34:11 (91-92): UK-3; Web Site;

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34.11 Trip with Joanna to Scotland and England

34.11.1 Introduction: Europe (4 of 20)
34.11.2 London
34.11.3 North-eastern England
34.11.4 South-east Scotland
34.11.5 Edinburgh
34.11.6 Stirling
34.11.7 North-east Scotland: St. Andrews, Aberdeen
34.11.8 The Highlands and the Dee Valley
34.11.9 Ancestral Home
34.11.10 Northern Scotland
34.11.11 Northwestern Scotland
34.11.12 Southwestern Scotland
34.11.13 Glascow
34.11.14 Architect Charles Rene Mackintosh
34.11.15 England's Lake District and Manchester
34.11.16 Wales
34.11.17 Renewable Technology Institute: an Alternative Energy Community
34.11.18 Cornwall
34.11.19 Stonehenge
34.11.20 South Coast of England: D-Day, 1066
34.11.21 Dover
34.11.22 Canterberry

34.11.1 Introduction: Europe (4 of 20)

This was my fourth trip to Europe. The previous trip (3) had been in 19__ (see chapter __, section __). My suceeding trip (5) will be in 19__ (see chapter __, section __).

34.11.2 London

We initially flew to Heathrow, rented a car, and started out in London.

34.11.3 North-eastern England

We liked England very much, and Robert Browning's poem came to mind:

"Home Thoughts, From Abroad"
by Robert Browning

Oh, to be in England
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge— 
That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Peterborough

Lindisfarne Holy Island

Berwick-Upon-Tweed

We visited the site of the massacre by Edward I of all the people of Berwick in 1295 (see Chapter One, section 8).

34.11.4 Scotland

34.11.5 Edinburgh

Edinburgh, the undisputed centre of the world, took our breath away. Upon first arriving the first thing which struck me was the famous Arthur's Seat, the great outcropping of volcanic rock which towers above the city. We know now that 350 million years ago the eruption of a volcano created a volcanic cone. Over the millions of years which followed, this cone was submerged under an ancient sea. During this time sedimentary rocks formed around the cone. Earthquakes and mountain-forming pressures further raised and distorted the landscape. The seas receded and the land rose exposing the soft sedimentary rock to erosion. Finally a relatively recent ice-age glacier overran it all, leaving behind the exposed harder volcanic cone, which we call Arthur's Seat. It was this formation which inspired James Hutton, who lived within sight of Arthur's Seat, to develop his innovative geological theories of subterranean heat, and eventually used these to bring into question the established beliefs about the age of Earth. Instead of the 6,000 years as universally believed, he proved it was billions of years old --thereby introducing an entirely new conception of time (see 2:24).

Click to enlarge the Edinburgh map below. It is from 1870, the time when my great grandfather emigrated.

We timed our visit to correspond to the Edinburgh Festival, an annual cultural extravaganza of dance, theatre, art and music. The population of the city doubles for the festival during the months of August to September and events take place all over the city.

History of Edinburgh

Edinburgh had been continuously inhabited for over 4,000 years. King Malcolm III defeated Macbeth and built the chapel in 1057 (which is still standing).

It was from here that many of the Scots rode out to their deaths at Flodden in 1513.

It was in Edinburgh that Andrew Fletcher and Peterson planned the ill-fated Darien scheme to start a colony and build a road across Panama in the 1690s. The same Andrew Fletcher tried to save the nation's independence in the fight against unification in 1707.

Sites We Saw in Edinburgh
Joanna and I spend our final evening in Edinburgh at the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, a display of military musical prowess from the finest bands of the British Commonwealth.

34.11.6 Stirling

We left Edinburgh driving West and North, following the Firth of Forth. This was the same route that the many invaders took. As the Firth narrowed, we could see the other side coming closer. Finally, when we reached the point where it could be bridged, this was the sacred ground, (see small red dot on the map above) near Stirling, where so many battles to defend Scotland had been fought:

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We spent a day at Stirling, seeing the battle site of one of William Wallace's great victories over the English, the castle (seen below) and the Memorial (further below) to Scotland's national hero. Wallace led successful guerrilla campaigns against the English in the late 13th century (see chapter One: section ___). The story of his victories and eventual betrayal became famous the world over when the 'Braveheart' movie starring Mel Gibson was made.

