Dunino Den, Fife

I had heard about Dunino Den in Fife years ago but it was only when I saw some photos online of the place that I decided it was time to go and check it out myself. I must say I found it a bit of a strange place.

Dunino Church , Fife

The ‘den’ is situated at the back of Dunino church (above), there’s a path down through the grass and woodland which leads to a sunken area, a small burn (stream)  flows through it but you are surrounded by quite high rock faces, some of which have been carved over the years.

We had the place to ourselves but it is obviously popular with people, probably quite an eclectic bunch as there are some Christian symbols if you look hard, a faint Celtic cross to the left of the large LC below.

Dunino Den, Fife, Cross carving

But it’s thought that this place was used as a place of worship and possibly sacrifice by the Druids.

Dunino Den, Fife

But there are also ‘offerings’ to whatever, in the shape of stones, flowers and candles. I was particularly unnerved by the pottery figure of a headless woman in the photo above. Was she just accidentally broken or was it a deliberate offering of some sort?  I found the place to be a bit spooky, but it has obviously been used for centuries, possibly as a place of worship during the Scottish Reformation, but the land above the rockface which has ancient stairs cut into it also has a rock with a footprint cut into the stone, usually a sign that a king/chieftain has been there, and beside it there’s a sort of natural stone basin which was full of water.

You can see the bottom of the stone steps in the middle background of the photo below.

Dunino Den , Fife

The burn was very low, slow and sludgy considering how much rain we had had.

Dunino Den , Fife

Dunino Den , Fife

Dunino Den, Fife

Below is the sort of natural stone pond.

Dunino Den, pool, Fife

And the rock below by the pool has some faint cup and ring marks (maybe) and what looks like part of a footprint. This actually a very dangerous place to stand by as it is situated above the other photos and is close to the edge of the rockface, it would be very easy to step over the edge, especially as it is overgrown with ferns at the edge.

Dunino Den, ring marks, Fife

Right by the stone above is the well worn stone steps down to where the other photos were taken, we didn’t go down the steps though, they looked too dangerous, there is a path through the woodland which is much safer.

Dunino Den Steps, Fife

I don’t remember seeing it but it seems there’s a face carved into one of the rock walls. The photo below is from the website in the link above.

So that’s Dunino Den, a bit of a strange place which goes way back in time, no doubt some believe there are fairies living there, or some other sorts of spirits, I’m sure there are plenty of theories about it. I’m glad we visited it at last, but I don’t know if I want to go back. It’s not far from St Andrews, if you are interested in visiting it.

 

My garden, Fife, Scotland

Whenever it has been a bit drier (not often) I’ve gone out to take some photos of what’s flowering in my garden. Thankfully the primroses, primula, cowslips are always colourful and happily seed themselves around.

primroses, primulas, garden

I tried to take a close up of the white snake’s head fritillary below with my phone, but I was just too close, if you look closely there’s a purple one which is closer to being ‘over’, to the left of the white flower’s stalk. These are also happy to multiply in any damp areas, and let’s face it, the whole garden is damp after the constant rain, there’s more moss than anything else.

fritillary, my garden

More purple fritillaries at various stages of flowering. Sadly only one white flower has come up this year. Charles Rennie Mackintosh did a lovely painting of this type of fritillary, the chequerboard markings on the flower really suited his designs. The actual  flowers look like they have been painted in reality.

snake's head fritillary, my garden

I have no idea what these daffodils below are, possibly Paperwhite. I planted the bulbs ages ago in a pretty bowl, planning to give them away at Christmas, but by then nothing much was happening to them. They were supposed to be a miniature variety, but eventually they just grew and grew, then flopped all over the place with not much sign of ever flowering. I dug a home for them in the garden and they flowered as normal in the spring. Definitely not miniature, which thinking about it I should have realised because the bulbs weren’t small. I think that some plant nurseries must be quite chaotic because plants and bulbs are often wrongly named. Anyway, hopefully these ones will flower again next year, if all the rain doesn’t rot the bulbs!

