Craigellachie Bridge, Moray, Scotland

Posted on 18 May 2023 by Katrina

We just had to stop to take photos of Craigellachie Bridge before we drove over the modern bridge. It isn’t a stone bridge, apart from the ends, it’s iron but very elegant anyway.

It’s near the village of Aberlour in Morayshire, north-east Scotland. The bridge was built by the famous civil engineer Thomas Telford in 1812, it took two years to complete it.

Craigellachie Bridge spans the River Spey, famous for salmon fishing in the past but nowadays it’s very much a catch and return policy. Salmon are so scarce and have to be conserved.

Scenery, Perthshire, Scotland

Posted on 16 May 2023 by Katrina

We were away up north a bit for a day out a few weeks ago. These are just random photos of our short break. The photo below is of a very misty and moody Loch Earn, it’s a freshwater loch.

I think the river below is the River Earn, it’s flowing through the village of Comrie in Perthshire. We stopped there for our lunch at a lovely wee cafe. It was used by locals – always a good sign.

And this is the River Earn by Inverpeffray Library.

It was a great day out if a bit misty.

Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland

Posted on 13 May 2023 by Katrina

A couple of weeks ago we stopped off in Haddington in passing. A friend had told us that St Mary’s Church there was worth seeing. Unfortunately it wasn’t open that day, but it was still worth a visit.

The photo doesn’t give the idea of how large it is. The church was founded in the 1380s but was more or less a ruin by 1548, a victim to the ‘Rough Wooing’ by King Henry VIII, his attempt to persuade the guardians of the infant Mary, Queen of Scots to allow him to marry his son Prince Edward to Mary, thus securing Scotland for himself and England.

The setting is lovely with the River Tyne running right past the church grounds.

I know that people love to have a river view from their homes but I always wonder how often the river pays you a visit!

I love old stone bridges too, so it might be worth being flooded out every now and again for this view – or maybe not! There’s a swan just in view if you look closely. If you’re in the area Haddington is well worth a visit, it’s really historic and has some eclectic shops. We had a lovely lunch there.

Dumfries House, Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted on 2 November 2022 by Katrina

I’ve been meaning to visit Dumfries House for absolutely ages and last week we got around to it at last. I thought it would have taken us longer to get there, it was about a two hour drive from Fife, but we stayed in the area overnight so we would have plenty of time to look around. The house is part of the Prince’s Foundation, does it have to be called the King’s Foundation now? Anyway, the fine Georgian mansion was due to be auctioned off piece by piece and some furniture was actually in a London auction house, when the then Prince Charles stepped in and organised a financial rescue package for it. The name of the house is somewhat confusing as it isn’t near the town of Dumfries, it’s actually in Cumnock, Ayrshire. It was designed by the Adam brothers – Robert, John and James.

Sadly they don’t allow people to take photos inside, suffice to say that it’s well worth a visit, it has all sorts of bits and pieces in it and glorious furniture, including Chippendale pieces, one cabinet is valued at £25 million! But I loved the clocks and the huge orrery which is 260 years old, so of course isn’t correct now.

Below is the back of the house, where the guided tour begins.

The whole place is incredibly vibrant with all sorts of things going on educationally with lots of apprenticeships available, and it is now the second largest employer in the county.

The Lugar Water runs through the estate and there are some lovely bridges spanning it. But I’ll leave that and the grounds for another blogpost.

You can see the Education Tour in the You Tube video below.

If you’re interested in the history of the house you can read about it here.

Barnard Castle, Teesdale, County Durham, England

Posted on 10 November 2021 by Katrina

At the second time of trying we actually managed to get into Barnard Castle, during our first visit to the town they were only allowing pre-booked visits for some Covid reason, I think that was taking things a wee bit far given that the entire place is outdoors – and it’s very easy to socially distance. You can see the photos we took of the castle from the outside here. The whole town became sort of notorious during the first pandemic lockdown as Dominic Cummings got himself into a real pickle over his illegal visit there – to test his eyesight.

Anyway, here are some of the photos I managed to take when we were there again in September. The oldest parts of the castle date back to 1093.

It’s mainly a ruin but there are some massive walls still standing.

You can see that the town has been built around the castle, it’s very much in the centre of the town which has the same name as the castle.

I obviously didn’t take the photo below as that’s me down there!

I did take the photo of the bridge below though. I love old bridges, despite this one being old it is very well used and I had to wait a while before I could get one of it with no cars on it.

If you click on the photo below you will be able to read the information on the board. I’m glad we were able to get into the castle at last – and just about had the entire place to ourselves. I think there was one other visitor there. It felt very safe anyway.

Glamis Castle, the walled garden, and more

Posted on 27 October 2021 by Katrina

It’s a few weeks since we were at Glamis Castle, but I htought you might like to see the few photos I took of the walled garden. I love the gates.

