Category: Scotland
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Cramond Brig: Where the King had a Narrow Escape
The River Almond begins its quiet journey in North Lanarkshire, winding eastwards until it slips, almost unnoticed, into the Firth of Forth at Cramond. But just before it meets the tide, the Almond performs one last act of theatre. Its course cuts through a steep, wooded gorge where oak, beech and sycamore crowd the banks,…
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The Ferry That Time Forgot: Queen Margaret’s Gift to Travellers
A sweeping view of Scotland’s most iconic bridges, taken from the charming town of South Queensferry—a place where steel, stone, and centuries meet across the Firth of Forth. It is tempting to drift into the story of how these mighty spans were built, but today the real fascination lies not in iron and rivets, but…
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Waterloo Monument, Peniel Heugh
Into the Scottish Borders, and to Peniel Heugh—a modest hill of 237 metres, though it carries itself as if it were Everest. It is, I am told, a volcanic plug of olivine microgabbro, which sounds far grander than the dark lump it appears to be above the village of Ancrum. At its summit stands the…
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Dùn Vùlan
This was an unexpected discovery on South Uist, though the Gothic lettering on the map did hint at something worth noting. Rubha Àird Mhuile is a low, sandy peninsula that juts into the Atlantic. Most of it is taken up by a shallow ‘inland’ loch. On the summit of a storm-thrown shingle ridge, barely ten…
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Departing the Hebrides, Not Quite Yet
That is it. The Hebridean escape has come to an end. But while I drag myself back into a Yorkshire frame of mind, I can still make use of the heap of photos that never made it into the daily posts. This one shows the summit of Hacklett Uachdar, a rocky rise on the southern…
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Ardtornish Castle
After a smooth and unexpectedly quiet crossing of The Minch, with only dolphins or porpoises for company, the Sound of Mull offered a surprise: Ardtornish Castle. Once a key stronghold of the Lords of the Isles—descendants of Somerled and rulers of the Western Seaboard until the late 1400s—this ruined 13th-century fortress stands at the tip…
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Crash on Vatersay: The Lost Catalina of 1944
I had hoped to photograph the tombolo that links the two high points of Bhatarsaigh—a narrow strip of machair, that low, sandy grassland so typical of the Outer Hebrides. But from the summit of Beinn Ruilibreac, I was just short of a clear view of the twin beaches that lie back to back on either…
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The Lost Graves of Àird Allathasdail
Trà igh Hamara: a sweep of pale sand where today the Atlantic was rolling in quietly, one more perfect beach among many on Barra. But our attention was not on the beach. It was drawn to the headland opposite. Not the distant one, but the nearer stretch of low dunes and machair: Àird Allathasdail. In 2005,…
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Dùn Sgùrabhal
Dùn Sgùrabhal stands on a low hill, facing the sea to the west and the expanse of Trà igh Eais to the south. What remains is a collapsed stone structure, but it is still recognisable. Among the rubble, archaeologists have identified a double wall with a gallery between—clear signs of Iron Age construction. Though it has…
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The Black Stacks and the Weaver’s Castle
There was a brief sense of relief when the ferry finally slipped past the headland. Several sailings had been cancelled thanks to the breezy weather. I then endured ten minutes on the poop deck being drenched by the bow spray before giving up and retreating indoors. The unease only lifted once our wheels touched the…