WHAT AN EXCITING YEAR!

The last 12 months have taken me to some wonderful places throughout Scotland and occasionally further afield.  I’ve achieved a few ambitions, and set myself a new challenge.  It’s been quite hard choosing them, but here are my highlights…

CIRCLES AND ROWS

Firstly, standing stones:  I’ve managed to visit at least five sites this year, all nicely scattered around the country – Perthshire, Fife, Ardnamurchan, Cumbria and Yorkshire.  And what a contrast in landscape and atmosphere:  Croft Moraig near Kenmore, softened by moss and lichen and bathed in the golden light of a January afternoon;  the Tuilyies stones by the Firth of Forth, windswept and mysterious;  the dark drama of Castlerigg, high on the Cumbrian fells;  and the huge presence of the Devil’s Arrows, towering like the Phantom Menace above a field of crops in north Yorkshire.   If I have a favourite, it has to be Camas nan Geall in Ardnamurchan, where a burial chamber and a cross-carved standing stone can be found right beside the shore.

Right:   At Sanna Bay in the far west, Colin and I added another to our long list of favourite beaches.

Camas nan Geall, Ardnamurchan

SECRETS OF ANCIENT STRATHCLYDE

In April, I went to look at some relics from a different era:  the Govan stones, so extraordinary that I was groping for words to describe them. Housed in a Victorian parish church in the centre of Glasgow, these ancient treasures should be included in any itinerary of medieval Scotland. The upright stones include the Sun Stone, the Cuddy Stane, and the Jordanhill Cross;  there’s the magnificent Govan Sarcophagus, which may have held the relics of St Constantine;  and then there are the fabulous hogback stones, strangely reptilian in form and texture, designed to cover the graves of Britons in Viking-age Strathclyde.

The Govan stones feature was by far the most-viewed post on The Hazel Tree in 2015, with over 3,500 views.

CHOIRS AND CLOISTERS

Some of Scotland’s most beautiful abbeys have come to my attention this year, namely Jedburgh, Dryburgh and Dunfermline.  Magnificent structures, all of them, and again very different in atmosphere.  Jedburgh seems to exude strength and defiance, while Dryburgh has such a mellow romantic feel that I’m sure if you sat for an hour or two on its lawns you’d start writing poetry.  And Dunfermline… I honestly didn’t know where to begin with this one, because there was so much history to tell.  I put it off until November, and attacked it in two parts;  I was expecting it to be largely a tale of power and conflict, but in fact I was enchanted by the story of Queen Margaret, whose shrine lies at the eastern end of the abbey church.

HEADING WEST

The quiet waters of Argyll’s sea lochs are always calling to us in the back of our minds, and this year we explored some more of Knapdale, discovering the gorgeous little chapel of Keills with its precious 8th century cross;  we gazed up at the dark towers of Dunstaffnage Castle, and walked through the woods to its little ruined chapel, still haunted by the murder of a 15th century bridegroom;  and we climbed up to see the carved footprint on the summit of Dunadd, where the new kings of Dalriada pledged to protect their land and their people.

Carved stones in Keills Chapel

Dunstaffnage Castle

The view from Dunadd

EARTH ENERGIES

This year I’ve realised a couple of ambitions, one of which was to learn more about dowsing.  I went on a two-day course organised by Western Geomancy, held at Torphichen in West Lothian:  we learned how to dowse for water and energy lines, and we put our new skills into practice at Torphichen Preceptory and Cairnpapple Hill.  I met some lovely people, and learned a lot about the presence of energy in the landscape.  I have since dowsed around some of the sites that I’ve visited, with very interesting results.

THE MEMORY OF TREES

I don’t need to tell you about Scotland’s natural heritage, but its beauty was brought home to me yet again when we visited the ancient oak woods of Taynish in May.   The gently sloping hills around Loch Sween have been cloaked in deciduous woodland for about 7,000 years, and they are a truly magical place, especially in spring when the birds are in full song and the leaves are beginning to emerge.  Around the same time, I went to have a look at a fabulous old oak tree on the bank of the River Tay at Dunkeld.  This is the Birnam Oak, said to be the last retainer of Shakespeare’s Birnam Wood, whose unexpected appearance gave Macbeth such a nasty turn.  Although a couple of its lower limbs are propped up for support, it looks to be in vibrant health, and a new crop of fresh green leaves were just bursting out of the bud.   As you gaze up into its branches, you get a real sense of its age and wisdom.

GEOLOGY

Ardnamurchan’s volcano

My very amateur interest in rocks has produced features on meteorites, Herkimer diamonds, the fossils of Carsaig Bay on the Isle of Mull, and the amazing volcanic caldera on Ardnamurchan, which I didn’t know about until this year. What a strange experience it was, to drive through this on our way to Sanna! And, with the much-anticipated return of Poldark to our TV screens in the spring, guest blogger Rachel Bates shared her discovery of a smuggler’s passage through the cliffs in northern Cornwall.

ST BRIDE’S CHAPEL AND THE MCKINLAYS

My article in September 2014 about a little graveyard close to Loch Lubnaig brought a delightful reaction from readers across the world.  Although it is long gone, a chapel dedicated to St Bride once stood here;  it is even mentioned in Sir Walter Scott’s ‘The Lady of the Lake’.  And it might not look like it, because there is only one upright gravestone still visible, but this graveyard is the last resting place of many members of the McKinlay family from nearby Annie Farm and Inverchagernie, going back to the 1700s.

After publishing the article, I was contacted by several descendants of the McKinlays who are buried here, and in September this year – somewhat eerily, it was a year to the very day since my first visit – I returned there with two couples, one from Scotland and one from the US, who can each trace their family lines right back to these McKinlay ancestors.  Absolutely astonishing, and I’ve made some wonderful friends, as well.

MEETING NEIL OLIVER

If you’ve been with me for a while you’ll probably know that I admire Neil Oliver’s history programmes, and I also enjoy his books.  He’s now venturing into fiction, and in September he published his first novel, ‘Master of Shadows’, which was launched at a series of book signing events around Scotland.  I managed to get myself to one of them, and had my photo taken with Neil himself.  He was just as nice in real life as you’d expect. For a while afterwards, Colin and the girls had to put up with me referring to ‘my friend, Neil‘ which was casually and (I thought) inconspicuously dropped into every conversation.  You can read my review of ‘Master of Shadows’ here.

Lord John Murray House in Perth, home of the RSGS

WRITER IN RESIDENCE

And some more good news!  As you’ll also probably know, for the last 12 months I’ve been doing lots of research and writing for the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, producing stories about some of the world’s greatest explorers for publication in magazines and online. They have an absolute treasure trove of archives dating back to the 1800s, and it’s a joy to dip into them and see where they lead.  I’m in my element!

I helped out at the Society’s ‘Geography Day’ in June, which included talks by Professor Iain Stewart and the explorer Benno Rawlinson;  and just recently the RSGS made me their Writer in Residence, which is extremely kind of them, and a great honour.

If you’ve never been to the Fair Maid’s House in Perth, which makes up one-half of their headquarters, it’s really worth a visit (it is closed now for winter, but will re-open next spring.)  Meanwhile, you could take a look at my other blog, Explorers of the RSGS, to read some of my work.

CALENDARS FOR 2016

Thanks to everyone who has bought a calendar, I now have 45 trees in my ‘grove’ in the Scottish Highlands which I’ve set up with Trees for Life.  Your support is much appreciated.  There’s still time to add more!  You can pop over to this page which tells you all about it.

Winter weight, you say? This is just my winter coat. You’re the one eating the mince pies.

This was only going to be a short review!  But a lot has happened this year.  I’ve got plenty planned for the future, and watch out in January when the voting opens for Purdey’s PAWS Awards 2016 – her annual feline version of the Oscars.   If you think she’s just been lazing around on the bed… well, you’re half right.  But she has a new and glittering array of movie nominations lined up for your perusal.  As for Angel and Ponyo, her furry friends/rivals/co-stars, I am in talks with their agent, who is a celebrated wedding photographer.  Over the festive season I’ll be stealing images from her iPhone while distracting her with sausage rolls.

LOOKING FORWARD…

I always love reading your comments – witty, wise or even delightfully weird! – and I hope you’ll keep them coming.   I’m looking forward to plenty of adventures in 2016, and I can’t wait to share them with you.

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

Photos copyright © Jo Woolf

“The tartans are dyed by the blood of a hundred battlefields, as by memories of green braes and purple moors.”

One of the presents that I was given for my birthday was a lovely old book called ‘Bonnie Scotland’.

Published in 1905, it’s written by A R (Ascott Robert) Hope Moncrieff, an Edinburgh-born author who wrote a number of Black’s travel guides in the early part of the 20th century.  But what makes it truly special are the colour illustrations, taken from watercolour paintings by Harry Sutton Palmer.   There are 75 of them, each one an absolute joy.  They seem to have a glow of nostalgic beauty, unashamedly romantic but so skilfully done;  and it’s captivating to see castles, abbeys and humble cottages through the eyes of an era that has itself now passed into history.

Little did Blacks know, when they were publishing their up-to-date guide book for Edwardian tourists to Scotland, that they would be providing this fascinating historical insight for future generations.

‘Stirling Castle from the King’s Knot’

Harold (Harry) Sutton Palmer (1854 – 1933)

Sutton Palmer was born in Plymouth, and studied at the Royal College of Art.  His watercolours of rural landscapes won him a reputation as a fine artist, and most sources state that he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1870 – at the young age of 16, if the date is correct.  He illustrated several books for A & C Black, including ‘The Rivers and Streams of England’, and Black’s guide books for Surrey, Devon, and Buckinghamshire and Berkshire.  His paintings are unusually large for watercolours, some measuring three feet by two;  they fetch good prices in auction houses today.

