Islay: whisky galore!

Anabel @ The Glasgow Gallivanter54 Comments

Islay Whisky Tours

Islay has nine whisky distilleries – already two more than when we last visited thirty years ago, and soon to be ten when Port Ellen reopens next year. There was no way we were going to visit without sampling a few drams, and driving was therefore not an attractive option. Step forward Islay Whisky Tours, operated by Bowmore Taxis. We chose a one day tour at a cost of £260, which included the services of a driver/guide from 9am to 5pm and tours of two distilleries selected by us. We booked about 6 weeks ahead – the longer the better, the company is deservedly busy and popular – and received a detailed itinerary based around our choices well in advance of our trip. This included short visits to several other distilleries and some general sight-seeing. We had a very enjoyable day, as you will see below, and highly recommend this company.

Kilchoman

We chose two contrasting distilleries for our tours – one small and privately owned, the other large and owned by a multi-national. Our lovely driver, Donald, appeared at our accommodation exactly at the time arranged, and we set off immediately for our first destination. Kilchoman, the small distillery we chose, began production in 2005 and is Islay’s second-newest distillery, at the time the first to be built for over 120 years. It’s the only farm distillery on the island and we saw the whole process from the barley growing in the surrounding fields to the small bottling plant. It initially felt a bit weird to be sampling whisky at 10 in the morning – but we got over it!

The distillery also has a small café which looked very good, but we didn’t have time to try it. We did have time to look at the Visitor Centre displays before our tour started and were amused to find four Sinclairs in the list of persons contravening The Excise Act, 1801, i.e. they were probably distilling illegally. Shocking, they can’t be related to me. Nor shall I claim kinship with John Sinclair who established the short-lived Mulindry Distillery in 1826. According to the local Excise Officer, he liked his own product a little too much, went bankrupt in 1831, and emigrated to America. I’m sure any Sinclairs I am related to were fine, upstanding citizens.

Bruichladdich

Our next stop was Bruichladdich Distillery, on the shore of Loch Indaal ( a sea loch) just outside the pretty village of Port Charlotte. We didn’t have a tour here, but we had a quick look around and came out with a bottle of gin! As well as whisky, Bruichladdich also produces The Botanist Islay Dry Gin, and very good it was too (note past tense).

Shore at Bruichladdich
Bruichladdich Distillery
Bruichladdich Distillery
Bruichladdich Distillery
Botanist Gin van
Bruichladdich Distillery

By the way, if you are pronouncing the ch sounds in these names as in church, then that’s not right. Ch is a guttural, back-of-the-throat, Germanic sound – usually. Just to fool you, Bruichladdich has two chs. The first is pronounced as expected – the other isn’t pronounced at all, hence the name of the Laddie Shop.

Bowmore

Next, we had a couple of hours in Bowmore, the island’s main settlement, to have lunch, look around the distillery (no tour) and explore the unusual Kilarrow Parish Church (1767), otherwise known as the Round Church for obvious reasons. That’s it at the top of the hill, above. There was a great view over the distillery roofs from its upper windows.

Round Church, Bowmore
Bowmore Distillery from Round Church

We visited Bowmore Distillery, Islay’s oldest (1779) in 1989. From what I can remember, it was the only one offering commercial tours at the time. It hasn’t changed much, though I don’t remember the mermaid.

Again, it’s set right on the shore, almost directly opposite Bruichladdich on Loch Indaal. The sea was an important form of transport – Kilchoman is the exception being inland.

Loch Indaal
Bowmore harbour
Bowmore harbour

Ardbeg

At 2pm we met Donald again and set off for our afternoon visits. The morning had been spent in the north of the island, now we were heading back south where three distilleries lie in close proximity to each other. The furthest away is Ardbeg which dates from 1815, though hasn’t had a continuous history. We liked its green bus, and the views along the coast to Dunyvaig Castle and the neighbouring distillery, Lagavulin.

Ardbeg Distillery
Ardbeg Distillery
Ardbeg Distillery
Lagavulin from Ardbeg
Dunyvaig Castle

Laphroaig

We didn’t visit Lagavulin next – we drove past it because we had a 3pm tour booked at Laphroaig (pronounced Lafroyg, it means ‘broad hollow by the bay’). Donald and Alexander Johnston founded the distillery in 1815, and it remained in family hands for the next 139 years. These days it’s a multinational, owned by Beam Suntory. Laphroaig is arguably the best known Islay malt: it was certainly the first one I tried and is still my favourite – if you like your drink to taste of peat, smoke, and iodine then its for you (check out the marketing slogans in the gallery below). One person who certainly likes it is Prince Charles who gave the distillery his Royal Warrant in 1994 – his coat of arms (three feathers) appears on every bottle. In the gallery below it’s on the wall in one of the photographs. You can also see a cairn unveiled by the Prince in 2015 for Laphroaig’s bicentenary in 2015.

I haven’t bothered with the technical details of making whisky because I’d probably get them wrong, and you can very easily look them up anyway. As you know, it’s the human element that catches my eye and women’s history in particular. Here we have a splendid example in Bessie Williamson who arrived as a temporary shorthand typist in 1934 but remained for nearly 50 years, eventually becoming the first female distiller and distillery owner in the 20th century. Bravo Bessie!

