Birthdays, Castles, Peaks and Old Houses

Birthdays, Castles, Peaks and Old Houses

Birthday wellies on Arthur's Seat

Finally posting the next few days of our trip.

The following morning the weather was clear and provided as good and opportunity as we were going to get for tackling Arthur’s Seat, which was supposed to afford the puffing climber the best possible view of Edinburgh. It was also my birthday, and given on of my much hinted (read ‘directed’) birthday presents was a pair of gumboots, I was quite happy to attempt the peak once decked out in my new stripy wellies. 

The view from the top was lovely - we could see the west where our day’s drive was to take us, and the north where snow capped mountains were just visible on the horizon. and we could see Edinburgh, her castle and palace, parks, winding old town and uniform new town and suburbs set out below us - and we could see the sea. 

Stirling Castle

A much quicker decent than assent, and we piled back into the car and off to the West. Our first stop along the way was to be Stirling castle (if you’re starting to see a theme with our points of interest I don’t blame you). Lonely Planet had pronounced Stirling Castle as the one castle that must be seen in Scotland - even above Edinburgh Castle. With that kind of recommendation how could we possibly just drive past. The castle, clearly visible form the highway certainly does catch your attention. Build right up to the cliff face of the hill that its on, you have amazing views from below of the castle looming up at you. 

The Wallace Monument

Another monument commanding the view is the Wallace Monument built in 1869 in a nationalistic surge. Looking like some destroyed abbey, this impressive viewing tower  and museum stands over the valley bellow - and if nothing else provides for some spectacular photos. 

Stirling Castle was the seat of Robert the Bruce at one point, and actually defended itself against sieges and cannon fire, the evidence of which can still be seen on the walls. A lot of effort has been invested in recent years to restore the apartments and great hall. 

Stirling Castle 

We arrived just as two groups of school children also descended on the castle and grounds. The first were teenagers and they merely moped about the gardens whilst encouraged by their teachers. The primary school kids on the other hand screamed around the castle - both at pace and volume - running up and down every stairwell they could find and pinging off every nook and arrow slit. They tangled about our legs as we tried to see the outer castle buildings, followed by their rather harangued teachers and volunteer parents shouting at them to look where they were going (and wishing they’d taken them somewhere more sedate). 

A walk walk

To escape the kids we wandered down the outer wall of the castle, past the sheds that had been specially built outside the main walls to hold the gun powder, to find, at the very end of the road, an exhibit on weaving - specifically on the recreation of The Hunt of the Unicorn Tapestries.  The exhibition includes a full scale loom with one of the recreation tapestries in progress.  Usually there are three weavers working on the tapestry 7.5 hours a day, 5 days a week - it takes 4 years to finish one of the full scale reproductions. Unfortunately they had been sent to help finish another one of the tapestries in the collection and weren't there. I have however been inspired to do a weavers course at the college that trains the weavers for this project. It is almost a lost art, and the product is so beautiful. I might start small though - a cushion perhaps. 

After finishing our wander through the castle we got back on the road to the Trossachs national park on a quest to see Rob Roy Macgregor’s grave. When the family drove around Scotland in 1998 we had found the tiny village of Balquhidder in which he is buried and given we were going to be staying quite close I was keen to find it again. We drove right along the shores of Loch Lubnaig then up into the hills behind, along extremely narrow lanes and finally pulled up to the church yard where he is buried. Rob Roy Macgregor was still buried where we had left him 14 years ago with the epitaph ‘Despite them’ still on his grave stone. What I hadn't remembered was the beauty of valley and the churchyard that the grave sits in with the rushing stream nearby and grand trees growing inside what was once the church. 

From Balquhidder we headed back down the hills towards our B&B for the night. We decided on setting out to use Sawdays for all of the places we were going to stay. We discovered Sawdays thanks to our friend Rose’s recommendation when we first got here as a generally good guide of where to stay. The only place Sawdays couldn't help us was Dundee where we ended up in a lovely hotel. In Edinburgh all the places they recommended were full, so we ended up at 11 Nelson st which was the recommendation of someone on the Sawdays list. 

We had picked out a particularly special looking place for the night of my birthday. Cadross Estate was described as a manor house on an estate with a couple of self contained cabins, and a couple of rooms for B&B in the main house. Dogs were apparently welcome.  We arrived at the end of a long drive at the front of a house that was straight out of Pride and Prejudice (which I had been reading aloud to Tony for the last few months and finished while on the trip). We were welcomed at the front door by Archie and Nicola and their terriers Beetle and Scrumpy. We entered into a large front room with a welcoming fire. Archie checked with Nicola which room we were to stay in (out of the many bedrooms in the house). She replied that we were to be in Alistair’s old room - their son.  We were shown up a grand staircase past the family portraits, embroidered panels and grandfather clocks. 

The front room

Beetle by the fire

Birthday champagne and P&P by the fire

Once we settled in we all had tea in the library by the fire and we read the short history of the house that was prepared for guests. We realised that our hosts were the Baronet Archibald Donald Orr-Ewing and Lady Nicola Orr-Ewing, and that the family had owned the house for generations. I don’t think I've ever met a real Lord and Lady - eep! At least I didn't dunk my biscuits in my tea. They were extremely gracious hosts, made us the tea and hot chocolate, and sat and chatted about our trip so far, where we were from and where we were going. Archie excused himself as he had organised to go curling (the strange sport where you brush the ice in front of rocks with little brooms to get the rock in the goal), but promised he’d be back for dinner. Nicola offers dinner to her guests (for the tiny sum of £30 per head), and so we settled on 8pm and she left us to our own devices while she went to prepare the meal. We settled by the fire with a bottle of Moet we had brought with us and continued reading P&P (a copy we borrowed from their library) by the fire with the company of the dogs until dinner was ready. 

The Library

We had dinner in the small dinning room, accessed through the main dinning room (picture something from Netherfield with large paintings on the walls and grand windows overlooking the park). Whilst not as romantically grand, this was the practical choice as the realities of heating such a large house became apparent. Fires in every room only barely kept up with the -1 degree temperatures outside and the smaller the room, the warmer and cosier you were. Nicola and Archie (once he returned victorious from his curling) dined with us and the conversation turned to everything from politics to environmentalism. Their son Alistair, whose old room we were occupying was up from Sandhurst the following weekend with 20 friends. As all parents do they were lamenting about how they were going to feed a party of that size (lasagne made in bulk and the kitchen table added to the end of the normal large dinning table in the main room - sounds just like parties at our farm). Alistair is off to Afghanistan for his second tour in a couple of weeks. Our best wishes for his safe return are with his parents. 

It was an excellent dinner, and an experience i’m not sure we’ll ever get to repeat. After dinner we retired to the library, read a few more chapters of P&P and slipped up to bed.