‘Melrose, Roxburghshire’

The title is true to its name, celebrating the beauty of Scotland from the Borders right up to Caithness.  Having dipped into the text, I’ve found it by turns interesting, dry, cynical and completely irrelevant, which makes you feel as if you’re listening to a pipe-smoking grandfather with bushy eyebrows and plenty of opinions.  There are chapters called ‘The Great Glen’, ‘The Trossachs Round’, ‘The Kingdom of Fife’, ‘Auld Reekie’, ‘The Fair City’ (relating to Perth), and ‘Glasgow and the Clyde’.  Moncrieff skims lightly over the north-west, perhaps from lack of personal experience:  and as far as I can see, the whole chapter which should be devoted to Argyll and the Isles is called ‘The Whig Country’, and tells you more than you probably wanted to know about the development of religion in Scotland, including the Covenanters, the Free Church and Presbyterianism.

But the pictures make up for everything…

‘A Croft near Taynuilt, Loch Etive, Argyllshire’

‘A birch wood in spring-time by Loch Maree, Ross-shire’

Here are some quotes, chosen pretty much at random from the book…

‘Tantallon Castle, on the coast of Haddingtonshire’

Describing the Isle of Arran, from a position of high moral ground:

“The gem, the bouquet, the crown of all Clyde scenery is, of course, Arran…   if he can find quarters in some airy hovel with rats running about the roof, or on some shake-down of an hotel annexe, and if the rain clears up over Goatfell, the reader will not regret taking my word for the exceeding loveliness of glens and corries, which have inspired painters, poets, and even guide-book makers.”

Describing Stirling Castle, with pride and vigour:

“Its ramparts look down on Scotland’s dearest battlefields, that where Wallace ensnared the invader at the Old Bridge, and that of Bannockburn, when Bruce turned the flower of English chivalry to dust and to gold, for, as the latest historian says, ‘it rained ransoms’ in Scotland after this profitable victory.”

‘Glencoe, Argyllshire’

On the law-abiding yet slightly daring lifestyle of the Highlands:

“The absence of vulgar crime is still more marked in the Highlands, where, but for whisky and religious zeal, there would be little need of magistrates.  ‘Ye see, if they stole anything, they couldn’t get it off the island,’ a Bute cynic once explained to me;  but on the mainland opposite, I have known the ladies of a family leave their bathing dress hanging over the hedge by the roadside for weeks together.”

Venturing north-east, to Aberdeen…

“The Aberdonians, as is known, pride themselves on a hard-headedness answering to their native granite.  The legend goes that an Englishman once attempted to defraud these far northerners, but the charge against him was scornfully dismissed by an Aberdeen bailie:  ‘The man must be daft!’”

…while adding a cautionary note:

“The accent and dialect of this corner, strongly flavoured with Norse origin and sharp sea-breezes, are quite peculiar.”

‘Birches by Loch Achray’

Offering a unique slant on the archaeological sites of the far north:

“Traces of older inhabitants are very frequent in Caithness, its moors thickly strewn with hut circles, standing stones, tumuli, and those curious underground excavations known as ‘Picts’ Houses,’ which appear to have been dwellings rather than burial-places.  One usual feature of such burrows is the cells and passages fitting a smaller race than our noble selves, who must crawl on hands and knees in grimy explorations not likely to be undertaken by the general tourist.  Hence there is reason to suppose that Scotland and other countries have been inhabited by a stunted race of aborigines, like the dwarfish Ainos of Yesso or the pygmies who turn up in various parts of  Africa.  Mr David MacRitchie, an antiquary who has paid special attention to so-called Pictish remains, is doughty champion of a theory which connects the dimly historic Picts or Pechts and the legendary Fians with the whole fabulous family of fairies, elves, goblins, brownies, pixies, trolls, or what not, who are represented as dwarfish and subterranean, issuing forth from their retreats to hold varied relations of service or mischief with ordinary men.”

Totally delightful.

If you’d like to browse through the book yourself, there’s an online version here.  You could also keep an eye open for a copy in second-hand bookshops.

‘Bonnie Scotland’ by A R Hope Moncrieff with illustrations by Harold Sutton Palmer was first published in November 1904 by A & C Black;  my edition was ‘reprinted with slight alterations’ in November 1905.

Colin has started 2016 with a big project… a new painting of some red deer making their way across a wintry mountain landscape.  This is going to be a large picture, with plenty of depth and drama.   Here it is in progress!

Close-up of the foreground:

There’s plenty more to do – acres of heather, he says!    You can watch for updates on Colin’s Facebook page if you like.

Colin’s website is www.wildart.co.uk

Photos copyright © Colin Woolf

David Rizzio, anonymous portrait from the Royal Collection

The glass case was full of the most exquisite treasures:  miniature portraits, little silver toothpicks, brooches and rings and small duelling pistols and locks of hair.  I bent and studied them for a while and then, standing up and drawing breath, I noticed a full-size painting hanging in an alcove:  a young man in a fine lace collar and cuffs, dark-haired, with a fashionable moustache and goatee beard, holding a stringed instrument in his hands.  His expression is relaxed and quite candid, as if he’s idly pondering what tune to play next.

I walked over to take a closer look;  and then, glancing down, I saw the red stain on the floorboards.

“I went also to see Mary Queen of Scots’ Bedchamber (a very small one it is) from whence David Rizzio was drag’d out and stab’d in the ante room where there is some of his Blood which they can’t get wash’d out.” 

The future Duchess of Northumberland, writing in 1760 and quoted in the official guide to the Palace of Holyroodhouse

I’m not the first visitor to Holyroodhouse to stare in morbid interest at the apparently unmovable stain on the spot where David Rizzio, secretary and favourite of Mary Queen of Scots, was stabbed in cold blood;  but the stain itself has had an interesting history over the years, appearing in one report as dark brown, and in another as rust-coloured;  while in his ‘Chronicles of the Canongate’, Sir Walter Scott recounts a probably fictitious but delightfully entertaining story about an over-enthusiastic detergent salesman who horrified a caretaker by getting down on his hands and knees with a scrubbing brush:

“Two hundred and fifty years, ma’am, and nothing take it away?  Why, if it had been five hundred, I have something in my pocket will fetch it out in five minutes.”

We visited the Palace of Holyroodhouse in early January, on a day of low cloud and occasional hints of blue sky that were as fleeting as they were precious.  In terms of the tourist season, this was the quietest it could get:  the Christmas crowds had gone, and the weather had probably driven most sane people to the Bahamas.  So we felt almost as if we were the only visitors when we walked through the ornate archway into the quadrangle and then turned right, through a door into an entrance hall and up the Great Stair.

The Quadrangle.  I should say here that photography is prohibited within the Palace itself, so you’ll have to rely on my descriptions!

Along the landing, a door was open into the Royal Dining Room, where a highly polished table was gleaming with crystal and silver.  This banqueting service, comprising over 3,000 pieces and designed to serve 100 guests, was presented to George V and Queen Mary in 1935, to mark their silver jubilee.  A custodian was tenderly polishing one of the tureens, in an atmosphere of almost reverential silence.  I could just imagine Carson, Downton Abbey’s strait-laced old butler, purring with pleasure.

Portrait of James VI by Paul van Somer, 1618 (similar to the one at Holyroodhouse). Note the extreme puffiness of his pantaloons.

Another door opened onto the Throne Room, slightly oppressive with oak panelling and a deep red carpet, and almost bare of furniture except for two matching thrones with loads of embroidery and tassels and the initials ‘GR’ and ‘MR’, representing George and Mary.  Eyeing us suspiciously from over the fireplace was a portrait of James VI, dressed in sober black with a white frill at his throat;  I remembered the guide at Drumlanrig Castle telling us that James always had his clothes padded with horsehair, because he was so fearful of being stabbed.   I can only feel sorry for him.    And for his wife, actually.

The Evening Drawing Room, the Morning Drawing Room… each clad in wall-size tapestries, garnished with wedding-cake ceilings of impossible plasterwork.  Then the King’s Bedchamber, designed for Charles II, with the state bed draped in red damask, and plenty of elaborate walnut furniture.  By this time I was beginning to feel like you do when you’ve eaten too many chocolate liqueurs, and so I was quite relieved to emerge into a huge long room called the Great Gallery, again practically devoid of furniture but adorned with portraits by Jacob de Wet of every single king of Scotland from the earliest times to the reign of Charles II.  Some of these – for example Macbeth, Fergus I and Robert the Bruce – owe a great deal to the artist’s imagination, but he obviously put a huge amount of energy and character into his creations.  You can almost imagine Charles II wandering along here at night, his chestnut curls bouncing, gazing with pride at his illustrious ancestors.   And what a setting it made for his great-nephew, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, who held a glittering ball here in 1745, to celebrate his arrival in Edinburgh at the height of the Jacobite rebellion.

Marie of Guise, wife of James V, att. to Corneille de Lyon (1537)

Forgotten queens:  Regardless of the era, I always wonder what the women – royal princesses and would-be queens – made of all the splendour.  Some of them were accustomed to it, no doubt, and perhaps even expected it;   but most of them were young and inexperienced, ill at ease in a foreign country, their youthful spirit walled up in a dark and claustrophobic palace with ghosts at every turn.