Laphroaig cairn

Lagavulin

After our tour at Laphroaig, we backtracked to Lagavulin for a quick look at its grounds. Like many distilleries, its site was originally used for illegal stills, in this case becoming licensed around 1810. It’s now part of the Diageo group. From here we could once again see Dunyvaig Castle, this time from the other side. That’s me with Donald, our driver, in the final photo below.

Dunyvaig Castle
Donald and Anabel

Port Ellen

Port Ellen distillery
Ship at Port Ellen

On our way back to our accommodation we made one last stop at Port Ellen where we spied this beautiful ship in the bay. The distillery here closed in 1983, but its owners, Diageo again, are set to re-open it next year. You can still buy its single malt whisky, though it’s becoming increasingly rare and therefore expensive. We bought a bottle at a Scotch Malt Whisky Society tasting about 25 years ago, and five of us demolished it the following night. I seem to remember the tasting notes involved sailors’ pigtails …

Donald dropped us off at the end of our tour after a wonderful day during which the sun even shone for us! Many thanks to him and to Lamont who made all the arrangements so splendidly (though possibly he had nothing to do with the sunshine). Once again, a hearty (and completely unsolicited) recommendation for Islay Whisky Tours. Total stars!

Islay: Finlaggan and Ballygrant

Anabel @ The Glasgow Gallivanter77 Comments
Loch Finlaggan

Finlaggan Castle is a ruined fortified house on the isle of Eilean Mór on Islay’s Loch Finlaggan. It was once a residence and stronghold of the Lords of the Isles, semi-autonomous rulers of the Hebrides and Kintyre from the 12th century until 1493 when the lands of the Lordship were forfeited to King James IV. The title Lord of the Isles was annexed to the Crown in 1542 (and is now one of the titles of the present Prince of Wales). The castle appears to have been demolished around that time.

In truth, there’s not much to see of the ruins, but we enjoyed our visit all the same. We started in the small visitor centre which has an interesting display of artefacts discovered during archaeological excavations, along with a fabulous new virtual-reality reconstruction of the settlement in the early 15th century. You can see John totally immersed in it above.

I was also, if you remember, looking out for references to Sinclairs (my great-grandfather’s name) and MacAffers (the family his sister married into). Sinclair is a relatively common name in Scotland and we found many in the graveyards around Islay, but the only reference to MacAffer that I found was at Finlaggan. The MacAffers were hereditary armour bearers to the Lords of the Isles – see below.

From the Visitor Centre, we took the path down to the site, crossing the reed beds of the loch on duckboards.

Finlaggan Visior Centre
Loch Finlaggan
Loch Finlaggan
On the island, interpretive panels explain the ruins and fill in the gaps of what was no longer there. We also visited Finlaggan in 1989 when it was quite overgrown, and I think you can tell from the pictures below that it is now much better maintained.

Finlaggan Castle
Finlaggan 1989
After a quick lunch in Port Askaig, we drove back to a little village called Ballygrant from where we planned to walk to Lily Loch. This was a pleasant, if unspectacular, walk through woods and farmland, and the loch was pretty – although we were there too early to see waterlilies.

From the loch, we crossed an area of open moorland to take a parallel track back – this took us through the village of Keills. The name derives from the Gaelic for church, Cill, and the graveyard here contains the ruins of an old chapel attributed to St Columba. I can never resist an old graveyard, especially one with a view like this. Headstones which caught my eye included one for a father and son who died a fortnight apart, and the memorial to Piper Lily MacDougall aged 100 years. There must be interesting stories attached to both of those.

Chapel ruins
The view
Father and son died two weeks apart
Keills graveyard
Piper Lily MacDougall, ged 100
From the graveyard we headed back to Ballygrant where we caught Labels, the local café, just as it was about to close. Coffee at an outdoor table was a pleasant end to a round walk of 9.5km.

Labels Ballygrant
Labels Ballygrant
(In my last post, I mentioned that I had been called for jury duty and might therefore be out of action for a while. That turned out to be an anti-climax. I called the helpline three nights in a row to find out if I was required – I wasn’t and was “released from my citation” on the third call. Whoopee!)

Islay: Mull of Oa and Port Ellen

Anabel @ The Glasgow Gallivanter70 Comments
Admiring the extensive views, Mull of Oa

The Oa (just pronounced O) is the rocky and rugged peninsula in the southwest of Islay. Once fairly densely populated, it now has only a few scattered dwellings, one of which is our rented cottage. A top priority was to drive out to the Mull of Oa – the tip – to the American Monument: our error was to do this on the first morning. The weather looked reasonably pleasant from our window, but we failed to take into account that the Mull was considerably higher than we were and the closer we got, the poorer visibility became.

Oh well, we pressed on regardless. The Mull is an RSPB reserve, so we left the car in its parking area and set off on a waymarked circular tour (3.5km). If there were birds, we couldn’t see them.

The outer route is direct to the monument, but before we got there we were surprised by a herd of feral goats suddenly looming out of the mist: almost impossible to photograph. This one looks quite evil!

The monument itself was similarly invisible until we were almost upon it. The second picture below is from our previous visit in 1989 – that’s John lurking under the blue cagoule – so we have never visited this site in good weather! Last time was even worse: we had hired bikes and cycled out from Port Ellen (hence the map pocket round John’s neck) and it wasn’t just misty, it was pouring. I remember we cut our losses on the full-day hire and returned the bikes by lunchtime.