We then headed North and East towards St. Andrews.

34.11.6 St. Andrews

St. Andrews is the home of golf, one of the world's most popular sports which was actually invented in Scotland over 500 years ago. The club has six courses, the most famous being the old course. To play on it you have to enter a ballot and just hope that your name is drawn.

34.11.7 Aberdeenshire

34.11.8 The Valley of My Ancestors

This area of the Deeside is described in chapter 3, section __.

There we saw a Highland Games. The games are an ancient tradition held all over the highlands, and were originally used as a test of skill and strength when recruiting clan warriors. We saw a range of events, from putting the stones, to throwing the hammers and tossing the caber.

Tap O'Noth Hill Fort Near Rhynnie

The traditional Celtic mode of defence was to build hill forts within sight of each other. In my ancestors' region of the Dee Valley, the local hill fort was called Tap O'Noth, and it's ruins still exist one mile NW of the small town of Rhynnie. We climbed up to the top.

The site crowns the conspicuous 562 m high SW summit of the Hill of Noth. The major feature is the substantial remnant of the vitrified wall, defining an oblong approximately 100 m by 30 m in size. An internal depression, in which water may sometimes be seen, probably served as a cistern for the initial inhabitants. Although it is difficult to imagine such a high site being occupied on a permanent basis, there are slight traces of platforms, perhaps for circular wooden houses, on the South side beyond the collapsed rubble from the vitrified enclosure. Much further out, on the N and E, there is a much less impressive defence, formed by boulders strung out along the flanks of the hill.
Hill forts would included defensive house-towers made of stone, called brochs, such as the one shown to the right. They were usually 15 to 25 meters high. This one is 2,500 years old. They are found throughout the north and west of Scotland.

One of the methods commonly used in defining the areas once inhabited by the Picts is by looking at Pit name distribution. Throughout Pictish Scotland there appears a number of place names that start with the prefix "Pit" (eg. Pitcaple, Pitcur, Pitlochry etc).

The "Pit" prefix has been generally accepted as being Pictish in origin and is thought to mean a piece of land, perhaps defined by its yield rather than a specified area. The term is believed to be akin to Latin petia which in turn gave rise to the word piece. It is striking that the majority of Pit names appear to have a Gaelic word as the secondary part of the name. While not all Pit names may be directly related to archaeological evidence of settlement sites, the Pit names do give us a clear indication of some of the areas inhabited by the Picts.

The map at left identifies settlements which date back to the Pict period.

34.11.9 Northern Scotland

We stoped at the site of the Battle of Culloden, where the last battle ever to be fought on British soil took place in 1746. In just 45 minutes 1,500 highlanders, led by Bonnie Prince Charlie, were slaughtered by the troops of the Duke of Cumberland. The English leader earned the nickname 'Butcher Cumberland' for his brutal treatment of the defeated Scottish forces.

Britain's biggest lake and legendary home of 'Nessie' lies just 6 miles west of Culloden. The first sightings of a gigantic monster living in Loch Ness occurred in the 6th century AD. Since then tourists have travelled here in the hope of sighting the beast.

Further north we travelled to the Orkneys. There we toured Skara Brae, Northern Europe's best preserved prehistoric village. We saw an Orkadian wedding and were surprised by the ancient traditions still associated with marriage ceremonies. For example, the bride and groom were pelted with a mixture of yoghurt, eggs, ironbrew, molasses and sand, known as "blackening".

We visited a tiny town below a cliff on the North coast. The film "Local Hero" was shot here.

34.11.10 North-western Scotland

We continued our journey to the mountainous region of Oben on the west coast of the mainland. We climbed Ben Truerton, the biggest hill in the Campbell area and one of the 284 mountains in Scotland over 3,000 feet. Known as 'munroes', the feat of conquering these admirable peaks is known as 'munroe-bagging'.

The West Highland railway runs from Glasgow via Fort William to Mallaig and is one of the most scenic train journeys in the world. There is a ferry to the Isle of Skye, a rugged island known for its castles, mountains and changeable weather.