One of the queens who had every reason to blanch at shadows was Mary, Queen of Scots.  She was certainly born into the grandeur, inheriting the throne at six days old and fulfilling her father’s deathbed prophecy that the crown of Scotland would ‘gang wi’ a lass’.  But the Stewart kings, from James the First to the Fifth, didn’t have much of a track record for happiness or good fortune, and Mary seemed to have inherited all their worst tendencies.

“Although, in many respects, a brilliant and distinguished race, the sad fate which overtook most of the Stewart occupants of the Scottish throne forms a chronicle of disaster without parallel in the history of any other royal family in Europe.”

‘Holyrood, its Palace and its Abbey – an Historical Appreciation’ by William Moir Bruce

The Old Royal Apartments in James V’s Tower

James V’s Tower is the oldest surviving part of Holyroodhouse, and as you step into the rooms here the atmosphere changes, slightly but perceptibly.   When you climb the winding stone stair up to the second floor, emerging into a room of smaller proportions but with a heavy air about it, you suddenly realise where you’re standing.  This is the bedchamber of Mary, Queen of Scots:  the initials carved on the oak ceiling are those of her parents, James V and Mary of Guise;  the frieze around the walls (now faded to grey) was designed to mark her arrival at the Palace;  and the tiny room which opens to one side, at first glance cosy enough for a meal by the fire, was the scene of one of the most famous murders in Scottish history…

On the evening of 9th March 1566, David Rizzio, a talented musician from Savoy, was sitting with the Queen and one or two of her ladies in this little supper room.  Rizzio’s star was on the rise, and he was now so close to the Queen that he should have known he was heading for disaster.  Mary had married her second husband, the vain and arrogant Lord Darnley, only the year before, but already she was regretting the decision;  and there were rumours that the child she carried was Rizzio’s.

“There was then prevalent a report, that one John Damiot, a French priest, who was reputed a conjurer, told Rizzio once or twice, ‘That now he had feathered his nest, he should be gone, and withdraw himself from the envy of the nobles, who would overwise be too severe for him’;  and that Rizzio answered, ‘The Scots were greater threateners than fighters’.”   George Buchanan’s ‘History of Scotland’

If Rizzio had listened to this warning, he might have lived to pluck his lute another day.  But Darnley was racked with jealousy, and that night something must have kindled his hatred to a flame.  He and a handful of Protestant nobles swept upstairs to Mary’s chamber, overpowered her guardsmen, and stabbed Rizzio in her presence;  the musician was then dragged, protesting and resisting, through the bedchamber and into the next room, where his murderers made sure he was dead.  Mary was seven months pregnant at the time.  When you think about it, it’s hardly surprising that James VI stuffed his garments with horsehair.

James V’s Tower. On the 2nd floor is the window of Mary’s bedchamber (2nd window up, between the turrets). To the left, in the turret itself, is the window of the supper room.  You can see part of Holyrood Abbey in the background.

The sixteenth century historian George Buchanan wrote that Rizzio was first buried in haste outside the door of Holyrood Abbey;  but he claims that Mary then gave orders for the body to be removed at night and placed in the tomb of James V, “which, being a most unaccountable action, gave occasion to evil reports.”  Little more than a year later, Darnley himself was dead, in very suspicious circumstances, and Mary had a third husband in view:  the Earl of Bothwell, whose involvement in Darnley’s demise has never been disproved.

I’m not entirely sure that I would like to be a tour guide stationed in either of these rooms, although the lady I spoke to seemed more than happy to be there.  The antechamber with the infamous bloodstain now houses a collection of exquisite portraits and mementoes, many of them gathered by Queen Victoria and the 20th century Queen Mary.  There’s a portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots, apparently the only one painted during her lifetime:  she is depicted ‘in white mourning’, after the death of her first husband, Francois II and her mother, Marie of Guise;  I was quite shocked to see it, as there is no colour at all in her face.  I’m guessing that this was deliberate, to enhance the effect – but how ironic that the paintings created after her death make her seem more alive.

The side of the James V Tower, showing the windows of Mary’s antechamber (centre, 3 rows up)

Down some stairs, and you’re outside almost before you know it… to the fresh air blowing in from the Firth of Forth, low clouds scudding overhead, and a couple of gulls paddling happily for worms on the grass.

The evolution of the Palace

Holyrood Palace, c.1649

Not much survives of the original Palace which was the vision of James IV in the late 1400s.  And it has to be remembered that Holyrood Abbey, which now lies in ruins and is easily outshone by its more glamorous neighbour, stood here for nearly 400 years before the earliest version of the Palace.  Like Dunfermline, the Abbey had lodgings set aside for its royal patrons, and it was James IV who first thought about expanding them into a Palace.  It is believed that the buildings were laid out around a quadrangle, with a tower (now gone) on the south side.   James V had even bigger ideas, and in 1528 work began on a massive rectangular tower with turrets at each corner, which would contain the rooms of the reigning monarch.

Most of this was lost during the Civil War, when the Palace was occupied by Cromwell’s troops and then damaged by fire.  Falkland Palace, which has similarities in its architecture, suffered the same fate.  So it was down to Charles II, newly restored to the throne, to blow fresh life into the ashes.  To do so, he commissioned the Scottish architect Sir William Bruce, who created a new Palace to a classical design which cleverly fused the old and the new.  It was Bruce who added the turreted tower on the south-west corner, to match James V’s Tower;  they look like a matched pair, but when you study them closely, you can tell that they are not:  the biggest clue is the colour of the stonework.  Meanwhile, to ensure that the interiors were jaw-droppingly opulent, a team of highly skilled craftsman was brought to Scotland by the Duke of Lauderdale.

Rows and columns:   In the quadrangle, Charles II’s architect, Sir William Bruce, embellished each level of the facade with Ionic, Doric and Corinthian pillars in ascending order, from bottom to top.

Despite the triumphant arrival in 1745 of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the condition of the Palace gradually deteriorated in the 18th century;  this didn’t deter early tourists, to whom the exploration of a romantic and dilapidated royal pile gave a delicious thrill of excitement.  Queen Victoria saw its potential, and because she had already fallen in love with Scotland as a whole, she set about restoring Holyroodhouse as a royal residence once more.

Today, the Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the Queen in Scotland.  Her Majesty stays here for a week during the summer, and it is used throughout the year by members of the royal family for official receptions and ceremonies.

At Holyrood, I found that some things which look old are comparatively new, while those that look recent are surprisingly old.  The fountain in the forecourt (above), fashioned in the style of the much earlier version in Linlithgow Palace, dates from 1859.

But one thing both looks and is very old indeed, and that is the Abbey.  I’ll be telling you more in Part Two, coming soon!

Visiting Holyrood Palace

Holyrood Palace and Holyrood Abbey lie at the bottom end of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.   They are open all year round, except for a couple of weeks in summer and a few other days throughout the year.  Full details and admission prices can be found on the official website.  There’s a cafe in the courtyard – we had a nice lunch there – and the Queen’s Gallery hosts regular exhibitions of paintings.

Sources & quotes:

• The Palace of Holyroodhouse and official guidebook
• Historic Scotland
• ‘Holyrood, its Palace and its Abbey – an Historical Appreciation’ by William Moir Bruce (1914)
• ‘Black’s Economical Guide through Edinburgh‘ pub. A & C Black, 1843

Photos copyright © Colin & Jo Woolf

Just to the side of the Palace of Holyroodhouse is a much older building, dark and glowering and impressive.  This is where the story began…

There can be few places in Scotland that can remember as many monarchs as Holyrood’s Abbey Church.  This spectacular building, now reduced to a gaunt and rather forbidding shell, has witnessed the marriage of James IV to Margaret Tudor in 1503;  the marriage of their son, James V, to Marie of Guise in 1538;   the coronation of Anne of Denmark, wife of James VI, in 1590;  and the Scottish coronation of Charles I in 1633.   Some, like James II, were born at Holyrood long before the Palace even came into existence;  and this particular James was also crowned, married and buried here.

Why ‘Holyrood’?

The Chapel Royal in the Reign of James VII (II of England)

“Margaret… brought with her to Scotland a cross of pure gold, which opened and shut like a casket, ornamented with an image of the Saviour formed of the densest ebony, and which contained within it what was then believed to be a portion of that ‘Rude’ on which Christ had suffered.”  

‘Historical Guide to the Palace and Abbey of Holyrood’ by Duncan Anderson, Keeper of the Chapel Royal (1849)

A legend tells that David I, son of Malcolm Canmore, was hunting one day in the woods below Arthur’s Seat when he saw a white stag with a glowing cross between its antlers.  White stags were attributed with mystical powers, and David was inspired to build an abbey in the place where he’d had the vision.

Another story says that the name comes from David’s mother, the saintly Queen Margaret, who possessed a piece of the holy cross, or ‘holy rood’, and this was bequeathed to David on her death.  (If this relic did exist, it has since been lost, along with the Abbey’s other treasures.)

Whatever the truth might be, David never lacked enthusiasm when it came to abbey-building, and by the middle of the 12th century a community of Augustinian canons were making themselves at home in the shadow of Arthur’s Seat, the hill that rises to the south.

After a while, the royals began to find that their lodgings in Holyrood Abbey were more comfortable than the draughty heights of Edinburgh Castle;  and so the idea of a Palace was conceived.

The entrance to the nave, where it joins the north side of the Palace.  From old plans, it seems that they were always joined around this point, but I’m guessing that the new Palace of Charles II was designed to make the best of any structural damage.