American Monument 2019
American Monument 1989

What is the American Monument? It was erected by the American Red Cross in 1920 to commemorate two US troopship disasters off the coast of Islay in 1918. SS Tuscania was torpedoed by a German U-Boat on 5th February with the loss of over 200 American and British crew. A few months later, HMS Otranto sank following a collision in bad weather with another troopship. This time 431 people died, including 80 British crew. As well as the main commemoration, there is a tribute from President Woodrow Wilson.

American Monument
American Monument
American Monument inscription
Tribute from Woodrow Wilson
American Monument Eagle

As we left, we spotted more feral goats. This pair were more visble and posed helpfully against the skyline.

The return journey took us parallel to the clifftops – the mist was clearing a bit by this time. I suppose you could say the view was atmospheric, if not extensive …

From here, we turned inland again towards Upper Killeyan Farm and the path back to the carpark. There were several highland cattle in the field who were not bothered by us at all. Even the one almost blocking the gate barely looked at us as we sidled past. Scary horns though!

As we had to pass our cottage to go on to our next walk, we stopped off there for lunch before heading down to Port Ellen, the island’s second largest town. Below is the Islay Hotel which sits on a corner site overlooking the seafront. (We didn’t go inside this time, but we had lunch there later in the week when I took the shot of their wine glass chandelier which caught my eye.)

Islay Hotel
Wine glass chandelier

We stayed in the Islay Hotel in 1989, though that building was later demolished after 20 years of dereliction, and replaced with the current hotel in 2011. The two views below are of the same terrace. The first, taken in 1989, looks towards the old hotel, the taller building just right of centre. The second, taken this year, looks in the other direction along the terrace from the hotel, but I think you can see that they are recognisably the same.

Port Ellen 1989
Looking west from the Islay Hotel.

After almost 3 weeks of camping and B&Bs in 1989, we thought the Islay Hotel would be a treat for the last three nights of our holiday. Nothing could have been further from the truth! The place was very run down and badly managed, so I’m not surprised it closed a few years later. The owners were a couple who, I’m guessing, had sold their home in the South of England for such a vast price that they could afford to buy a Scottish hotel – not an uncommon occurrence. Unfortunately their management skills seemed to be close to zero, but you couldn’t dislike them because every time something went wrong they would laugh merrily as they botched a solution, whereas I’d have been dying of embarrassment at demonstrating such incompetence. Later in the week of our recent stay, we asked someone local if he knew what had happened to them and it seems they left the island. Probably one of their wiser decisions.

Anyway, back to the present day. We wandered round Port Ellen, which didn’t take long, before heading off on a 5km loop in search of standing stones. The weather improved as the afternoon wore on and we were able to appreciate the views this time.

War Memorial
War Memorial
Port Ellen
Community Garden
Port Ellen

The walk first of all took us up a very well made cycleway / footpath running alongside the main road. There are three distilleries on the coast to the east of Port Ellen – Laphroaig, Lagavulin and Ardbeg – and this would be a fabulous way to visit them on foot, possibly getting the bus back if the refreshment had taken away your desire to walk. Our whisky plans were for another day, however, so we turned off before we reached any of the distilleries. But first we climbed the small mound topped by the memorial to Major General Alexander McDougall.

McDougall Monument
View east from the monument
View west from the monument

McDougall was born in Islay in 1732, but emigrated to New York with his family when he was six. His first job was as a milk delivery boy, then he signed up as a merchant seaman aged 14. He worked his way up to become the owner of several ships before being commissioned in the Continental Amy during the American War of Independence. He later became a politician and President of the Bank of New York – MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village is named in his honour. (I’m not sure why the spelling is different. A mistake? Or maybe he had changed his name slightly?)

Across the road from the memorial is the Old Excise House. We took the lane running alongside it, walking uphill through the fertile fields growing grain for the whisky.

Old Excise House
Old Excise House

The verges were lush with wild flowers. A stile on the right provided access to the first standing stone, one of many dotted across Islay which date from the Neolithic or early Bronze Age. Climbing above it, we could look back on the distillery buildings of Laphroaig.

Primroses and bluebells
Islay standing stone
Looking down on Laphroaig
Looking down on Laphroaig
Looking down on Laphroaig

We continued up the lane and turned right onto the tiny road towards Kilbride Farm where there is another stone.

Islay standing stone
Islay standing stone

Retracing our steps, we passed the junction with the lane and carried on down the road back to Port Ellen. Here we met some curious cows who gave us a hard stare from behind a wall. They didn’t have the big horns of the highland cattle, but they looked much more intimidating. The second picture below, of cows blocking a gate, dates from 1989 so we must have had a similar experience then. What is it about Islay cows?

Islay cows
Islay cows 1989

The field across the road contained another standing stone. There appeared to be no cows in it, but there’s a cunning dip in which they were hiding. As we walked up to the stone we spooked a small herd of deer which ran down the slope, followed by the thundering hooves of at least 20 cows. They ran back and forward across the field as a herd, eventually stopping between us and the gate. And staring. Hard. We sidled to the fence at the side. Barbed wire, so I wasn’t going to climb that. Fortunately by this time, the cows were beginning to lose interest in us and wandered off. No pictures of this bunch, but next to the stone below (which wasn’t even all that attractive) you can see the first lot again who, after our escape, were still giving us the evil eye.

