In the days after Culloden the roads were full of refugees and the makeshift prisons full of Jacobites. More than three thousand were recorded, not just men, women and children as well. Not all of them had been fighting of course, some had just been a bit too sympathetic with the cause of Charles Edward... Continue Reading →
From the first Viking raids right up to the middle of the 17th century Gairloch was nothing but a big battlefield. First the Norsemen against then Scots, then the Mackenzies, the McLeod, and the MacDonalds among each other, fighting for power and ownership, retaliating attacks, avenging murders, killing rivals. Many died a brutal death here.... Continue Reading →
Sometimes Scotland overwhelms you with an incredible infusion of light, especially in winter when the days are short and the sun is a rare event in grey times. Light that sparks the joy of being. Just like that. Even on a graveyard. Daviot church on an afternoon in January can be breathtaking, in any other... Continue Reading →
A graveyard is a place of peace, of mourning, and of thought. There are many things to think about on a graveyard: death, life, time; you think of loved ones and of others, of happy moments and of sad ones. But one thing you hardly ever think about is health and safety. Why should you?... Continue Reading →
North Queensferry has, as the name suggests, been a town with a ferry connecting South Queensferry with North Queensferry or Edinburgh with Dunfermline, St Andrews and the Kingdom of Fife. The estuary of the Forth has always been difficult to travel but from the earliest days many have done so at a time when Dunfermline... Continue Reading →
Aberdour was a place of worship for centuries, here the pilgrims would come in large numbers but not to see a shrine or the church itself, they came to see the holy well that is no more. It once existed behind this wall in what is now a private garden but has long since been... Continue Reading →
St Bridget’s Kirk is one of the truly magical places in the Kingdom of Fife. The former Abbey is overlooking the Firth of Forth, in good weather you can catch a glimpse of the railway bridge. What used to be the center of the old village of Dalgety lies now on the outskirts of Dalgety... Continue Reading →
The last Laird of Foyers was born in 1760. The estate still belonged to the family then because his grandfather had bequeathed it to his son, the last Laird's father, before he joined the Jacobite Rising in 1745. It was therefore safe, most of the other rebel properties in Scotland had been confiscated by the crown.... Continue Reading →
There are three holes in the gravestone of Donald Fraser of Erchite, remains of a funeral that ended in a shooting, the holes are the marks the bullets left. It must have been the second half of the year 1745. The tragic battle of Culloden had left its mark on Scotland and indeed the area... Continue Reading →
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