daffodils, my garden

The first tulips are appearing, but I’m sure I planted more than these ones below in that area.

flowers, my garden

The pulmonaria/lungwort with its spotted leaves below is always one of the first to flower, after the snowdrops, and it goes on for quite a long time, I think that’s why it’s one of my favourites. It was used as a cure  for lung problems in days gone by, but I don’t think it was very effective.

pulmonaria, lungwor, my garden

I was watching Gardeners’ World on TV tonight and a tulip expert was explaining what you should do to tulips after they have flowered. Dig them up after feeding them, clean them, dry them and plant again next year. I’ve always just left them to get on with it on their own underground, maybe if I gave them some tlc they would respond better, they usually die out with me. I’m not planting them deep enough either, at least four inches apparently.

tulips, my garden

Anyway, that’s some of the flowers that are blooming in my garden in Fife, it has been a long wet summer, autumn and winter. It’s amazing how resilient plants can be. I don’t think any of my shrubs have actually died, and I know that other gardeners haven’t been as lucky.

Aberdour Castle doocot (dovecote) in Fife

We visited Aberdour Castle one afternoon  last month, we hadn’t been there for years and it looked like quite a lot of work had been done in the gardens. Below is a photo of the dovecote – or as we say in Scotland the doocot (dookit). This is obviously a beehive type construction, they are various different designs but I think this is the most elegant kind. I would love to have seen the structure which was on the right hand side of the grass, it looks like it was a wall with pillars, going by the outline, but is long gone now.

Aberdour Castle, Doocot + grounds, Fife

As you can see, inside the doocot is ringed with stone shelves which have nesting niches for the pigeons to nest in – or doves if you want to be posh. They were important sources of meat for the castle inhabitants, especially during the winter months when hunting wasn’t so easy.

Aberdour Castle, Doocot interior

I’ll do another post about the castle soon.

 

 

Firth of Forth at Aberdour

I had been looking forward to the 19th of February for at least a month, or whenever I realised that the big Edinburgh antiques fair at Ingliston was scheduled for that weekend, it would be the fisrt fair since befpre the beginning of Covid, I was desperate to have a good old rake around after more than two years of staying home. Sadly it wasn’t to be as on Friday night as I was tootling around on the internet I decided just to check up and make sure the fair was still on – of course it was CANCELLED! I was/am so disappointed. There was no explanation at all but possibly it was the horrendous weather forecast which led to the cancellation, although in the Edinburgh area it was just the possibility of some rain or snow that was expected. As it happens we’ve had a very placid weekend weather wise for once as Storm Eunice hit mainly southern England and Wales.

Anyway, we decided to drive to a rake around a ‘collectables’ place at Inverkeithing, which had nothing worth buying and then drove on along the coast to Aberdour, some ten miles or so from us.

Aberdour Harbour

Headland at Aberdour

We couldn’t take the usual circular walk that we normally do as the wooden footbridge that we have to go over had been washed away. So when we got down to the beach we just had to turn around and go back the way we had come, but not before I took a few photos looking out over the Firth of Forth, the first one from the wee harbour and the others looking over to Edinburgh.

Edinburgh and Firth of Forth From Aberdour

As you can see it was a sparkling day! There’s another antiques fair scheduled for May, fingers crossed that one goes ahead.

Kirkcaldy’s Heritage in Fifty Objects

This blogpost is very parochial, being about the history and heritage of Kirkcaldy in Fife, a nearby town.

To mark the 50th birthday of Kirkcaldy’s Civic Society they have decided to choose 50 objects that relate to the town and its history/heritage, hoping to stimulate memories in readers which might lead to more information being gathered, information which might otherwise have been lost. You can see some of the ‘objects’ here, so far only 16 have been written about, but I know that the Spanish Civil War memorial just off Forth Avenue will be featuring in the list at some point in the future. That memorial has been on my mind somewhat recently as I’ve just finished reading Orwell’s Roses by Rebecca Solnit and obviously George Orwell was influenced by his experiences in that war. You can read Jack’s old blogpost about the memorial here.

