This is the second of two articles praising five sights in my native Scotland. Again I apologise in advance that my selection may mean I have overlooked other readers’ cherished favourites, but I hope nevertheless that my choices give some pleasure.
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My first highlight is The New Town of Edinburgh, laid out to the inspired 1767 plans of James Craig when the Old Town of Edinburgh became overcrowded. The New Town took at least until 1830 to take shape and it is the work of many architects including Robert Adam, David Rhind, WH Playfair and David Bryce. It is built principally in the Georgian style and the broad streets, elegant terraces, crescents, squares and circuses delight the eye.
Moray Place, Edinburgh
Prominent among the fine streets is George Street, home of the Assembly Rooms, with spacious Charlotte Square at the West end and stately St Andrew Square at the East, graced by Sir William Chambers’ glorious Dundas House, registered office of recently humbled Royal Bank of Scotland. Queen Street and many others to the North illustrate the sophisticated architectural unity of this part of Edinburgh.
Most famous of Edinburgh’s avenues is Princes Street, originally built as a residential area but for long entirely devoted to commerce. It spans the bracing walk from the Caledonian Hotel to the majestic Balmoral. Many of the famed local shops are no more, but that Edinburgh institution, Jenners, still thrives and douce ladies sip tea, gossip and eat scones with ancestral enthusiasm. As only one side of Princes Street is built, lovely vistas unfold over Princes Street Gardens to the Mound and the Castle.
Princes Street from the Scott Monument
Princes Street has been much embellished by the excellent Scottish National Gallery, with its great international collection also including Scottish luminaries like Raeburn, Ramsay and Willkie, and the rather less successful Royal Scottish Academy, both by Playfair. However the most spectacular structure is the Victorian Gothic Scott Monument (1844) by Kemp, a tribute to Sir Walter Scott, whose poetry, historical novels and championing of Scotland so entranced Europe.
The New Town above all epitomises the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century when David Hume was the centre of a group of original thinkers including Dugald Stewart and Adam Ferguson in Edinburgh supplemented by Adam Smith in Glasgow and Thomas Reid in Aberdeen. With its major contribution to European intellectual life, Edinburgh has truly earned the epithet “The Athens of the North”
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My next highlight is quietly rural as I take you to The Scottish Borders. The area only has a population of 100,000 and the main occupation is sheep farming and the declining woollen industry, although lovely cashmere, tweed and lambswool knitwear can still be found at local mill shops.
The area was once famed for its substantial medieval monasteries at Jedburgh (Augustinian), Melrose (Cistercian), Dryburgh (Premonstratensian) and Kelso (Tironensian). Sadly the abbeys became targets for banditry, looting and English punitive raids stung by the depredations of the Border Reivers. The abbeys fell into various degrees of ruin and none survived the Scottish Reformation in 1560. But even today their revered outline gives character to their little border towns and Sir Walter Scott and Field Marshal Douglas Haig are both buried at peaceful Dryburgh.
Melrose Abbey
These little Border towns have another claim to fame. The Borders are like Wales in that their national sport is Rugby Union; association football dominates other parts of Scotland but never the Borders. Famous Scottish rugby international players and their clubs can provide a roll-call of the Border towns: John Rutherford (Melrose), Roy Laidlaw (Jed Forest), Gregor Townsend (Gala), Jim Renwick (Hawick) and John Jeffrey (Kelso), astonishing talent to emerge from so modest a catchment area. Huge pleasure was also dispensed by Bill McLaren, unrivalled BBC rugby commentator for over 50 years and a rugby player for Hawick in his youth. McLaren’s “He’s like a demented ferret up a wee drainpipe!” was perhaps said of a darting scrum-half like Jed Forest’s Gary Armstrong.
The Borders have a glittering array of great stately homes like Manderston, Floors Castle, Mellerstain or Thirlestone but I prefer to focus on the man who did most to romanticise the Borders and Scotland, Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) and his inspiring house at Abbotsford.
Abbotsford
Abbotsford, completed in 1825, is a mixture of Late Georgian and Scottish Baronial architecture and is situated on the banks of the River Tweed near Melrose. Scott had prospered as first a poet and then as the immensely popular author of the Waverley Novels, the historical novel genre which he effectively invented. His works were read in Europe and throughout the English-speaking world, although his prose style is not to modern taste. He had been the impresario of George IV’s visit to Edinburgh in 1822, doing much to heal the divisions of Scottish society between Highlander and Lowlander, and was awarded a baronetcy.