Islay standing stone
Islay cows

The last stone was near the junction of the main road we’d started out on. Fortunately, no cows in sight. From there it was a short distance back to Port Ellen and our car.

Islay standing stone
Islay standing stone

I really should have had my July Gallivanting post online today, but guess what? We’ve been gallivanting too much! A large part of the month was spent travelling with no time to write and sometimes without decent wifi, which also eplains why I have been less active in blog reading and commenting – apologies!  I’ll do a joint July / August Gallivanting post instead.

In a further complication,  I’ve been called to the High Court for jury duty, starting on Wednesday. As this is the last post I prepared before we went on holiday, I might have to go silent for a bit if I’m selected to serve. I know it’s my civic duty and I should want to do it, but I really hope I’m not picked. I’ve served on four juries in total, the first when I was only 19 years old, so I think I’ve done my bit!

Till we meet again … may it be soon.

Islay: Cragabus Byres

Anabel @ The Glasgow Gallivanter58 Comments

Islay map-en

Attribution: Ayack CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Our week on Islay began by ferry, which deposited us at Port Askaig in the north-east of the island. With only a short stop for provisions in the main settlement of Bowmore, we headed straight for our cottage in the south-west. As the name suggests, Cragabus Byres is the former byre of Upper Cragabus farm. Set in gorgeous countryside on The Oa peninsula, about half way along the road from Port Ellen to Lower Killeyan, it has been beautifully renovated. The owner, Craig, could not have been more helpful and the welcome dram was very much appreciated.

Exterior
Exterior
Kitchen
Living area
Bedroom
Welcome dram
Patio
View from the back

Our legs felt a bit cramped after the journey, so when we had finished our dram we set off on a circular walk around the local farmland. In the first couple of pictures in the gallery below, we are looking back at Upper Cragabus. Away behind the ruined church you can see the end of the peninsula, the Mull of Oa, which we would explore the next day. As I mentioned in my last post, my Great-Grandfather Sinclair came from Islay and I intended to keep an eye open for any mentions of the name. We found the first on a farm lorry – possible distant relations?

Looking back at Upper Cragabus
Looking back at Upper Cragabus
Sinclair of Port Ellen
Ruined church
Ruined church
Lochs

After our walk, we cooked our dinner (no handy restaurants nearby!) and settled down to plan the next few days. There were so many places we wanted to explore. This was going to be good!

Islay: call to place

Anabel @ The Glasgow Gallivanter89 Comments
MV Finlaggan at Kennacraig

Back in May, we took the ferry from Kennacraig in Kintyre to Port Askaig on beautiful Islay (pronounced Eye-la) where we spent a wonderful week tramping all over the island. We last visited on our epic Hebridean tour of 1989, parts of which we replicated last summer, so we were well overdue a visit, especially as we had only been there for a couple of days the first time and felt we hadn’t done it justice. Since then, of course, a certain amount of Islay whisky had been consumed and it was not impossible that a distillery – or two, or more – would appear on our itinerary.

John and Janet Sinclair, John and Meg

In addition to the scenery and whisky, another attraction of Islay was the pull of family lore. One of my great-grandfathers, my mother’s maternal grandfather John Joss Sinclair, was born there in 1866. John was destined to be a Church Minister, as decided by his father. However, he declared that he had no intention of going around the countryside with his collar on back to front, and at 16 years old he ran away from the island to mainland Scotland.

Over the next few years John was employed in farms around the West of Scotland and became a noted ploughman. Eventually, he arrived at Kilmacolm to work on The Green Farm where he fell in love with the farmer’s daughter, Janet Carson. John and Janet’s first child, and only son, John, was born in 1886, sometime before their marriage. By 1901 seven daughters had been added to the family, so Janet’s life must have been a hard slog.

John Sinclair ploughing, 1908

John and Janet worked on farms in Coatbridge, Cumbernauld and Amochrie, and John was eventually in charge of a Clydesdale stallion. In his fifties, he gave up farm work and returned to Kilmacolm. They moved into the Bridgend Toll House, which came with his new job in charge of the road-menders. The Toll figures largely in Mum’s many happy memories of her childhood. Here she is in the late 1920s as a baby and toddler, “Wee Chrissie”, with her grandparents. For reference, Janet must be about the same age as I am now. How times have changed!

Mum and her Granny
Mum and her Grandaddy

John never went back to see his parents, only returning to Islay in later life with one of his grandchildren (not my mum) to see his sister Katie MacAffer. He and Janet are both buried in Kilmacolm – compare the gravestone below as it was after my great-grandmother died in 1949, and as it is today. (Thanks to my cousin, Tracy Rice, for the current photo.)

Janet Carson’s grave
Grave of John Joss Sinclair and Janet Carson

When we visited Islay in 1989 I either didn’t know about this family history or wasn’t especially interested, I can’t remember. However, in the last few years I’ve worked with Mum to blog about her memories – you can read her post John and Janet for a fuller version of what I’ve written here – and now I’m much more aware. I’m not about to start researching our family tree (far too much like hard work) but I love collecting the stories Mum is passing down and decided on our recent visit to Islay to look out for any references to Sinclairs or MacAffers.

So we went to Islay looking for whisky, walking and family history. The next few posts will tell you how we got on. This post, I’m linking to Cathy at ~wander.essence~ who has a monthly Call to Place strand in which she invites you to write about what enticed you to choose a recently visited or future destination. Head over there for her fabulous traveller’s tales!

