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Melrose Abbey
It’s not often that a tree steals the show at a majestic place like Melrose Abbey, but that’s what happened last October when we ventured down to the Scottish Borders. There it was, grabbing our...
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Smailholm Tower
Smailholm Tower rises above the rolling landscape of the Scottish Borders like a silent sentinel. We’ve glimpsed it on many occasions but just recently, on a lovely day in late October, we drove right...
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Old Castle Lachlan: loyalty and loss
April 1746 was a cruel month in the history of the Highlands. Over a thousand men lay dead on Culloden Moor, their lives a sacrifice to the broken dream of Prince Charles Edward Stewart. Little mercy...
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Kilmorie Chapel by Loch Fyne
One of the tallest ash trees I’ve seen hangs its branches over the graveyard of Kilmorie Chapel. The leaves whisper as they scatter the sunlight into a thousand fragments, and the grass beneath is...
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The Lewis Chessmen
In April 1831, a curious collection of carved figures was exhibited to members of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. They had been found earlier that year, on a beach near Uig on the Isle of...
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Innerpeffray: Scotland’s oldest free lending library
“I have erected a Library… which I appoint and ordain to be preserved entire… for the benefit and encouragement of young students…” David Drummond If somebody asked me where was the oldest free...
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Tullibardine Chapel
Shaded by Scots pines, Tullibardine Chapel stands in the middle of quiet farmland. A rare survival from the time before the Reformation, it was founded in 1446 by Sir David Murray of nearby...
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The Pictish stone of Fowlis Wester
Some of the churches in Perthshire contain the most extraordinary things. I discovered this a while back, in the little village of Dunning; and it was confirmed again last weekend, when I stepped...
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Loch Avich and the Castle of the Red-haired Girl
We were driving along the minor road that winds its way up into the hills above Kilmelford and then drops down towards Dalavich on Loch Awe. Blue sky, warm sunshine, cherry blossom, a cuckoo on a...
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Culross Abbey
Just a short walk up the hillside from the brilliance and the opulence of Culross Palace lies an intriguing pile of ruins, watched over by a parish church. It’s a lovely, peaceful place, undisturbed...
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Kilmartin Glen: Nether Largie South
I’ve said this before, and I’m sure you’ll forgive me for saying it again: Kilmartin Glen is an absolute joy. I’ve already written about the standing stones at Ballymeanoch and Nether Largie, the...
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Culross Palace: glowing with splendour
The first thing that strikes you about Culross Palace is its colour. Rich mustard yellow walls beneath an orange pantiled roof glow with warmth even on overcast days, making you wonder if you’ve have...
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Temple Wood stone circles, Kilmartin Glen
Rather than marking one specific moment in time, like a belief or a deeply-held wish that has been expressed and then apparently abandoned, some ancient sites have evolved slowly over thousands of...
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Prehistoric rock art at Achnabreck
There are few historical sites about which absolutely nothing is known: even when folklore and tradition have little to say, there’s usually some carbon dating of organic remains that will yield a...
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Rosslyn Castle – falling shadows
“Rosslyn Glen was settled by the Bronze Age and is the largest surviving tract of ancient woodland in Midlothian, in which over two hundred species of flowering plants and sixty species of breeding...
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Rosslyn Chapel: catching the light
Mention Rosslyn Chapel in a sentence, and at some deeper level you’re immediately aware of a whole can of metaphysical worms being opened. You can almost see them writhing around. Many of the places I...
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Ardchattan: in the footsteps of St Baodan
“Upon a high ridge behind the Priory are the church and burying-ground of St. Baodan, the patron saint of the parish.” ‘Deirdre and The Lay of the Children of Uisne’ translated by Alexander...
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The Ballymeanoch stones, Kilmartin
Kilmartin Glen is the most remarkable place, full of ancient sites such as Dunchraigaig burial chamber and the Nether Largie standing stones, guarded to the south by the hill fort of Dunadd. I’m now...
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St Moluag’s Cathedral on the Isle of Lismore
“The pure, the bright, the pleasant, the sun of Lismore; that is Moluoc, of Lismore in Alba”. The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee When the peace-loving missionaries started to come over from Ireland...
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St Adamnan’s Cross in Glen Lyon
Further up Glen Lyon from Carnbane Castle, the valley widens slightly and opens out with views of distant mountains, which, on a cold afternoon in February, were cloaked in snow and shadowed in powdery...
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