Most visitors enter Holyrood Abbey after a comprehensive tour of the Palace, and the ruins come as a huge contrast to the rich interiors with all their portraits, tapestries and panelling.  You almost have to adjust your vision.  I felt slightly disorientated while standing inside the church, possibly because the transepts and choir are missing;  despite the fine large window that remains, I didn’t get a sense that I was facing the high altar.  Added to this, the gardens were closed, as it was a week day in January, and you couldn’t walk around the outside to see the foundations and get a different perspective.  But an information board (below) gave an idea of the original layout:  on the plan at the bottom left, the surviving structure is shown in a red outline, with the Palace in grey.  This shows that where you are standing is, in fact, the old nave, and originally the church would have continued eastwards the same distance again.  The east processional doorway, part of David’s original structure of 1128, is roughly in line with the royal vault.  Historic Scotland tells us that the church was “lavishly re-built” between 1195 and 1230.

The main illustration shows the nave as it would have looked around 1500 – full of colour and light, and echoing with psalms as a procession of canons in black robes walked solemnly up towards the choir.

Burial vaults – and effigies as well, for that matter – have a tendency to freak me out, so it was probably just as well that I overlooked the tiny wooden door into a stone-built chamber at the east end of the nave.  This box-like structure, which looks decidedly cramped, was built after the original royal tombs were destroyed by the soldiers of Cromwell in 1544;  a sign on the wall says that “here were placed the coffins of James V, Magdalen his first Queen, and his infant sons by his second marriage to Mary of Guise.”  It was further looted in 1688, and its occupants were “left in disorder” for about 200 years until Queen Victoria had all the scattered bones collected and interred in one coffin.  You can almost imagine the discussion:  “The contents are all mix’d up, Ma’am:  one cannot tell which king is which.”  “How frightfully vexing!  Pray have them tidied up.  One doesn’t like to think of one’s ancestors in disarray.”

Looking down towards the royal vault

A sanctuary for debtors

Like many holy places of its time, Holyrood Abbey originally offered sanctuary for common criminals.  When the land reverted to the crown in the late 16th century, this right of sanctuary became restricted to financial debtors, jokingly known as ‘Abbey lairds’, who could take refuge from their creditors within the Palace grounds.  In 1796 one of the most high-profile figures to take advantage of this was the Comte d’Artois, younger brother of Louis XVI of France, who had fled his country after defeat in the French Revolution.  The Comte, later Charles X, was housed in Holyroodhouse itself, in the State Apartments which were refurbished in advance of his arrival.

The 16th century sanctuary buildings (now a bookshop).  Debtors could also claim refuge in Holyrood Park and Arthur’s Seat, and were allowed to walk freely outside the area on Sundays.

The Abbey Church has seen its share of drama, including this event during the reign of James I:

“One of the most powerful of his rebels was Alexander, Lord of the Isles, who in 1429, during a service held in the Abbey on the eve of St Augustine, suddenly appeared dressed only in a shirt and drawers, which… was probably the prevailing Highland costume of the period.  Falling on his knees, and holding his naked sword by the point, he presented it to the King in token of submission.   His life was graciously spared, but he was sent a prisoner to Tantallon Castle.”   ‘Holyrood, its Palace and its Abbey – an Historical Appreciation’ by William Moir Bruce

“The oldest part is the north wall, built before 1200 and characterised by tall single-lancet windows with intersecting arcading below.”

Historic Scotland

When the English king Henry VIII wanted to force a marriage between his son, Edward, to the infant Mary Queen of Scots – a time called ‘The Rough Wooing‘  – Edinburgh was sacked and burned by English troops under the Earl of Hertford, and they didn’t miss the chance to attack Holyrood.   The ‘rascal multitude’ incited by the Reformation arrived at the gates just a decade or so later, bent on further destruction;  by this time, the nave was being used as the parish church of Edinburgh’s Canongate.  The choir and transepts, probably too damaged to save, were demolished in 1570.

In 1633 the remaining structure was renovated for Catholic worship as the Chapel Royal, in preparation for the Scottish coronation of Charles I.   It managed to hang onto its roof until 1768, when it finally collapsed.

The impression you have of Holyrood Abbey today has nothing to do with its former life and glory;  just the bones are left.  It’s a bit like judging the appearance of James II from the contents of the vault.  Sunlight once streamed into this place through stained glass windows, and glinted on the burnished copper hair of kings;   but on a cold winter day it felt austere, withdrawn into itself, with only the drip of rainwater to mark the passage of time.   The brilliance is gone, leaving jackdaws cutting black shapes in a wool-grey sky;  and cold columns standing in silent ranks, the last guardians of the dead.

Sources & more information:

• The Palace of Holyroodhouse and official guidebook
• Historic Scotland
• Archaeology Data Service
• ‘Holyrood, its Palace and its Abbey – an Historical Appreciation’ by William Moir Bruce (1914)
• ‘Historical Guide to the Palace and Abbey of Holyrood’ by Duncan Anderson, Keeper of the Chapel Royal (1849)

Photos copyright © Colin & Jo Woolf

Visiting…

Holyrood Abbey can only be accessed via Holyrood Palace – please see their website for visitor information.

Further reading…

If you missed it, take a look at this feature about the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

You might also like…

• Dunkeld Cathedral – Scotland’s sacred heart
• Dunfermline Abbey: echoes of majesty
• Jedburgh Abbey
• Dryburgh Abbey

Over the last couple of days, towards sunrise and sunset, our skies have contained something that I never really hoped to see, because it was so rare:   a phenomenon known as nacreous clouds.

This morning, from our front windows, we were gazing at a kaleidoscope of colour, obviously very high in the atmosphere, dazzlingly brilliant.  These clouds have been sighted all over Scotland, and social media are buzzing with them.

What are they?

Nacreous clouds form in the stratosphere, between nine and 16 miles above the Earth, at temperatures of around -85ºC.  They are composed of ice particles which are of a consistent size throughout, dispersing rays of sunlight into a spectrum of colour through diffraction and interference.  They are usually only seen over high latitudes, during the winter.  This is in contrast to noctilucent clouds, which occur around midsummer, and form much higher in the atmosphere – in the mesopause, between 50 and 53 miles above the Earth.

There’s a downside to their beauty, however.   The website Atoptics says that nacreous clouds are signs of the destruction of ozone over the Antarctic and Arctic:  “Their surfaces act as catalysts which convert more benign forms of man-made chlorine into active free radicals (e.g. CIO, chlorine monoxide).”   Through a series of chain reactions, these radicals destroy ozone molecules.

“Cloud formation is doubly harmful because it also removes gaseous nitric acid from the stratosphere which would otherwise combine with CIO to form less reactive forms of chlorine.”   Atoptics

You could tell how high the clouds were because of their relatively unchanging position against the much lower, dark rainclouds that were scudding across from the west.  Some had a beautiful rippled effect, while others were slowly expanding into the thinnest layers of pearlescent white.  The colours ranged from gold, through mauve and pink to brilliant turquoise and green.   For a time they were so bright that they dazzled your eyes.  Despite their obvious warning, I have never seen anything so beautiful in the sky.

More information:

• Atoptics
• The Met Office
• The Guardian, article by Gavin Pretor-Pinney, 3rd August 2006
• The Weather Channel

Photos copyright © Colin Woolf

I’m travelling into Perth most weeks now, because of my writing role with the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.   The walk from the station takes me past South Inch, a park where there are some amazingly tall lime trees.   In winter their long angular fingers are exposed, reaching up to the sky, while in autumn the ground beneath is a carpet of gold.   I thought it might be a nice idea to photograph them every month, and share the pictures with you.   So, here are my first photos, taken on 4th February…

Last week, I noticed that some poor little crocuses had put their heads up through the grass – way too early, but obviously encouraged by the mild temperatures.  They had been battered by the wind and rain, and were probably wishing they hadn’t woken up!

About South Inch

Perth has two parks, North Inch and South Inch.  ‘Inch’ is the Scots word for a small island, and at one time the land may have been surrounded by the River Tay.  There’s a long history of golf being played on both Inches:  in 1502, James IV bought his first set of golf clubs from a bow-maker in Perth, and one website suggests that Scotland’s first formal golf course was laid out on South Inch.   Mary Queen of Scots could well have practised here, but the first written record dates from 1613.

When Cromwell occupied Perth from 1651 to 1658, he built a fort on South Inch, demolishing 140 nearby houses to use as building material.  “It was never a particularly popular occupation,” says one source.  I’m not surprised.

I also found a reference to South Inch being used for witch burning, military displays and archery practice;  stones were apparently placed at intervals of 500 fathoms (3,000 feet) to measure the flight of an arrow.   Now, here’s a thing:  there’s a group of stones (not huge, but still noticeable) under one of the trees, and I’ve often wondered where they came from.  Interesting.   They might be quite recent, but I’ll investigate!

Sources:

• Golf’s Missing Links
• Scottish Places
• Scottish Golf History
• King James VI Golf Club
• Perthshire Diary

Photos copyright © Jo Woolf

Colin has now finished the red deer painting that he began in January.  Here it is in all its misty mountain glory…

You can see the painting in progress in this earlier post on The Hazel Tree.

Copyright © Colin Woolf

More of Colin’s work can be found at www.wildart.co.uk

Violence… plunder… feuding… it all went on at Cardoness Castle.   A mile or so from Gatehouse of Fleet in south-west Scotland, this was the seat of the McCullochs, a notoriously lawless bunch.   The family name began with Godfrey McCulloch, a warrior during the Crusades, who carried the emblem of a wild boar (in Gaelic, ‘cullach’) on his shield.