Drummond and Monzie

Anabel @ The Glasgow Gallivanter64 Comments
Drummond Gardens

The garden at Drummond Castle in Perthshire is said to be one of the finest formal gardens in Europe according to its website (source not provided!) First laid out in the 17th century, it was restructured in Victorian times and again in the 20th century. Queen Victoria herself visited in 1842 and expressed approval.

The original castle was built around 1490 by John, 1st Lord Drummond. The keep still stands, but the rest of the castle was remodelled in 1890. It’s not possible to visit either part, but you get excellent and varied views from the gardens.

Courtyard
Castle from gardens
Castle from gardens
Castle from Woodland Walk
Castle from gardens
The free map provided at the entrance details all the plants, many of which were not yet in bloom (our previous visit was at a later time of year when the roses were beautiful). I could have done with a guide to the statuary as my knowledge of mythology is not up to identifying the various gods and goddesses on show. Perhaps you had to shell out for the guide book to get that.

Dog
Statue
Statue
Statue
Carved head
Carved head
Goddess
Goddess
Shell fountain
Carved head
As well as the formal gardens, there is also a Woodland Walk which leads through the trees and criss-crosses the central avenue which is graced by the chap below.

Main statue
Main statue
The walk is enlivened by a dozen chain-saw carvings.

Santa’s Chair
Woodland Walk: Mouse Bench
Woodland Walk: Chain of Life
Woodland Walk: Otter
Woodland Walk: Gunman and Dog
Woodland Walk: Owl and Mouse
I wouldn’t say the carver was the best-ever. Just look at the poor wooden deer compared to the real one we spotted! Even allowing for its broken antlers, the carving is a bit weird looking.

Woodland Walk: Deer
Deer
Drummond is just south of the small town of Crieff, so when we’d exhausted the garden we headed there for lunch. New since our last visit were these “leafy” Highland cattle installed in 2018 by community group Crieff in Leaf. They celebrate Crieff’s history as the cattle-droving crossroads of Scotland.

Leafy coos
Leafy coos
After lunch we headed for the most important visit of the day. Monzie Castle is only open for a few weeks each year – 18th May to 16th June in 2019, so my tardiness in writing this post means you’ve missed it!

Monzie Castle

Monzie (pronounced Mun-ee) is a Gaelic word meaning field of corn. The oldest part of the castle is a 17th century tower house which was incorporated into a large, castellated mansion in the late 18th century. Owned by Grahams then Campbells, in 1856 it was bought by the Crichton family, who still live there today. In 1908 there was a serious fire which destroyed the interior leaving only the outside walls, after which it was restored by the leading Scottish architect of the day, Sir Robert Lorimer. He even furnished it.

We were given a tour by the elder Mrs Crichton, including to her private sitting room in the old part of the house, which was surprisingly cosy. At one time, you had to exit the main house and walk all the way round the back to get into the tower house, thus it fell into disuse: these days, there is a passage knocked through to the much more formal “new” house. No photography was allowed inside, but we were free to wander round the outside and the gardens.

Monzie Castle – “new” house
Monzie Castle crest
Monzie Castle old and new
Monzie Castle – old house
Monzie Castle gardens
Monzie Castle gardens
Monzie Castle gardens
Monzie Castle and gardens
Mrs Crichton’s son and his family also live on Monzie estate which, as well as the castle, includes holiday cottages, a B&B, a farm and a joinery business, all powered by their own hydro electric plant. Having never visited before, it’s now somewhere I’d seriously consider staying on holiday.

Finally, on our way home we stopped in the small village of Muthill which we had driven through many times but never explored. We visited the ruins of the Old Church (1400s) and Tower (1100s) as well as two present day churches (exterior only).

Muthill Old Church
Muthill Old Church
St James Episcopal Church
Muthill Parish Church
This is another place I would love to stay – Muthill boasts a fine-sounding “restaurant with rooms”, the Barley Bree. Some day! In the meantime, we had had an absolutely fabulous day out.

Castle Semple Country Park

Anabel @ The Glasgow Gallivanter57 Comments
Castle Semple Loch from Parkhill

Castle Semple Park, near Lochwinnoch in Renfrewshire, is based on a large estate created many centuries ago by the Sempill family. The original Castle (c. 1500) is no more, but the remains of a later mansion have been incorporated into private residences which are not accessible to the public. However, there are plenty other hints as to what the landscape might once have looked like.

The park has a Visitor Centre (including café) and a loop trail for walkers and cyclists totalling 9 miles. We cut a bit out and walked about 7 miles. Here are some highlights.

Throughout the trail there are unusual seating areas and “Lookooteries” or viewpoints. The stone structure I am sitting on is the Grotto in Parkhill Wood, a once fashionable accessory to any country estate.

Carved chairs
Carved benches
Carved benches
Grotto
Parkhill “Lookooterie”
Another must-have would have been a water feature and, between 1727 and 1730, garden expert William Bouchert diverted the burn behind Castle Semple to create a series of cascades for then-owners the MacDowall family. Although allegedly restored recently, you can see my puzzlement as I searched for the water flow. The burn is badly overgrown!