I only have a few Kirkcaldy objects in my own varied collection of ‘stuff’. Actually I have quite a few old postcards of Beveridge Park, some of which you can see here. Below is another one which sadly is postally unused, but is of interest to me anyway because of the clothes.

Waiting for the Boats in Beveridge Park, Kirkcaldy

The Mauchline money box below has an image of St Brycedale Free Church, Kirkcaldy. This church is still in use but is now called St Bryce Kirk. In the past the politician Gordon Brown’s father was the minister of this church.

Mauchline Ware Box, Kirkcaldy Subject

Armchair travelling – St Monans, Fife

One hot afternoon last week we went for a drive along to the East Neuk of Fife, starting at the village of St Monans. Below is a photo of St Monans kirk with some beach explorers in the foreground. If you look closely you should be able to see the ancient sea worn steps that lead up to the church. Presumably in years past some people did sail there to the church service. For many it would have been a lot easier than tackling roads which would have amounted to little more than tracks.

St Monans Kirk, Fife, Scotland

The teazles and geraniums right above the beach were looking great. It’s surprising how much salty atmosphere some plants can put up with.

St Monans flowers , Fife, East Neuk

St Monans flowers , East Neuk, Fife

It was a sparkling day, too hot for us at around 70F, but I still didn’t fancy my chances in the Firth of Forth/North Sea, far too cold without a wet suit on.

St Monans, coast, Firth of Forth, Fife

Further along the coastal path you reach a windmill which was used in the salt making industry which went on by the edge of the water, there are only indentations left in the grass now, all the buildings having been washed away by the sea years ago I suppose.

St Monans Windmill, Fife, East Neuk

There is a rather primitive outdoor swimming pool in the photo below. It has been cleared out recently by some local people as the council had stopped maintaining it, so I was pleased to see that it was actually being used by a brave soul. The straight edge is the swimming pool edge, it’s much longer than the usual length of a swimming pool. I would drown before I reached the far end of it as I’m not a great swimmer!

St Monans rocks and pool , Fife

The rocks above the beach are interesting looking, to me anyway. I need a geologist.

St Monans rocks, Firth of Forth, Fife

St Monans rocks, Fife

As the school holidays have already begun in Scotland there were lots of people about so I didn’t take any photos of the old fishing village of St Monans but if you want to see some images look here.

The only photo I took at the nearby village of Elie was of the ancient doorway below. It’s a pity that the stonework is so worn as I think the carving would have been interesting.

Doorway Elie, Fife

Highland dancing, St Andrews, Fife

A couple of evenings ago I was watching a lovely programme Darcey Bussell’s Wild Coasts of Scotland, it’s on the UK’s Channel 4 but might be available on a channel near you too. Apparently her grandfather had been Scottish and she had always promised him she would visit some of his favourite places that he had obviously never forgotten about after he migrated to Australia, sadly she didn’t get around to doing it until after his death, but it was clearly a moving experience for her.

Anyway, in one of the episodes she had some Highland dancing lessons and I was surrised at how exhausting she found it to be. Admittedly it’s decades since I did the Highland Fling or sword dance, so Darcey is years older than I was, but she described it as part dance and part endurance sport as you’re constantly moving quickly. She seemed quite puffed out within a very short time.

Highland Dancers, St Andrews, Fife

It reminded me that way back in November 2019, before Covid 19 appeared we had visited a St Andrews Day Fair at St Andrews. It was absolutely freezing, there was a Baltic wind and it was really the scantily clad dancers that impressed me, just because they were so stoical about the weather, but now I admire them for their strength and stamina! You can see the the ground was white with frost. I must say that when I did Highland dancing I was not dressed like them, I wore a proper kilt and white blouse! There’s a very brief video of them below, dancing to what sounds more like Irish pipes to me, there were certainly no Scottish pipers there, just piped music.

