Enjoying retirement
In The Red Rose County
Going to the supermarket at Cameron Toll near Katherine's we passed one magnificent house after the other lining both sides of the main road. Edinburgh never ceases to amaze with its quality and quantity of solid and stylish Georgian/Victorian/Edwardian buildings. Taking Roxie for a walk was a trip into the countryside by Blackford Hill and Pond and along the Braid Burn virtually to Morningside. Very nice indeed. and afterwards......... We had a very good trip by rail to Stirling and were very impressed with the castle and the town. Our first stop was a tour of Stirling Old Town Jail. The early Nineteenth Century was not a good time to be in prison.... However, Inspired by his friend, Elizabeth Fry, and the work of other ground-breaking Prison Reformers, Frederick Hill was appointed as Scotland’s first Inspector of Prisons in 1840 and on his first visit to the Burgh the following year, he was shocked by the dire, dehumanising conditions in the Stirling Tolbooth. He condemned the Tolbooth as “The worst prison in Britain.” This spurred Hill and other Reformers to force Stirling’s County Prison Board to build the New County Jail – better known today as The Old Town Jail. Conditions were much better, there was some education and 'reform', but...... there was still work to do! The pan-optican tower had been given a make-over, and the views from the top were terrific. Next on the agenda was Stirling Castle. In a very strategic position bith geographically and atop its steep cliffs, before the union with England, Stirling Castle was also one of the most used of the many Scottish royal residences, very much a palace as well as a fortress. Most of the principal buildings of the castle date from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A few structures remain from the fourteenth century, During the reign of David I at the start of the Twelfth Century Stirling became a royal burgh, and the castle an important administration centre. The Great Hall (on the right) was built for James IV around 1503. and on the inside proved truly spectacular........ One unusual feature of some rooms in the castle was that they had been arranged and decorated very much as they would have been in times past. This gave a much better idea of how sumptuous the insides of these great fortifications could be. Truly amazing. The Stirling Heads are one of Scotland’s great art treasures – metre-wide 16th-century oak medallions carved with images of kings, queens, nobles, Roman emperors and characters from the Bible and Classical mythology. They decorated palace ceilings until a collapse in 1777 after which they were dispersed. Most of the survivors have now been brought back together. some in the display are replicas of items held elsewhere. Another morning was spent at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, always a favourite. A splendid building. And since we were there last the inside has been improved tremendously with defined exhibition areas. In these times I was astonished and delighted to see an exhibition of Scottish Heroes and their times........ Winston was of course MP for Dundee for a large number of years and had many Scottish connections. He was one of the first MP's to argue for a federal UK giving a large degree of independence to Scotland. Here Thomas Carlyle.... Here Sir William Gillies (self-portrait)... Doddy Weir of course.... Queen Victoria.. Annie Lennox... Author Naomi Lady Michison.... and I particularly love people in settings, here Sir Adam Thomson founder of British Caledonian Airways.... here Professor Dame Sue Black the preeminent forensic pathologist in a picture entitled 'Unknown Man'..... It was great to meet Aiisha from school with freshly baked bread... and should we let her down, well....... Because of problems with flooding our trip back was delayed somewhat and we had to change at York which just gave us time to get to know the Maltings an old-fashioned boozer near the river. Very atmospheric. Great trip.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Keith & Frances SmithArchives
August 2023
Categories |