Cascades
Cascades
Cascades
Close by is the Collegiate Church which was founded in 1504 by John, Lord Sempill. A collegiate church was not controlled by a bishop, but was served by a college of priests whose chief duty was to pray for the souls of the Sempills. John Sempill was killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513 and his son extended the church to house his father’s tomb. Although not used for worship after the Reformation it survived as a burial enclosure.

Collegiate Church
Collegiate Church
Collegiate Church
Collegiate Church
Finally, before turning back, we climbed Kenmure Hill to the folly known as Kenmure Temple. This was built in 1758 to provide the MacDowalls and their guests with a vantage point over the estate. It seems graffiti artists have also visited!

Kenmure Temple
Inside Kenmure Temple
Castle Semple is an attractive park which, although just over half an hour’s drive from home, we’ve only visited once before. It’s maybe not as spectacular as other places we visit, but we had a pleasant afternoon out and I think we’ll now add it to our repertoire of regular walks.

Linked to Jo’s Monday Walk – today she’s in the Azores – a must see!

Glasgow Gallivanting: June 2019

Anabel @ The Glasgow Gallivanter66 Comments
Monzie Castle

Despite a wet forecast earlier in the week, the first day of June, a Saturday, turned out to be a good one. We headed for Perthshire to two castles with lovely gardens. One is above, and the other – well, wait for the full post to follow soon!

Lambhill Stables

The second of June was less good so we settled for one of our local canal walks, eastwards this time to Lambhill Stables and Possil Loch. The Stables were built around 1830 when horses pulling barges were the main means of moving goods along the canal. Today they have been restored as a community facility with a café, heritage displays, and a garden. The Stables are closed on Sundays, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to see. We enjoyed a stroll round the Community Garden which has some interesting sculptures.

Lambhill Community Garden
Lambhill Community Garden
Lambhill Community Garden
Lambhill Community Garden
Lambhill Community Garden
Lambhill Community Garden
Lambhill Community Garden

Possil Loch is a nature reserve which we walked round, but it’s very marshy and you don’t get close to the loch itself. The best view is actually from Lambhill’s garden. On previous visits, we had to peer through the hedge. This time, there was an official gap with an information board explaining the same view in Roman times. The route of the Antonine Wall, the Empire’s northernmost outpost, is very close.

Possil Loch
Antonine Wall info board

On another, solo, walk I went to find the new statue of architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh which was unveiled last year. Well not find exactly, as I knew exactly where it was and had walked past it before but without time to stop. For those who know the Falkirk Kelpies, Andy Scott sculpted both them and this statue. It’s in a part of Glasgow called Finnieston which, as far as I know, has no specific connection to CRM, nor does the new housing development it fronts come anywhere near him for architectural flair. But for whatever reason it’s there, I like it – although I do wonder why his wife, Margaret MacDonald, could not be included. As Mackintosh said, she had genius whereas he had only talent. Yeah, I know I said that last week too but it can’t be repeated often enough in my opinion.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh by Andy Scott
Charles Rennie Mackintosh by Andy Scott
Charles Rennie Mackintosh by Andy Scott

On the way home through Kelvingrove Park I stopped at Lord Kelvin’s statue, one I know well – but not with a traffic cone on his head! If you have been following me for a while, you might remember my Gallus Glasgow A-Z Challenge a few years ago. ‘W’ featured the permanently be-coned statue of the Duke of Wellington. ‘K’ was for Kelvin – the river and all things named after it, including physicist William Thomson, Lord Kelvin. It seems the cones are spreading!

Lord Kelvin joins the Traffic Cone Set

We have a new public art trail in Glasgow at the moment – in fact it’s nationwide, covering Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness as well. Oor Wullie is an iconic comic strip figure who has appeared in the Sunday Post since 1937 with his spiky hair, dungarees, and an upturned bucket, often used as a seat. Now 200 artists have given him a makeover in Oor Wullie’s Big Bucket Trail. In September, all the statues will be auctioned in aid of local children’s hospital charities.

So far, I have bagged quite a few Wullies and will no doubt find more before they disappear from our streets at the end of August. In fact, I spotted my first one before the trail even began. Late one night, we were waiting for a taxi outside Central Station and saw him being delivered. I met him again a few days later.

Wullie arriving outside Central station
Bring Back Your Empties, Wullie

The Wullie in the collage below could almost serve as Scottish Word of the Month, but I’ve already written that bit! Whit’s fur ye’ll no go by ye (what’s meant for you won’t pass you by) is by Natasha Zelen Forrest.

And what was I saying before about the Duke of Wellington and his cone? Triple whammy below! Wellington, his horse Copenhagen, and Wullie all have cones.

All the cones
Oor Wee Yin’s Banter

In addition, there are over 300 Wee Wullies painted by local schoolchildren. I found these cheeky chappies in the Kibble Palace in the Botanic Gardens.

Wee Wullies in Kibble Palace
Wee Wullies in Kibble Palace

I’ll leave Wullie there for the moment, but he will no doubt appear in future months’ Gallivanting posts as I collect more. A more sombre piece of street sculpture appeared temporarily in St Enoch’s Square. Rubble Theatre by Syrian-German artist Manaf Halbounis recreated a scene from war-torn Syria where he lived as a child, and was part of Refugee Festival Scotland. Halbounis hoped to make people think about the issues around forced migration. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live in conditions like this – I’m grateful I don’t have to.