Cardoness Castle passed to the McCullochs via the marriage of an heiress.  An old story tells how this girl was the sole survivor of an accident that killed her eight sisters, as well as her mother, father and new-born brother.  The laird of Cardoness had been celebrating the arrival of a son by holding a party on the frozen loch;  but the ice gave way, drowning all but one daughter, who went on to marry a McCulloch.

Successive McCulloch lairds were convicted of violence and theft of property, with one Ninian McCulloch even stealing 1,500 head of cattle from his own mother in 1501.  Alexander McCulloch clashed repeatedly with his neighbours before perishing on Flodden Field in 1513;  and one of his descendants, the swashbuckling Alexander ‘Cutlar’ McCulloch, took to sea and led several raids on the Isle of Man.

In 1628 Cardoness Castle passed to the Gordons, a neighbouring family who had a centuries-old feud with the McCullochs.   The McCullochs didn’t take this lying down:   in 1668 Alexander McCulloch burst in on the ailing widow of John Gordon, and threw her onto a dung heap;   and in 1690 Godfrey McCulloch shot and killed John’s son.  Godfrey fled to France, but was silly enough to venture back to Edinburgh, where he was spotted and executed on the ‘Maiden’, Scotland’s version of the guillotine.  After that little episode, perhaps thankfully, the castle was abandoned and left in peace.

Sources:

• Historic Scotland
• Undiscovered Scotland
• ‘The Agnews of Lochnaw: A History of the Hereditary Sheriffs of Galloway’ by Sir Andrew Agnew, 1864, via National Library of Scotland

Photo copyright © Jo Woolf

“At the foot of Glenlyon, on a high declivitous bank and anciently defended by a drawbridge, are the ruins of a castle…”    

The Topographical, Statistical and Historical Gazetteer of Scotland, 1853

We were driving back out of Glenlyon, a long and winding valley above Loch Tay which is reputed – with some justification, I’d say – to be the most beautiful glen in Scotland.  The sky was an almost surreal shade of blue, and the snow was scattering the sunlight into a million sparkling diamonds.

Glancing up through the trees as we came around a bend, we both noticed the broken walls of a building, half-hidden on the summit of a small wooded knoll.  We pulled off the road, and I walked back to take a look, while Colin searched for beech mast – he needed reference for a new painting.

As I gazed at the ruins from below, I realised that taking pictures from that angle wouldn’t be enough.   The hill looked a bit steep, but it certainly wasn’t high.   I made it up there with more persistence than dignity, helped by a couple of handily-placed trees.   The ground was extremely slippery, with snow overlying a thick layer of moss, grass and dead leaves.

At the top, I found myself in what I assumed was the courtyard of a tower house;  I was approaching the arched doorway from the east, like a visitor of old.  Except that the lord, whoever he was, had long since departed.

What was this place called, and who lived here?   I was excited to find out.   And the story is just as enchanting as I’d hoped.

“The second laird of the Campbell family was Donnachadh Ruadh na Feileachd, ‘Red Duncan of the Hospitality’.  He died in the year 1580.  His profuse hospitality gained for him a name not yet forgotten.  Bands of Irish harpers came to Scotland in his days.”

‘Lairds of Glenlyon: Historical sketches, relating to the districts of Appin, Glenlyon and Breadalbane’ by Duncan Campbell, 1886

This is Carnbane Castle, built around 1564 by a man called Red Duncan the Hospitable, a member of the Campbell family.  Now, I’ve come across a couple of ‘Red’ and ‘Black’ Campbells in my travels and I wouldn’t be entirely convinced by the addition of ‘Hospitable’, but it seems that this one really did have a kind heart.   He had a plentiful larder, as well:  in the late 1500s, an old folk story says that an Irish bard visited Carnbane, and Duncan laid on a daily feast that consisted of “a fat bullock, and six wethers, with red deer and other game”.

As the story goes, when the time came for the bard to depart, it was noticed that his garments were ragged and thin.  Perhaps he had a bit of a moan about leaving a warm hearth and venturing out into the cold!   In any case, Duncan immediately took off all his own clothes and insisted that the Irishman should put them on.   Having sent his guest on his way, Duncan made his way back up to his fortress, stark naked, and quite possibly a little chilly.  The sight certainly surprised his wife, who exclaimed that he looked like a ‘large white goose’, from which the name ‘Carn Ban’ or ‘Bane’ is traditionally derived.*

* I know that ‘ban’ means ‘white’ in Gaelic, but I have yet to find that ‘carn’ means ‘goose’.    If you can shed some light on this, please let me know!

Anyway, that wasn’t the end of the story.

The bard was cannier than he looked, and he returned the next day just to check whether Duncan’s lavish hospitality was just a pretence.   But he was wrong:  the laird of Carnbane had anticipated his return, and spread another generous feast in front of him.  The bard stayed for another few days, and on his return to Ireland he sowed the seeds of a legend:

“…when his own employer, Gorrie, inquired about Red Duncan, and put it to him if strangers fared not better with himself, the bard promptly replied :

Molar Gorrie thar a mhuir
Is gach duine na thir fein;
Ach na coimisear duine do t-sluagh
Ri Donnachadh Ruadh ach e fein.

Let Gorrie be praised over the sea,
and each man in his own country;
but let none of the race of men be compared
to Red Duncan but himself.”

‘Lairds of Glenlyon…‘ by Duncan Campbell

Red Duncan the Hospitable died in 1580, and soon afterwards the castle was destroyed by a party of Lochaber men, who were passing by and obviously nursing a long-standing grievance.   They fired arrows of burning lint into the roof, and the hall-house was razed to the ground.

Carnbane Castle was never re-built, because Duncan’s successor, Colin Campbell, built a stronghold further down the glen, at Meggernie.   Colin had his own unique set of problems, but Duncan’s reputation lives on:

“His laudations survive in the poetry both of Ireland and Scotland.”   

‘Lairds of Glenlyon…’ by Duncan Campbell

The RCAHMS describes Carnbane Castle as a ‘ruined hall-house with gun-loops’, and identifies the remains of a vaulted storage cellar and kitchen.  In the south-western corner is a crumbled staircase tower, which would have led to the accommodation.

Having ducked underneath the arch, now partly blocked with vegetation and rubble, I found myself within the four walls – an unexpected guest, certainly too late for the feast.   Looking through another opening on the opposite side, I could see quite a formidable drop down to the valley floor.  The feeling was quite serene – happy, I would have said, without even knowing the history.   I leaned against the wall, and after a few minutes a fine snow started to come down.

Looking at my photos now, and remembering the place, it’s a lovely to think that harp music once drifted around these walls, and that there was laughter and entertainment and a warm welcome within.

And another thing… the whole place seemed to be alive with wildlife.  A couple of cock pheasants were racketing away in the woods, and some small birds – coal tits or treecreepers – flitted among the trees.  A burst of song came from a hidden robin, and littering the ground outside the entrance were fallen branches, riddled with the holes of woodpeckers.  Colin told me that a party of roe deer leapt away silently along the ridge shortly after I got up the hill.

I still had to get down, and since the slope seemed even steeper on the descent I just gave in to gravity and skidded down on my backside, which was afterwards extremely cold and wet.  But this magical, hidden place is haunting, and in such a beautiful way.  Perhaps it was the light reflecting off the snow, or the deep sense of peace, but I found it heart-lifting, and just the memory of it makes me smile.

Finding Carnbane Castle

This is easier said than done, and when the leaves are on the trees it will be even harder!    If you’re heading west, look for it on the right, about three miles after the turn-off from Fortingall into Glen Lyon;  if you reach Invervar, you’ve gone past it, so turn around.

Sources:

• RCAHMS Canmore
• Lairds of Glenlyon: Historical sketches, relating to the districts of Appin, Glenlyon and Breadalbane’ by Duncan Campbell, 1886
• The Scottish Castles Association
• The Topographical, Statistical and Historical Gazetteer of Scotland, 1853

Photos copyright © Colin & Jo Woolf

Glen Lyon

The glen has links with Irish legend:  “A chain of round towers stretches through its whole length, which the people still call ‘Caistealan nam Fiann’, castles of the Fingalians.”    Duncan Campbell, 1886

There’s more to come… further up the glen is a standing stone with a very old story to tell!  Meanwhile, just a stone’s throw away, you’ll find the ancient yew tree and stone circles of Fortingall.

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 hues of blue and lilac.

I’d heard of a standing stone called Adamnan’s Cross, and was prepared to have to climb over a fence and plunge ankle-deep into the snow in order to find it;  but in fact it was surprisingly easy to see, being close to the road on a slightly raised hummock of ground, on the south side of the glen.

So what’s special about Adamnan’s Cross, other than the glorious view that it has enjoyed every day for the last couple of thousand years?

Firstly, although it bears the name of an early Christian saint, it probably started out in the Bronze Age, as a standing stone.   What it marked or signified is now lost to time.  But in the 7th century, Glen Lyon is said to have been visited by St Adamnan, an Irish-born missionary who was a distant relative of St Columba.

Who was St Adamnan?

“A wise and worthy man, excellently grounded in knowledge of the Scriptures.”  

Bede’s ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English People’ quoted in ‘The Heroic Age’, article by Jeffrey Wetherill

Born about 624 AD in County Donegal, Adamnan was the ninth Abbot of the monastery on Iona.  He travelled widely, and was responsible for writing the biography – or hagiography, more precisely – of St Columba.  In Gaelic, his name is pronounced ‘ad-OV-nan’;  it is also spelled Adomnan, and some historians identify him as St Eonan or Eunan.

