Loch of Harray towards The Ring of Brodgar.

And the standing stones from the other side of the ring.

The stone circle itself is large, as are the stones. Below is a photo of Jack beside one of them. They’re not as chunky and rough as the stones at Avebury.

You can read more about the stones here.

Avebury, Wiltshire, England

Posted on 15 November 2023 by Katrina

We had no intention of visiting Avebury during our fairly recent trip down to the south west of England, but when we saw a roadsign which indicated we were staying just seven miles from Avebury we obvioulsy had to go there. You don’t have to pay to get into the fields but if you are parking a car then you pay for parking, I think it was £7, however – if you are a member of the National Trust or Scottish National Trust parking is free. Below is a photo of Jack beside one of the standing stones so you can see how enormous some are.

We’ve been to visit a fair few standing stones but none as massive as these ones. They’re also very rough and don’t seem to have been worn down by the weather. I was also struck by the difference in the situations in the landscape. In Orkney you can stand in one of the neolithic stone sites and see two others in the distance, but in Avebury it seems that they wanted things to be hidden. Massive ditches have been dug out around the fields, it looks like that might have been done to keep people in those fields, escape wouldn’t have been easy, probably impossible. You don’t really get the idea of how deep this ditch/rampart is from the photo below.

For me that added to an atmosphere of unease and danger. This could of course be my imagination running rampant!

But I must admit that when I saw a few women leaning against the stones with both hands – for ages, emulating Claire from Outlander, obviously hoping for a similar experience, I found it really funny.

Otherwise, Avebury is a lovely wee village with a few shops, pub and church.

And some very quaint houses.

The Roman Baths at Bath – 2,000 years of history

Posted on 8 October 2023 by Katrina

When we approached the entrance of The Roman Baths we thought there was an enormous queue to get into it, but as we got closer we realised that the queue was for something else, so we got in straight away. As I mentioned before it’s expensive, but the ticket price included the use of an audio guide which was informative. As we had travelled all the way from Scotland we decided that we couldn’t NOT go in.

Below is a photo of Bath Abbey which we didn’t go into, we had been in several churches and cathedrals within a few days so we gave this one a miss, however you do get a good view of it from within the Roman baths, exactly from where I took the photo above.

The photo below is of the hot springs bath, you can see the water bubbling, it’s naturally hot and that amazed the Romans, they decided it must be a sacred place which is why they built the whole complex there. In Georgian times the water level was higher, right up to where you can see the orange sort of tide mark. People used to sit on the stone blocks within the arches with their heads just out of the water. This was not for the faint hearted as the water was not at all clean after so many people using them, many of them with skin problems. It must have caused more problems than it ever cured!

It was crazily busy in the baths, especially in the interior parts. There’s a lot more to see than I had imagined. Below is a gilt bronze head of the godess Sulis Minerva which was discovered during excavations. She’s an amalgamation of the Celtic godess Sulis and Roman godess Minerva. The Romans liked to include parts of the local religions wherever they settled.

They’ve discovered lots of things which must have been lost in the baths over the centuries, including this lovely Celtic style brooch. Whoever lost it must have been really annoyed! You can read more about the history of the place here.

In places you can look down to what was the foundations of the baths.

Below is a big plunge pool with just a small amount of water in it but you can imagine people sitting around on the stone steps having a gossip, or maybe not, this was the Frigidarium, the cold pool.

There were various altars around the place and below is a reconstruction of one with just the corners showing the original Roman pieces. I imagine that they thought it was a good idea to be nice and clean if they were going to be praying to Minerva or anyone else.

Below is the remains of a horse sculpture.

And there are more figures of horses in what remains of the mosaic below.

We spent almost two hours there and by that time we were definitely ready for lunch before going on to the next places of interest in Bath. Although the entry price seemed steep it was worth it. The model below shows what the buildings would have looked like in their heyday. The baths were covered with arched roofs as you can see, it would have made it a lot cosier than being open to the elements as they are today. There were areas for massage and general pampering, all by slaves of course. For some reason the videos and photographs of pampering were all of scantily clad women!!

Elgin Cathedral, Moray Scotland

Posted on 30 July 2023 by Katrina

Below is a photo of a Pictish carving which is in the grounds of Elgin Cathedral, it’s in not bad condition considering it’s 1100 years old.

Back above and front below.

The statues below were never correct dimension wise as the heads are too big.

The carving below is of far better quality, this is one of the carvings which is on display inside the cathedral towers.

The others below are also inside the towers, out of the weather.

The carved head below didn’t come out as well as I had hoped, it’s behind glass and is blurred, in reality it looks much better and it’s rare because it depicts the head of a lovely woman. Before this women were always seen as being evil harridans, because the Catholic church was run by men who thought that way, but that changed when ideas of chivalry and knighthood became fashionable in the 1300s.

Pining for the West

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Category Archives: archaeology