Highland Dancers video

For some reason there was a vintage bus parked by the edge of the festivities. It has to be said that in Scotland we don’t make much of our Patron Saint’s day, not even in the town of St Andrews. It was really just an opportunity for some local food makers to sell their wares – we bought cakes of course!

an old bus, vintage bus, St Andrews, Fife

Inverkeithing, Fife

Way back in February 2020 when there was talk on the news of an imminent lockdown we drove to Inverkeithing for a bit of a rake around at an antiques/secondhand shop which is housed in an old cinema.

After that we decided to have a bit of a walk around the historic parts of the town, knowing that it would be quite some time before we were able to stray from home again, mind you I never thought it would be more than a year! You can read about the history of the town here.

The two photos below are of Fordell’s Lodging.

Old Building Inverkeithing

Old Building, Inverkeithing

It’s thought that the town dates from as far back as Roman times in AD 83, but the first church was built around AD 400. There was a Franciscan friary which would have been used as an overnight stopping off place for pilgrims on their way to St Andrews. There are quite a lot of ancient buildings still standing in the town. Sadly one very interesting looking building is standing empty and unused, but another one has been converted into flats which should stop it from deteriorating.

The photo below is of St Peter’s Kirk.

Inverkeithing Church

Marriage lintels are a tradition in Scotland, especially in the east, with the initials of the bride and groom being carved into the lintel with the date of the wedding in the middle. This one is on Thomsoun’s House, 1617, it’s a bit fancier than most of them.

A Marriage Lintel, Inverkeithing

Balbirnie walk, Fife

Our Saturday afternoon walk took us through the Balbirnie Estate woodland in Fife, which in these pandemic times is much busier than it used to be. There are lots of snowdrops looking their best at the moment and I thought they would be visible in the photos but obviously I need to do a close up of them as even I can hardly see them, and I know where they are!

Balbirnie Park , Fife, Scotland

The path leads to a wooden bridge which is perfect for playing Poohsticks, if you’re that way inclined.

Balbirnie Park, Fife, Scotland, woodland

A bit further on there’s a good view of the surrounding park and farmland which was once part of the estate which was owned by the Balfour family. A train dashed across the middle of the scene but I didn’t manage to get it in my photo, it’s behind the trees to the left.
Balbirnie Park, Fife, Scotland

You can see lots more photos of the parkland here. The landscaping of the estate began in 1779, you can read a bit about it here.

Back home in my garden the most colourful spot at the moment is the pot of dwarf Iris reticulata (Joyce). There are some planted directly into the ground but they haven’t appeared yet.
Iris reticulata Joyce

St Andrews, Fife, Scotland

St Andrews, Fife, Shore and Castle

St Andrews in Fife is one of my favourite places to visit, but because of the lockdown we hadn’t been there for months, actually possibly we hadn’t been there at all this year. So on Saturday we took the opportunity to pay the town a visit. It was a bit daft doing it on a Saturday as it was bound to be busy but we were visiting family further along the coast so we killed two birds with one stone.

It looks a bit grey and cool but it was really quite a hot day, by Scottish standards. The queue for the ice cream shop was too long for us to stand in. The beach was packed, but we just sat on a bench (wearing our masks) and didn’t bother going on to the sands, we just people and dog watched, the dogs were more entertaining, chasing the waves.

St Andrews, sea, Fife

It was strange to see the gates around the cathedral closeed and padlocked, I had to tale photos through the railings.

St Andrews Cathedra, Fife, Scotland

St Andrews Cathedral, Fife, Scotland

St Andrews Cathedral, Fife, Scotland

The archway below is over the road that leads down to the beach, down a steep road. If you want to read a bit more about the town then have a look here, there are some great photos.
St Andrews Archway, Fife, Scotland

If you are looking for tips on what to do around St Andrews have a look at My Voyage Scotland here.