According to the local historian Duncan Campbell, writing in the late 1800s, St Adamnan and another missionary, St Fillan, travelled from the west to spread the gospel throughout central Scotland, and they drew lots to decide the regions where they would preach.  To St Fillan fell the area now known as Strathfillan, while St Adamnan headed towards Glen Lyon, where he set about building a water mill and a chapel.

“St Eonan built his Chapel near the only stone circle in Glenlyon.  The stones of this circle have been removed within my memory.  The place is called ‘Clachaig’.” 

Duncan Campbell, ‘Lairds of Glenlyon: Historical sketches, relating to the districts of Appin, Glenlyon and Breadalbane’, 1886

It seems that Adamnan arrived in Glen Lyon at just the right moment.  An outbreak of the plague had been rife in the settlement of Fortingall and was beginning to spread up the glen.   According to folklore, only one inhabitant of Fortingall remained alive – an old woman, whose grim task it was to bury all the bodies.  Using her grey horse and a sledge, she placed them all in a large communal grave, and a heap of stones was later raised on top.  (I photographed this stone on a visit last year;  it is believed to date from the 14th century, which puts it way out of Adamnan’s time, but I will tell you more in a later post.)

Meanwhile, up in Glen Lyon, a child was already suffering from the dreaded disease, and the people turned to Adamnan in despair.

“Eonan nan gruaidhean dearg
Eirich, is caisg plaigh do shluaigh;
Saor sinne bho’n Bhas
Is na leig oirnn e nios no ‘n nuas.

Eonan of the ruddy cheeks,
rise and check the plague of thy people.
Save us from the death,
and let it not come upon us east or west.”

Tree with bracket fungus

Adamnan gathered all the people together on a mound where he habitually preached to them.  He raised his hand, drew the evil energy towards him, and channelled it into a large round boulder that was lying nearby.  To everyone’s amazement, a hole appeared in the stone at the spot where the plague had entered it.  He then sent the remaining healthy inhabitants up into the sheilings or summer dwellings until the danger had passed.   Later, when everyone had returned to their homes, the rock became known as ‘Craig-diannaidh’, the ‘rock of safety’.

Duncan Campbell tells us that an upright stone was erected nearby, to mark the spot where Adamnan stood, and he suggests that it originally had arms which have since been broken off;  this tends to contradict the other theory, that it was a standing stone of Bronze Age origin.  Having inspected it at close range, I can’t see any evidence of broken arms, and I’m tempted to say that it is a much older monolith that was later carved with cross-symbols, like the one at Camas nan Geall in Ardnamurchan;  but there is no real way of knowing.

I didn’t see the boulder with the hole in it, but after all I wasn’t looking for it!   I believe it is now hidden among the trees on the other side of the road.  But, interestingly, while I was photographing the cross, Colin was mooching around looking at lichens and mosses, and noticed a tree with bracket fungus sprouting at intervals up the trunk.  This was almost directly opposite the cross, and it must therefore stand very close to the ‘rock of safety’, where the plague is said to have disappeared.

The Northern Antiquarian says that “the rocky slope immediately above the stone… was the home of an old urisk, who, sadly, long-since left the area – though his spirit can still be felt there.”  An urisk or ùruisg is a spirit-creature like a brownie or a hobgoblin, said to haunt waterfalls and pools.  They seek human companionship, but rarely succeed because of their off-putting appearance:  they are described as having a long face and nose, pointed ears, dirty skin, and the legs of a goat.

If I’d known this when we were there, who knows what I might have discovered?

As for the standing stone, it must be nearly four feet high, but is leaning at quite an angle over to the south;  it’s covered in lichen, but it is still possible to make out the cross markings on its surface.   The RCAHMS database says that the mound on which it stands is called ‘Tom a’ Mhoid’, or ‘moot hill’.

It is suggested by one source that St Adamnan died on Iona, but a strand of folklore claims that his grave lies not too far from the place where he performed his miracle.  As he grew near the end of his life, he was asked by the people of Glen Lyon where he would like to be buried.  He told them to build him a bier and attach ‘lunnan’ or sticks to it for carrying;  these should be lashed to the coffin with ‘dullan’ – whips of withy (willow).  His friends were to bear him down the glen, and when the first withy strap broke, that was where he should be buried.  It’s impossible to know how true this is, but it’s a perfect explanation for the rather strangely named village of Dull, between Fortingall and Aberfeldy, which is the place where the first withy strap broke and the ‘patron saint’ of Glen Lyon was traditionally laid to rest.

Further west in Glen Lyon, at Bridge of Balgie, Adamnan is remembered in the place names of Eilean Eonain (the island of Eonan or Adamnan) and Milton Eonan, the site of his mill.

Ancient footsteps…

This whole glen is wrapped in legend.  Duncan Campbell talks of a chain of 12 round towers which were the ‘castles of the Fingalians’, the earliest chiefs of Glen Lyon, about whom little or nothing is known.  Several of them are clustered at the western end, in a place called ‘Cashlie’, which means ‘castles’.  At the time of Adamnan’s arrival, Glen Lyon was known as ‘Gleann dubh crom nan garbh chlach‘ – ‘the black crooked glen of large stones’.   And it’s fascinating to think that all this would be remembered by the Fortingall yew, an ancient tree that still stands in the nearby churchyard.

Sources and further reading:

• ‘Lairds of Glenlyon: Historical sketches, relating to the districts of Appin, Glenlyon and Breadalbane’ by Duncan Campbell, 1886
• Northern Antiquarian
• RCAHMS Canmore
• Undiscovered Scotland
• ‘Adomnan, Iona, and the Life of St Columba – Their Place Among Continental Saints‘ by Jeffrey Wetherill

My thanks to Northern Antiquarian, whose excellent website helped me to find the stone.

Photos copyright © Colin & Jo Woolf

“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 in the 6th century, looking for remote islands on which to build a monastery, you might be forgiven for thinking that they had an amicable way of settling who was going to go where.

On the whole, they did;  but the Isle of Lismore must have held a special attraction, at least for St Columba and St Moluag, because both of them wanted it and neither would give in.  So – according to the story – they decided to have a race.  The first man to the island would win it.

All was looking good for St Columba, whose vessel was racing ahead through the waves, but St Moluag had a crafty plan.  As the two boats approached the shore, he cut off one of his fingers and threw it onto the beach, thereby claiming Lismore as his own.

It sounds a bit drastic, and even if it isn’t true it certainly makes you wonder how these stories grow up.  I’d like to think that St Columba performed a miracle and re-joined Moluag’s finger by way of congratulations.  Whatever happened, Moluag stayed on Lismore long enough to build a monastery whose lands soon extended east to Appin and west to Kingairloch and Morvern.  St Moluag’s Church became the seat of the Bishopric of Argyll and the Isles, and for this reason it is actually a cathedral.

Nothing now remains of the earliest structure, but parts of the present church are 14th century in origin.  The graveyard is said to contain a baptismal font carved into a natural rock surface, and the RCAHMS adds:

“It is interesting to note that the field boundaries to the north, east and south form a rough circle of about 240 metres in diameter which may indicate the original line of a vallum similar to those which enclosed certain early monastic sites.”

The ‘Apostle of the Picts’

St Moluag must have been passionate about converting the Picts to Christianity, because he mopped around the country at a fair rate.  He founded holy centres in Rosemarkie and Mortlach in the east of Scotland, and in the west he travelled to Lewis, Skye, Tiree, Mull, Morvern and Inveraray.  Like Columba, he is reputed to be of noble descent, and he is also known as Lughaidh, Luanus, Molluog, Moluoc and Murlach, among others;  ‘Moluag’ is said to be made up of a prefix meaning ‘my’, and the Gaelic ‘Lughaidh’ meaning ‘light’.   He died on 25th June 592 AD, somewhere in the east of Scotland.  It is unknown where he is buried, but one tradition claims that his body was brought back to Lismore by 24 stalwart islanders.

The website of Bachuil Country House adds an interesting perspective to the history of Lismore:

“This had been the sacred island of the Western Picts whose capital was at Beregonium, across the water at Benderloch.  Their kings were cremated on the ancient man made ‘burial mound’ of Cnoc Aingeil (Gaelic for ‘Hill of Fire’) at Bachuil, about three miles from the north of the island, near to the site that St. Moluag chose for his first centre.”

St Moluag’s pastoral staff, a curved rod of blackthorn known as the Bachuil Mor, is still in the possession of the Livingstones of Bachuil (Clan Maclea) on the Isle of Lismore.

I walked past St Moluag’s Cathedral a couple of years ago, on our way back from Castle Coeffin.  However, we were in a bit of a rush to catch the ferry back, so I didn’t linger in the church and I didn’t walk around the graveyard, although I’d love to have found the ancient font.

Lismore is the most beautiful island, with a profusion of wild flowers in the roadside verges and only a few cars on its roads.  Getting there is fun, too, especially if you take the little passenger ferry from Port Appin.

Sources and more info:

• RCAHMS Canmore
• Undiscovered Scotland
• IsleofLismore.com
• Scotland’s Churches Trust
• Firth’s Celtic Scotland
• Mysterious Britain and Ireland
• Bachuil Country House, Lismore

Photos © Jo Woolf except the 2nd one, of Lismore’s shore, which is © Verity Sansom

More little churches with a big past:

• Ardchattan Priory on Loch Etive
• Keills Chapel, Knapdale
• Kilmory Knap
• The Garvellachs

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 write about on The Hazel Tree I’ve visited with hardly any preconceptions;  quite often, I stumble across a place by accident and discover the history afterwards.

