Category: Scotland
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Fingal’s Cauldron Seat
Giants do get around a bit. In Yorkshire, Wade performed huge landscaping feats. But Wades attempts were nothing compared to Fionn mac Cumhaill, or Fingal in its anglicized form. He built a causeway bridging Northern Ireland with Scotland only to have it destroyed by a rival giant. He pops on Staffa island where a cave…
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Cock of Arran
The northern tip of the Isle of Arran is called the ‘Cock of Arran‘. Just to the east of the promontory is a sandstone large boulder that is supposed to resemble a cockerel. Or it did until someone knocked its head off. When that happened is lost in history. It was certainly history in 1932…
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Red deer, Loch Ranza
Went for an evening walk along the shore of Loch Ranza on the Isle of Arran, and, on the way back, in the gathering gloom, this remarkably tame fine beast eyed us up but stood his ground. I wonder if he is a descendant of the twenty red deer that were brought onto the island…
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Wanlockhead
An interesting walk around Wanlockhead’s heritage trail. Wanlockhead, Scotland’s highest village, and “God’s Treasure House” although his treasure of the ores of lead, zinc, copper, silver and gold had to be gained by hard dangerous work in extremely tough living conditions. The village of Wanlockhead existed before the Quaker company of the London Mining Company…
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Cuddy Trail — Tods Loup
On 12 March 1840, the Fife Herald carried an advertisement: LAMBERTON COLLIERY TO LET. To be Let, for such a number of years as may be agreed upon, with entry thereto at Whitsunday 1840, THE COAL FIELD situated on the Farm of LAMBERTON, in the parish of Mordington, and county of Berwick, as formerly occupied…
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Dunglass Collegiate Church
Stopped off for a bit of exercise on the way home from Edinburgh and stumbled across this fine ruined church. The brown tourist sign pointed to ‘Dunglass Collegiate Church‘ which I admit I had assumed would be some Victorian church associated with a school or college. But worth a ½km detour. I now learn that…
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Wardie Bay
Lovely start to the morning across the Firth of Forth, but by the afternoon it was snowing in Edinburgh. Wardie Bay is sandwiched between the ports of Granton and Leith.
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Grey seals, Horsecastle Bay
Stopped off for a run around St. Abb’s Head to break the journey up to Edinburgh and surprised to come across several seals hauled up on the beach with their pups. They were Grey seals (Halichoerus grypus), and were seemingly unperturbed by the closeness of the popular footpath. The pups were no longer cuddly fluffy…
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Scald Law
A breezy run on the Pentlands Hills under the threat of a wet forecast which, apart from one short shower, never materialised. The Pentlands are the range of hills running south west from Edinburgh. I read there are 150 hill names, the highest being Scald Law at 579m, just pipping Carnethy Hill by six metres.…
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The Shellycoat of Leith
A few days in Leith on the outskirts of Edinburgh and a chance to look out for one of Scotland’s most elusive creatures. So elusive in fact that one long term resident of Leith had never heard of the town’s watery inhabitant. Walter Scott wrote about the Shellycoat in his 1802 book ‘Ministrelsy of the…