Rubble Theatre by Manaf Halbouni
Rubble Theatre by Manaf Halbouni

Also part of Refugee Festival Scotland was the Refuweegee exhibition at Kelvingrove, a section of which is shown below. Refuweegee is a community charity which makes up welcome packs, including letters from the locals, for forcibly displaced people arriving in Glasgow. The name is a combination of refugee and Weegie, a shortened form of Glaswegian. I’m glad to know that my city is (mostly) welcoming to refugees.

Refuweegee
Refuweegee

Refuweegee could also be a Scottish Word of the Month, but here’s the one I prepared earlier. I don’t think I’ve ever discussed the meaning of Glasgow before. It’s thought to derive from the Gaelic Glaschu which, roughly, means green place – and that still describes it. We are the UK’s second greenest city with 32% green space, only beaten by (gulp) Edinburgh with 49%. The scenes below are both about 10 minute’s walk from my house in the west end of the city, the Botanic Gardens and the Forth and Clyde Canal respectively.

Botanic Gardens
Forth and Clyde Canal

Finally on Glasgow, a word about pronunciation which visitors often get wrong. The ow in Glasgow rhymes with “oh” and not with the ow sound as in “ouch”. In Glaswegian it often comes out Glesga. So now you know!

Natalie and Anabel
Anabel guiding

And finally, finally – an unexpected meeting. The women’s history walk season is well under way, and on Saturday I was one of the guides on the Women’s Library Merchant City Walk. As you can see it was wet! We had the full gamut of weather from sunshine to thunderstorms, but that’s Glasgow for you.

It was a lovely surprise when one of the attendees turned out to be Natalie, pictured with me above, of Wednesday’s Child. Natalie is a Glaswegian but now lives in Manchester, so although we’ve chatted online we’ve never met in person before – next time, we’ll have to make it a proper scheduled meet-up when we can chat properly.

So who can believe we are now half way through the year? Here’s to July – may it bring you all you wish for including, if you live in the UK, summer. She has tantalised us with brief glimpses but doesn’t seem to want to stay.

Hill House

Anabel @ The Glasgow Gallivanter71 Comments
Hill House 2015

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the upper part of Helensburgh, a small town on the Firth of Clyde, became populated with a series of grand, individually designed villas commissioned by rich businessmen who could afford to move out of Glasgow but still needed to live nearby for work. (Helensburgh Upper Railway Station, opened in 1894, helped to make this possible.)

Many of the houses were very traditional in nature, as I’ll show later, but publisher Walter Blackie was more visionary. He appointed Charles Rennie Mackintosh as his architect, resulting in Hill House (designed 1902), as seen in all its glory at the top of this post.

Not only was Mackintosh’s design innovative, he used innovative materials too. Scottish houses are often harled (roughcast) with lime, but Mackintosh chose to use a more modern material: cement. It was easier to work into the curves and crisp angles of his building, but there was a serious flaw – the Scottish weather. Traditional lime harling allows a building to breathe. If cement roughcast cracks, rain soaks in but cannot evaporate back out. This has caused a lifetime of damp and damage to the walls and interiors – according to the National Trust for Scotland which owns the house, it is “dissolving like an aspirin in a glass of water.” NTS has decided to buy time by creating the Hill House Box.

Hill House Box 2019

This shelter, designed by architects Carmody Groarke, is made of steel mesh and will protect the house from up to 80% of rainfall. At the same time the wind can pass through, water can evaporate and, as the house dries out, plans can be made for its future conservation, a process which is likely to take up to 15 years.

We’ve made many visits to Hill House over the years. On our first visit to the Box we were impressed, not just with the boldness of the solution, but also with the way that NTS has ensured that the visitor misses nothing. In fact, you see Hill House as never before. Two walkways allow an incredible bird’s-eye view.

Hill House Box
Hill House Box
Hill House Box
Hill House Box
Hill House Box

Inside is as beautiful as ever – the Blackie family could just have walked out a few minutes ago. Youngest daughter Agnes has left her bicycle, and Walter has obviously been busy in the cosy library, one of the few rooms without the classic Mackintosh touch.

Agnes’s bicycle
Walter’s study
Library

Elsewhere, the interior design of Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald is much in evidence. The pair worked closely together: Charles said “Margaret has genius, I have only talent”. The drawing room and Anna Blackie’s bedroom are particularly fine. You can also see, at the end of the gallery below, examples of both interior damage and stencilling restoration.

Drawing room
Drawing room
Stencilling
Anna Blackie’s bedroom
Anna Blackie’s bedroom
Wardrobe door detail
Interior damage
Stencilling restoration

After touring the house we wandered outside for a while waiting for the next part of our visit.

Photographing the Box
Gardens and Box
Gardens reflecting interior design

At 1pm, one of the guides, the excellent Taylor, led a group of visitors a couple of blocks downhill to compare and contrast two other houses of similar vintage. These were Red Tower (William Leiper, 1898) and the White House (M. H. Baillie-Scott, 1899). Red Tower is traditionally Scottish Baronial in style. It spent some time as a Drug Rehabilitation Centre earlier this century, but has since been taken back into private hands and restored as a 14-bedroom dwelling-house, which is apparently occupied by only two people. Baillie-Scott’s building has more in common with Hill House – he also designed Blackwell in Cumbria, another house I love to visit which always reminds me of Mackintosh. Both The White House and Blackwell pre-dated Hill House, so who influenced whom?