Not so this time.

Like millions of people, I read Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ about 10 years ago, and so the image of Rosslyn Chapel was imprinted on my mind.  The whole story about the rose line and the ancient secrets embedded in stone was so alluring, and even though much of it was fiction, I couldn’t help wondering just how much truth there was underneath.

And ever since we moved to Scotland, I’ve been noticing Rosslyn on the map, and thinking, “I really must go there one day.”  But unfortunately, this was always followed, in my imagination, by a vision of thousands of tourists jam-packed into a tight dark space, and I would put it off again.  Plus, I had a vague and probably misplaced apprehension about the Knights Templar:  exclusively male, obsessively secretive, well-meaning but a little bit jinxed.

We finally made it out to Rosslyn Chapel on a bright morning in January.  It was sunny but cold, with a brisk wind whipping off the Pentlands.  People were rolling up in ones and twos, not hundreds, which I found encouraging.

A cathedral in miniature

Rosslyn Chapel was the vision of an ambitious and far-sighted nobleman called William St Clair.   William was the third and last St Clair Prince of Orkney, and in 1436, at the age of 22, he accompanied James I’s 12-year-old daughter, Margaret, to Tours, where she was married to the Louis, the son of Charles VII of France.

While he was there, William decided to make the most of it, and he spent four years exploring the Continent.  He made a particular study of the French cathedrals and their beautiful Gothic architecture.  Ten years later, in the low wooded hills of Midlothian, he founded the Collegiate Chapel of St Matthew, or Rosslyn Chapel as it is better known.

“Prince William, his age creeping on him, came to consider how he had spent his times past, and how he was to spend his remaining days… it came into his mind to build a house for God’s service, of most curious work…” 

Father Richard Augustine Hay, Canon of St Genevieve and Prior of St Piermont, writing in 1700, from ‘A Genealogie of the Sainteclaires of Rosslyn’, 1835

By my reckoning, William would only have been 32 when he founded the chapel, so I’m not sure how he would have felt about the idea that age was creeping up on him.  However, he must have been one for looking ahead, and he was certainly a man who dreamed big.

It should be said here that William’s chapel was not the first on this site, but traces of the former building are hard to find, and its very existence seems to have been largely obscured by the glorious presence of its successor.   Some crumbling buttresses survive in the nearby graveyard;  and about half a mile down the hill, an even earlier place of worship was incorporated into the St Clair stronghold of Rosslyn Castle:

“The first chapel nestled inside Rosslyn Castle within a curious curved stone wall known as the ’rounds’, resembling a honeycomb.” 

BBC archive

The honeycomb design is an interesting element, which I’ll explain later on.

It’s difficult to overstate the magnificence of William’s vision.   He wanted his church to have a tower that was visible from Edinburgh, and his original cruciform plan extended at least 34 metres (111 feet) further on from the existing west end.  He was, in fact, building a cathedral to rival those of northern France, but on a smaller scale;   and he may have been particularly influenced by Rouen, where his ancestor, Rollo, 1st Duke of Normandy, had been laid to rest.  It’s also interesting to discover that the number and layout of Rosslyn’s pillars are an exact mirror of those in the choir of Glasgow Cathedral, built some 200 years earlier.

For the next 40 years Rosslyn must have been a hive of activity, and William spared no expense.  According to Father Hay, he brought master craftsmen “from other regions and foreign kingdoms and caused daily to be abundance of all kinds of workmen present as masons, carpenters, smiths, barrowmen and quarriers…”   To house them all, he created the village of Roslin.

But William’s dream outlived the man, because he died in 1484 with his chapel still unfinished.  His successor, Oliver St Clair, added the stone-vaulted roof but made no efforts to extend the building.  The tower was never built, nor the nave or the transepts.  What we see today is just the choir of William’s grand plan, with a small baptistry which was added to the west end in 1880.

The west end, with unfinished transept walls and the 19th century baptistry

The south side

This is the south door, through which women traditionally entered the chapel.  Men would enter through the ‘Bachelors’ Door’ in the north side (below)

Despite its moderate size, Rosslyn Chapel is one of the most lavishly decorated buildings I’ve ever seen – and that’s just on the outside.   Faces, flowers, leaves and symbols of all kinds adorn windows and doorways and garnish the pinnacles of the flying buttresses.  Randomly dotted around the stone blocks of the walls are small masons‘ marks, while secreted under a low jutting pillar at the east end we found a star-shaped carving, which I’m told is the ‘foundation stone’.

Star-shaped carving secreted into stonework, lower centre

And then there’s the interior…

My horrors about a dark, claustrophobic space evaporated as I stepped through the door.   The interior was filled with light.  Everything looked white, although in reality the stonework is somewhere between grey and cream.  The only colour came from the magnificent windows.

Your first glance, upwards at the barrel-vaulted roof, strikes you speechless with awe.  The ceiling is divided into five sections, and each section is filled with row upon row of carved flowers and stars.  As you study them further, you realise that each section has flowers of a slightly different design:   looking from east to west, they progress from four-petalled flowers, through flowers with leaves, to double roses, lilies, and stars.  I pondered this for a while and wondered if they were a symbol of the stages of life, from birth through to death and possibly an afterlife.   Interestingly, the stars in the last section are all geometrically spaced, apart from two, which appear to be colliding.  Hidden among them is a sun, a moon, a dove, and the face of Christ with his hand raised in blessing.  And this is just the beginning.  Welcome to the mysterious realm of Rosslyn.

The five roof sections are separated by lines of stone ‘ribs’, each studded at regular intervals with small three-dimensional sculptures which jut downwards into the hollow space.  In the centre of the roof, on the second rib from the east, is a carved projection known as the ‘keystone’.  This bears the St Clair (or Sinclair) shield and cross, held between two hands.  You’d think it would be obvious, but in fact there is so much embellishment on the ceiling that it’s easy to miss.  You could come here week after week, year after year, and still find something you’d never seen.

One question that rose in my mind was how on earth Rosslyn managed to survive the Reformation.  The answer is that many of its sculptures didn’t, particularly those depicting Christ and the saints.   All around the walls are empty niches that would once have supported statues.   In 1650, the troops of Cromwell under General Monk attacked Rosslyn Castle and stabled their horses in the chapel;   and in 1688, a Protestant crowd entered and damaged some of the furniture and vestments.  It was abandoned until 1736, when the windows were re-glazed and the roof repaired.   It is amazing to consider just how much of it has survived.  When William and Dorothy Wordsworth visited Rosslyn in 1803, Dorothy wrote in her journal that “the architecture within is exquisitely beautiful”.

‘Musical cubes’ © Rosslyn Chapel

Caring for Rosslyn

When I read about the recent restoration work done here, I was staggered by the sheer quantity of carving that there was to clean.

In the 1950s, the interior of Rosslyn Chapel was suffering from the effects of damp, and many surfaces were covered with green algae.  The thinking at the time was very proactive, if rather misguided, and as a result of an Ancient Monuments inspection all the internal carvings were scrubbed down with a stiff bristle brush before coating with a solution of magnesium fluoride.  This caused problems of its own, not least because the coating effectively sealed water into the stone, rather than allowing it to breathe;  and in 1997 a free-standing steel roof was put up over the Chapel to allow the stonework to dry outwards.  This protective roof was in place for 13 years, and was removed in the summer of 2010.

The Lady Chapel (left) and the Apprentice Pillar (right) courtesy of Rosslyn Chapel.  

It seems that with every step you take inside Rosslyn Chapel, there is a new feature of mystery and intrigue.  I am not going to catalogue them all.  The joy is in discovering them for yourself.  But it’s impossible not to mention Rosslyn’s best-known features:  two pillars, known as the Mason’s Pillar and the Apprentice Pillar, which flank the Lady Chapel at the east end.   Both have exquisite carving, but the Mason’s Pillar is decorated in straight vertical lines, while the Apprentice’s Pillar has beautifully garlands of foliage flowing in spirals up from the base.  And there is a story about this:  the mason, having been asked to produce a pillar of magnificent craftsmanship, took himself off to the Continent to brush up on his skills, leaving his apprentice in charge at Rosslyn.  But the apprentice thought he’d have a go himself, and produced a pillar of such exquisite quality that his master, on his return, flew into a jealous rage and killed the apprentice on the spot.  Small carved grotesques of the mason, the apprentice and his grieving mother are dotted around the church.

I was more interested to read that the spiralling foliage is thought to be rising from the dragons of Yggdrasil:  this was a giant ash tree in Norse mythology, standing at the centre of the universe.  People have compared the flowing spirals with the structure of DNA.

On the south side of the Lady Chapel, a flight of stone steps lead down to the sacristy or crypt, which is thought to pre-date the 15th century chapel.  In this dim hollow space you can just make out geometrical shapes faintly scratched on the walls, thought to be the working sketches of masons as they developed their designs.  A beautiful stained glass window – partly covered with scaffolding when I was there – allows light in from the east, while a small and rather claustrophobic antechamber to the left houses a collection of loose stone carvings.  There was another opening on the opposite side, which looked as if it led to further chambers, but the access was blocked off.

“There are twenty of Roslin’s barons bold
Lie buried within that proud chapelle…”

Sir Walter Scott, ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’

Rosslyn’s crypts are the focus of most of the legends and folklore about the place.  The original vault – the location of which is still unknown – is where, according to various tales, a host of Templar knights lie entombed in their armour;   a piece of the cross of Christ’s crucifixion is hidden;   and the original crown jewels of Scotland are buried.   This is by no means all.  In addition, a tunnel is said to lead from the crypts of Rosslyn right down to Rosslyn Castle, which lies several hundred yards below it in the glen.