A banking crisis in 1825 ruined him financially but rather than declare bankruptcy he decided to write himself out of debt and although he still owed money on his death at Abbotsford, his trustees were able to settle his debts in full from his royalties not long after. The ghost of Sir Walter smiles over his beloved Tweed and his gardens at Abbotsford, a heroic Scot, exemplary in his genius and integrity
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My next highlight takes me to home territory as we go to my birthplace Aberdeen and its Hinterland. The third city of Scotland with a population of 217,000, Aberdeen has an illustrious history, has been long prosperous and has been greatly enriched by the industries connected to North Sea oil.
Union Terrace Gardens with the Central Library (hidden), St Mark's Church and His Majesty's Theatre – known as Education, Salvation and Damnation!
Situated mainly between the mouths of the River Dee and River Don, Aberdeen grew mightily in the 19th century when splendid Union Street was laid out, with its buildings all faced in the local sparkling grey granite which is so characteristic of the area. The city prospered through fishing, textiles, paper-making and ship-building, all now largely history. North Sea oil industries have more than filled the gap and the city continues profitably to provide services to a prosperous farming hinterland.
It was a proud boast of Aberdeen that it had two universities, Kings College, founded
in 1495, based in Old Aberdeen and Marischal College, founded in 1593, in New Aberdeen, when England itself only had two, Oxford and Cambridge. The two universities united in 1860 and now the main campus is at Kings, in a lovely part of Aberdeen near to twin-spired St Machar’s Cathedral, mainly from the 15th century. The impressive 1906 Marischal College in central Aberdeen is the second largest granite building in the world after the Escorial near Madrid.
Marischal College, Aberdeen
Trawling and fish processing used to be Aberdeen’s most famous activity but overfishing, especially of herring, and new technology have changed that and the main fleet has moved to the bustling ports of Peterhead and Fraserburgh further North in Buchan. But angling for salmon or trout is a great attraction on the Rivers Dee and Don, not to mention the Ythan and Deveron to the North. Royal Deeside is of surpassing beauty particularly in the autumn and the drive west to Banchory (salmon can be seen leaping upstream at nearby Bridge of Feugh), Aboyne, Ballater and Braemar following the shimmering Dee is an unforgettable experience. Donside is very attractive too at Inverurie, Alford and Kildrummy amid peaceful scenery.
Salmon leaping at Bridge of Feugh, Deeside
Aberdeenshire is famed for its castles and royal connections but I would like also to remember its rural traditions. The North East is wonderful farming country, after past generations did the backbreaking job of clearing the fields of stones. Much of the land is of excellent quality and grain farming prospers alongside its famed livestock.
In the old days, bachelor farm labourers lived in Spartan “bothies”, outbuildings attached to the farm. To entertain themselves they composed and sang Bothy Ballads, traditional songs ranging from the sad to the boisterous and some recalling their favourite places or country events, always in the broad Doric dialect still widely spoken here. Songs like “The Bonnie Lass o’ Fyvie”, “Barnyards of Delgaty”, Aikey Fair” or “Where the Gadie rins” strike more nostalgic chords than almost anything else and are much cherished.
The hard early 20th century farming life in Kincardineshire (known as The Mearns), in the area round Drumlithie and Auchenblae, is similarly eloquently evoked in the excellent 1932 novel “Sunset Song” by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, deservedly one of Scotland’s favourite books and a fine introduction to the North East.
In the old days, bachelor farm labourers lived in Spartan “bothies”, outbuildings attached to the farm. To entertain themselves they composed and sang Bothy Ballads, traditional songs ranging from the sad to the boisterous and some recalling their favourite places or country events, always in the broad Doric dialect still widely spoken here. Songs like “The Bonnie Lass o’ Fyvie”, “Barnyards of Delgaty”, Aikey Fair” or “Where the Gadie rins” strike more nostalgic chords than almost anything else and are much cherished.
The hard early 20th century farming life in Kincardineshire (known as The Mearns), in the area round Drumlithie and Auchenblae, is similarly eloquently evoked in the excellent 1932 novel “Sunset Song” by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, deservedly one of Scotland’s favourite books and a fine introduction to the North East.