There was still a lot of colour in it, despite it being late September.

And there’s a small Japanese garden area complete with Japanese style bridge.

I love old stone bridges like the one below.

And old stone staircases too. This one is a lot wider than most, but Glamis Castle was not built as a place of defence it was never expected that this staircase would have marauders bounding up it. The very narrow spiral staircases in castles make it just about impossible for people to wield a sword, especially if you happen to be right handed.

You can see my previous posts about our day out at Glamis Castle here, here and here – if you haven’t already seen them.

Queensferry Harbour – a Jigsaw Puzzle

Posted on 17 March 2020 by Katrina

Winter is jigsaw puzzle season for us but we hadn’t done any for over a year, it seemed that we might have a jigsaw free winter because I just didn’t see any in the shops that I wanted to do, but when I saw this Queensferry Harbour one I had to buy it. At first – as often happens – I despaired of being able ever to complete it, but in the end we managed it within five or so days.

On Sunday the day dawned bright with a blue sky – and no rain. We had been looking forward to going to an annual book sale for ages, south of Edinburgh but it was cancelled at the last minute. Presumably the organisers thought that not many people would turn up due to the coronavirus being around. It meant we felt at a bit of a loose end so we decided to drive to South Queensferry – the scene of the puzzle – and had lunch there. I took just a few photos.

Yes, by then it had started to cloud over a wee bit, but it was still a nice wee change.

On the way back home we dropped in at Tesco supermarket intending to do our normal weekly shop and were greeted by empty shelves. Such a sense of panic with many people and I couldn’t help thinking that they probably didn’t have enough room in their freezers to accommodate everything they were buying – there was no meat left, or even eggs. I suspect a lot of the food would end up being wasted. Crazy.

Lah di dah, lah di dah. Can you tell that I’ve been watching Annie Hall?!

Ironbridge, Shropshire, England

Posted on 14 December 2019 by Katrina

A couple of years ago when we visited Ironbridge for the first time we were really disappointed because the famous iron bridge was completely swathed in scaffolding and plastic while it underwent major refurbishment. We were luckier this time. The bridge was the first cast iron bridge to be made, way back in 1779 and it is beautifully elegant for something so solid and strong. It spans the River Severn, which didn’t look quite as slow and sludgy on this visit, it was a brighter day and there had probably been less rain – we’ve made up for it since then!

You get a good view of part of the town from the bridge, the buildings seem Georgian to me. Just a wee bit to the right of the photo there’s a good secondhand bookshop.

Ironbridge is popular with tourists, well it’s a scenic town and a good place to stop and stretch your legs a bit. It isn’t annoyingly busy though and there are several museums that you can visit if you’re so inclined.

This town is regarded as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution so I imagine it’s a lot cleaner than it was way back then when there must have been smoke belching out of the various factory chimneys. It seems so rural nowadays, with all the trees and greenery.

Annan, Dumfries and Galloway, South-west Scotland

Posted on 22 July 2019 by Katrina

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Huntly Castle, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Posted on 6 January 2019 by Katrina

I’m still catching up with the photos I took when we were on our trip up north to Aberdeenshire at the end of October 2018. We had been meaning to go to Huntly for years. Actually it was quite a surprise as in my mind it was a much bigger town than the reality turned out to be, it’s really small. There are just a few shops there but one of them is a secondhand bookshop! Yes I did buy books.

Apparently over last summer the lettering on the stonework was refurbished, I’m not sure what they actually did but it looks quite new now. Originally the lettering would have been painted to make it even more visible.

You can read about the history of Huntly Castle here.

The first castle was built on this site around 1180 but the castle that we see now dates from around 1550.

Below is a photo of an upstairs fireplace with a modern canopy over it to protect it from the worst of the weather.

The photo below is of the castle interior.

One good thing about living in a castle was that you were never far from a loo, most of the rooms had one in a corner and some even have the remnants of fancy plaster decoration on the walls. I suspect that they didn’t smell great though as it was basically a hole going into a stone shaft. I imagine that now and again a servant had to chuck water down them. The loo below has had a piece of perspex placed over the opening, just in case some bright spark tried to use it I suppose.

Below are the windows in the stairwell.

And below is where the stairs lead to. The view’s not bad – what you can see of it anyway.

Sadly you can’t get right up to the top in this castle, my favourite place is usually the solar which is where I imagine the ladies sat and did some needlework or reading in good weather. I think the small bit with the glass windows in the photo below is the solar.

Castles obvioulsy had to be built near rivers and Huntly has two rivers nearby – the Deveron and the Bogie, I’m not sure which this one is but it’s pretty anyway.

Huntly is definitely worth a visit if you’re in the Aberdeenshire area.

Pining for the West

Meanderings about recipes, books, craft and more

Category Archives: Bridges