Blackness Castle, West Lothian

Posted on 11 September 2023 by Katrina

Blackness Castle sticks out into the River Forth, as you can see, it was apparently designed to look like a ship. You actually have to walk over a wee drawbridge to get on to this wooden walkway.

It’s a couple of weeks since we visited Blackness Castle, it’s not far from Bo’ness in West Lothian, it might be in Falkirk District now, they keep changing things! It’s one of the many places that was used as a location for Outlander, they had to cover the metal handrails with wooden panelling. It was also used in the filming of The Bruce, Zeffirelli’s Hamlet, Starz (?) Doomsday and Ivanhoe. Blackness was built in the 15th century.

Anyway, it’s not that far from where we live and possibly for that reason we just didn’t get around to visiting it until years after reading about the castle. For some reason I didn’t think it would be a very interesting castle – but it was. As usual there are a lot of spiral staircases involved.

It’s a long way up to the top.

In the distance you can just see the Forth Bridges below. As ever, if you click on the photos you should be able to see them enlarged. Tomorrow I’ll show some photos of inside the castle.

Balvaird Castle, Perthshire

Posted on 2 April 2022 by Katrina

Last week we had wonderful weather, it felt more like June than March, so we grabbed the day and drove to Balvaird Castle which is just about ten miles from where we live. It lies off the A912 road about halfway between Gateside and the Bein Inn in Glen Farg. There were two other vehicles parked by the farm gates at the bottom of the track which leads to the castle, it’s a fairly steep walk from there, but not a very long one.

It’s thought that the castle dates from around 1495, built for Sir Andrew Murray, but over the years it has been extended and altered, as you would expect. Apparently it was owned by the Murray family until 2017 and then it was bought by an American, however it is maintained by Historic Scotland. The original Murray owners ended up moving to Scone Palace – they went up in the world it would seem but I must say that I prefer this setting to that of Scone Palace.

It’s a lovely setting for a home though and the views of the surrounding countryside from the windows must be quite spectacular, unfortunately, it isn’t possible to get into what is left of the castle although you can walk around the ruined parts. If you’re inclined to picnic then it would be a good location for one.

There’s the gable end of a cottage ruin in the photo below, I suspect that most of the stone it was built with has been robbed to build the nearby wall and the stone to build the cottage was robbed from the castle!

If you look right in the middle of the photo below you will be able to see the top of some roofs, beautiful trees and a walled garden, presumably it’s the home of whoever farms the land, it looks like my idea of heaven.

The roofs are towards the right hand side below. As ever, click on the photos to enlarge them.

Edzell Castle, near Brechin, Angus, Scotland

Posted on 3 September 2021 by Katrina

On Monday we visited Edzell Castle which is near Brechin in Angus. It’s the first time we had visited anywhere like that since Covid because they’ve all been shut until recently – and now you have to book a time slot for your visit, so you have to think ahead which isn’t something we normally do much of nowadays. Since retiring we prefer to see what the weather is like and what we feel like and then just visit places on the spur of the moment. In other words, we’re not terribly well organised! We had been to the garden 30 odd years ago, before digital cameras.

The castle was built by the Lindsay family in the 1500s but prior to that they had built a motte and bailey nearby. From the photo below you can see it’s now just a mound in the landscape. It is now owned by Historic Scotland.

Back to Edzell, the doorway below leads into a courtyard and from there you can see the remains of the kitchen and you can get upstairs via a modern wooden staircase.

But there’s also an ancient staircase, just mind your ‘heid’ as the lintels are very low!

The photo of the archway below is all that remains of the collapsed oven, it was quite a size.

In the photo below you can just catch a glimpse of the garden which is well known for it’s unusual and beautiful design, but I’ll blog about that tomorrow.

Jedburgh Abbey, Scottish Borders

Posted on 7 December 2017 by Katrina

The main reason anyone will go to Jedburgh I imagine is to see Jedburgh Abbey, what’s left of it anyway. As you can see from the photos below it’s quite grand still, even as a ruin. It was founded by King David I in 1138.

Some parts of it still have the roof intact.

Other parts of it are just piles of stones where the kitchen and sleeping quarters and such were. Over the years as the abbey became poorer they just abandoned buildings that they couldn’t afford to upkeep. Now it’s maintained by Historic Environment Scotland.

You can see more images of the abbey and town here.

Pining for the West

Meanderings about recipes, books, craft and more

Tag Archives: Historic Scotland

Blackness Castle, West Lothian

Balvaird Castle, Perthshire

Edzell Castle, near Brechin, Angus, Scotland

Jedburgh Abbey, Scottish Borders