Red Tower
The White House

I know from my heritage volunteering with Maryhill Burgh Halls that their architect also designed a house nearby, so I asked Taylor if she knew which one. She went off to get her plan and identified it for me – it was right next door. Cuilvona (Duncan McNaughtan, 1907) is a mock-Tudor villa which is barely visible from the road. However, part of the Hill House walkway looks right down on it, so after lunch (yes, Hill House has an excellent café in its new visitor centre) we headed back in to look. John took the photograph through the wire mesh which is why it’s less sharp.

Cuilvona
Cuilvona

I had photographed the plan, so we could also identify some of the other houses. Here are Morar House (at one time known as Drumadoon; Leiper, 1903), Ardluss (Leiper, 1900) and Dhuhill (I think – in which case, James Smith c. 1850). Having been empty for some years, after serving as a nursing home, Morar House ended up on the Buildings at Risk Register, but has recently been converted to flats.

Drumadoon / Morar House
Ardluss
Dhuhill

There was still part of the afternoon left, so we looked at the map and plumped for a visit to Glenarn, a 10 acre private garden in the nearby village of Rhu, which is open in the summer months as part of Scotland’s Gardens Scheme.

Glenarn Garden
Glenarn Garden
Glenarn Garden
Glenarn Garden

This was a lovely day out. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Hill House Box, but I was very impressed with what NTS has done and I fervently hope that it leads them to a permanent solution for conserving Mackintosh’s masterpiece.

A weekend in Allendale

Anabel @ The Glasgow Gallivanter65 Comments
With Val and Kenn at Swallow’s Rest Cottage, near Allendale

We spent the May Day Holiday weekend with our good friends Valerie and Kenn in a lovely cottage, Swallow’s Rest, on farmland near Allendale in Northumberland. Unlike the Easter Weekend a couple of weeks before, which had been warm and sunny, the weather was cold and damp – we even had sleet and hail on the Saturday. However, we got out and about and enjoyed ourselves as we always do – Valerie and I have a long history of friendship having started secondary school together, aged 11, and although we might have fallen out occasionally, I don’t think it’s happened since we were about 16!

Killhope Mine

Killhope Mine

On Saturday we crossed into County Durham to visit the North of England Lead Mining Museum at Killhope. (I was pronouncing this Kill-hope, but it seems to be Killup.) There are several buildings above ground to visit and you can also tour part of the old mine – wellies included, it’s ankle deep in water. If you take your own, make sure you check that they are watertight: Val discovered too late that hers leaked!

The working water wheel is spectacular.

Water wheel
Water wheel
Water wheel

Climbing above the wheel there’s a pleasant walk round the reservoirs with a couple of hides for wildlife watching.

Killhope Mine
Reservoir
Reservoir

One of these squirrels is real!

Squirrel
Squirrel

There’s also a small café and museum. I liked this story about the proddy mats!

Proddy mat
Proddy mat

Finally, the site has some pleasing sculptural features. We all enjoyed our day out here.

Sculpture
Sculpture
Bike rack

Allen Smelt Mill

Allen Mill in its heyday

There is much more lead mining heritage to see in this area. Just outside Allendale is Allen Mill which was a massive industrial operation, smelting lead from many mines and extracting silver from it. Now it is being restored and turned into a small business park. We visited twice: one of the units is an Indian restaurant where we ate on Friday night (the Spice Mill – excellent). We came back to look round properly on Sunday morning as we set out on a walk.

Allen Mill
Sculpture
Allen Mill
Conflict of Interest by Dave Morris

As you can see in the gallery above, this mill also has sculptures. The last image shows A conflict of interest by Dave Morris which incorporates the Christian cross and Muslim crescent with a selection of weapons. He intends this as an anti-war statement and plea for world peace. Amen to that!

East Allen walk

River East Allen

Sunday’s circular walk took us along the River East Allen and through some attractive farmland. If we look flummoxed in the first picture below – we were. These very feathery hens just refused to stop to be photographed!

Chasing hens
Speedy hens

The sheep were more cooperative.

Staring sheep
Sheepscape

We were intrigued at this system of bells to avoid flying golf balls. Ring once when you start to cross the field, and twice when you reach the other side. We could see no golf course – maybe the sheep liked to play?

Golf ball warning
Ring my bell!

Some of the farm houses were exceptionally pretty. This was a lovely walk all round, and a short detour took us to The Crown at Catton where we had a delicious Sunday lunch.

Farm house
Farm house

Allendale Town

The Tearoom, Allendale

Finally, as is our custom, we packed up on Monday morning, left the cottage clean and tidy, and headed out for breakfast. The Allendale Tearoom hit the spot, but we didn’t linger afterwards because it was so cold and wet. We made do with a quick walk round to see all the pubs we didn’t visit – our cottage was well out of town and no-one would have volunteered to drive.

Tearoom
Allendale
Allendale

Even a visit to the local Dalek couldn’t tempt us!

AllenDalek
AllenDalek

So we returned to our cars, with Val and Kenn heading south to Yorkshire and us heading north to Glasgow. We had intended to stop at some of the Roman Wall sites on the way home, but decided just to keep going. After all, we only had a couple of weeks before our next trip away – to the beautiful island of Islay. Coming soon!