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No portrait of Scotland would be complete without reference to lovely Loch Lomond and the Trossachs. The 19th century song “The bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond” is probably the first one any Scots child learns, extolling love and regretting exile. Loch Lomond is easily accessible, being less than 20 miles from Glasgow and is the largest freshwater lake in Great Britain. With its 30 islands and surrounding hills, it is overwhelmingly beautiful, encapsulating all that is memorable about the scenery of this country.
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond is neither wild nor remote. You are merely happily catapulted from the populated Lowlands to the edge of the Highlands, to a gloriously spacious playground where care-worn visitors can relax completely in healthy pursuits, hill-walking, sailing, cycling or merely sightseeing. The Trossachs is the large adjoining hilly area taking in the agreeable tourist villages of Callender and Aberfoyle, (outlaw Rob Roy McGregor was born beside nearby Loch Katrine), the sailing centre of Garelochhead and the hill-walking base of Crianlarich, to name but a few.
At the western end of the Trossachs on the shores of majestic Loch Fyne, celebrated for delicious seafood and kippers, stands Inveraray. Perhaps one should not bear an ancestral grudge too long and maybe Clan Campbell has sufficiently atoned for its massacre of Clan Donald at Rathlin in 1642 or its betrayal of the code of hospitality with its foul and infamous Massacre of the Macdonalds of Glencoe in 1692, which horrified all Europe. In any event the Campbells prospered and eventually rose to the Dukedom of Argyll and the 2nd Duke started to build iconic Inveraray Castle in 1746, in the Palladian and baronial style to designs by Roger Morris and William Adam. With its turrets and tower, armour, portraits and grand reception rooms, it is everyone’s romantic idea of a Scottish chieftain’s domain.
Inveraray Castle by Loch Fyne
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My final highlight takes us to the Isle of Skye, largest of the islands of the Inner Hebrides. Skye is a true Highland region as you have to penetrate wild and empty Lochalsh, Knoydart or Morar even to get there. Recently connected to the mainland by road via the Skye Bridge at Kyle, the only remaining ferry is the Southern approach from Mallaig to Armadale.
Skye is another world, God’s country, with lovely sea lochs, many offshore islands, a heavily indented coastline and the famous Cuillin Hills brooding to the west and providing challenging rock-climbing. I usually stayed at the delightful Skeabost Hotel where delectable scallops, oysters and crayfish were readily available and you could play gentle golf at the head of Loch Snizort. Such a place on such an island clears out all the cobwebs of the mind and refreshes your whole being.
In the North West corner of the island is civilised and imposing Dunvegan Castle, seat of the chief of Clan MacLeod. It is the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Scotland, having housed the MacLeods for at least 800 years and displays a collection of clan relics and portraits by Raeburn, Ramsay and Zoffany. Outside in Loch Dunvegan, grey Atlantic seals bask lazily.
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| Dunvegan Castle, Skye |
Distinguished as the MacLeods were, they were eclipsed by Clan Donald who had castles throughout the Highlands and were the largest and most powerful clan. The clan grew to prominence in the 12th century under Somerled and his grandson Donald as they became the feudal Lords of the Isles, controlling all the lands and islands from the Isle of Man to the Butt of Lewis, patrolling their realm in fleets of galleys. Even after the Lordship of the Isles was surrendered to the King of Scotland in 1493, Clan Donald remained potent in Gaelic Scotland. Wed to the Stuart Jacobite cause, almost all the Clan lands were forfeit after the disaster of Culloden in 1746. "Now, there’s the end of an old song."
To the South West of Skye stands the Clan Donald Centre at Armadale in Sleat - the Macdonalds of Sleat had not forfeit their lands, prudently backing the Hanoverians – and it celebrates all the achievements of Clan Donald. I am a worldly London Scot long remote from my ancestral background, but imagine the mixture of pride and guilt, the bursting emotion, as I read there the words of the 16th century Gaelic bard:
Ni h-eibhneas gan Chlainn Domhnaill,
ni comhnairt bheith 'na n-eagmhais;
an chlann do b'lhearr san gcruinne
gur dhiobh gach duine ceatach.
ni comhnairt bheith 'na n-eagmhais;
an chlann do b'lhearr san gcruinne
gur dhiobh gach duine ceatach.
It is no joy without Clan Donald,
It is no strength to be without them;
The best race in the round world;
To them belongs every goodly man.
SMD
16.02.2012
Text Copyright Sidney Donald 2012
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