Mystery, metaphysics, or madness?  It all depends on your point of view.  But it seems to me as if the landscape of Rosslyn is capable of amplifying people’s reactions to it, so that whatever you find or sense as an individual can be felt very strongly.  Plus, I do believe that if you look for something hard enough, you will find it.

My own impression of Rosslyn was one of light:  it felt like a place of blessing and healing.  I was quite surprised by this, as I had been expecting something quite different.

Trees, energy and dowsing

Yew tree in far south-east corner

I’d taken my dowsing rods to Rosslyn, with the rather optimistic intention of trying them out.  This, in the presence of quite a few tourists, is easier said than done, as I’m still a beginner and not wanting to attract undue attention.  But at the east end, my rods turned and then started spinning the closer I got to the wall;  and round at the west end, I noticed two fairly old trees – possibly cherries – one of which was particularly twisted and gnarled, and leaning over the path that leads to the west door.  I did a bit of dowsing around this, without any ground-breaking results.  Inside the chapel, although I kept my rods stashed away, I had a sensation of light pouring in from the west, and coming up in a brilliant shaft towards the altar;  not a revolutionary idea, I have to say, but one that was nicely echoed in visual terms when I went back outside and photographed the low afternoon sun flashing over the wall of the baptistry.

Rosslyn has over 100 ‘green men’. They are harder to spot than you might imagine!

Dowsing friends tell me that the sacristy or crypt is where the energy is the strongest, and one of them described the atmosphere in there as being particularly ‘thick’ after a few minutes of chanting.  Sound is an important element that we tend to overlook, but all churches and even (in some opinions) much older burial chambers were shaped to allow sound to swell and resonate, perhaps with healing purposes;  and my instinct is to wonder if they hold that energy, like a residual memory, allowing us to detect and interact with it.

“Rosslyn Chapel was founded upon St. Matthew’s Day, 21st September, 1446, and officially dedicated to that saint on the same day in 1450.”

Mythomorph: ‘Secrets of Rosslyn Chapel’ by Jeff Nisbet

One of the many stories about Rosslyn is that it was once a shrine for the skull of St Matthew.  An ancient story tells of Matthew travelling to Myrna in Turkey and planting his staff in the ground.  Immediately the staff took root as a tree, and sprouted with fruits and vines.  A beehive in the branches sent a cascade of honey down to the base.

At Rosslyn, one of the pinnacles on the north-east corner was hollowed out to allow wild bees to make a nest there.  For centuries, it was known to local people that honey dripped down the wall of the building – and, according to some stories, it was collected inside the church, on the altar of St Matthew.   (Interesting to remember that the earlier shrine in Rosslyn Castle had a honeycomb design).   And if this all sounds a bit far-fetched, think again:  it seems that bees respond to earth energies, and they have been discovered to nest in churches and farms along ley lines in Dorset, as bee-keeper Chris Slade observed in his blog only recently.

In the midst of all the symbolism and intrigue, there was one feature outside the chapel’s north door that I recognised immediately:  a blue plastic cat’s bowl.  So Rosslyn has a cat… and his name, fittingly enough, is William.  I would have been delighted to meet William, but he was obviously making social calls elsewhere and was not available for comment.  I have a feeling that Purdey should make his acquaintance.  I wonder if he might be persuaded to enter the PAWS Awards next year?  Imagine the potential!

Visiting Rosslyn Chapel

The property is owned by the Earl and Countess of Rosslyn.  You can find full details about admission prices, opening times and facilities on the Chapel’s website.   The modern Visitor Centre has a coffee shop and state-of-the-art interactive displays.   I’d recommend the guide book, written by the Earl of Rosslyn, which is very informative.

We were lucky on our visit, as it was out of season and the crowds were minimal:  if you have the chance to visit during autumn or winter, I’d advise you to do so.   No photography is allowed inside the chapel, and I am grateful to the Learning Officer at Rosslyn for supplying me with the internal photos.

A working church

Rosslyn Chapel is part of the Scottish Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Edinburgh.  Services are held here every Sunday, with short prayer services on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Aerial view, courtesy Rosslyn Chapel

Sources:

• Rosslyn Chapel and guidebook
• St Matthew’s – Rosslyn Chapel
• RCAHMS
• Mysterious Britain and Ireland
• Edinburgh Architecture
• The Scotsman
• Mythomorph.com
• BBC news (discovery of beehive)
• BBC archives
• Chris Slade’s Bee Blog
• Grahame Gardner of Western Geomancy

Photos copyright © Colin & Jo Woolf, except interior & aerial photos, kindly supplied by Rosslyn Chapel

The Countess of Rosslyn has made a very good documentary about the history of Rosslyn, which at the time of writing can be viewed on YouTube (part 1 here).  I do not know if it is available worldwide, however.

It’s easy to overlook, but just a short walk down the wooded hillside brings you to the quiet and enigmatic ruins of Rosslyn Castle.  I’ll be telling you about this presently!

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 going to show you a few more sites, starting with this impressive stone row at Ballymeanoch.

The stones appear almost out of nowhere, blending into the field from a distance and then rising up in stark profile against the sun as you get closer.   There are six stones in all, set in relatively straight lines of two and four which are aligned approximately north-west to south-east.  The tallest is 12 feet high, and some of the others must be approaching this height;   up close, they have quite a presence.

I’ve visited quite a few circles and rows, and sometimes they strike me as ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’.  Ballymeanoch seemed distinctly feminine, and to me there seemed to be quite a joyful ‘fizz’ in the texture of the stones.

When I went round to the south side of the four-stone row, I was thrilled to see the rich ‘gardens‘ of lichen that each one has growing on its face.  What a profusion of feathery green and silver, thriving on a surface that has stood to welcome the sunrise for thousands of years.   The two middle stones are riddled with cup-marks, difficult to see unless you catch the shadow.   One of the others was curiously lined, although whether these lines are man-made or natural is open to interpretation.

The most southerly midsummer full moon rises in line with the two standing stones, while the midwinter sun rises in line with the four stones.” 

Historic Scotland

The row of two, seen edge-on

According to the information sign, there was once a seventh stone further to the north-west.  It was pierced with a hole, and, in an age-old tradition, two people would clasp hands through it to seal a betrothal.  A local archaeologist, Marion Campbell (1919-2000) remembered looking through it when she was a child.   This stone toppled over during a storm in 1943, narrowly missing a Shetland pony which had been sheltering against it.   Marion recalled that “the poor beast was nearly scared to death.”

It’s interesting to consider what significance this pierced stone might have had, in relation to the others;  and to wonder who might have been watching the heavens… and for what.   Historic Scotland suggests that all the stones may have been prised from outcrops that had been decorated with cup and ring markings 1,500 years earlier.  But why?  Why not decorate the stones once you’d got them out?  (If you have any ideas about this, please feel free to share them!)

Cremated human bones were found in the pit where the pierced stone had stood;  they date from between 1370 and 1050 BC, and the RCAHMS considers that they were “probably buried as a foundation deposit when the stone was erected.”   After the stone fell over, the broken fragments were moved nearby, and I may have stumbled across the pierced section without knowing what it was.

About 20 yards or so from the stone rows (and very close to the pierced fragment) is a kerb-cairn consisting of about 10 smallish slabs set upright in a rough circle, with a mound of grassed-over rubble or stones in the centre.   There’s nothing to say how many stones would have stood here originally, and I can find no record of a burial.  One source suggests a date for the kerb-cairn of between 1400 and 1200 BC.

On the northern boundary is an old tree – most likely an oak – which has contorted itself into an interesting shape, as if it’s reaching out towards the stones.  It still has a long way to go, but it’s making a valiant effort.

In 1993, a geophysical inspection of the field detected “linear anomalies” on the same alignment as the four-stone row and running to meet them at their south-easterly end.   The RCAHMS observes that “there is a good case to suggest that they represent the remains of a prehistoric earthwork avenue.”

Kilmartin is a spectacular place, but it feels reassuringly unchanged, so that you can still feel the undisturbed ancient peace beneath your feet.   It’s dream-like on a windless sunny day, but beautiful in all weather:  check out my earlier features on Dunchraigaig and Nether Largie to see for yourself!

Visiting Kilmartin Glen

Temple Wood stone circle

Deservedly called ‘Scotland’s Richest Prehistoric Landscape’, Kilmartin lies about 30 miles south of Oban in Argyll.   There’s a museum and cafe, and the website tells you lots more about the treasures of Kilmartin and where to find them.

Sources & more info:

• RCAHMS Canmore
• Kilmartin Glen
• Historic Scotland
• Undiscovered Scotland
• Visit Scotland
• The Megalithic Portal

Photos copyright © Colin & Jo Woolf

Coming soon:

• Inside the Nether Largie (South) burial chamber
• Temple Wood stone circle
• Achnabreck rock art (cup-marked stones)

“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 Carmichael, pub. 1914, via NLS

A couple of years ago I wrote about the wonderful old Priory at Ardchattan, on the shore of Loch Etive in Argyll.

In March this year we went there again.  It was the week before Easter, and slightly earlier in the season than our last visit:  the first primroses were out, and but the daffodil buds were still tightly wrapped against the chilly breeze.

We didn’t go into the Priory itself, but instead we went through a gate into a field and headed up the hillside, past some cows that were idling the afternoon away, and along the side of a burn until we came to a small ruined building.  This was once a church, dedicated to St Baodan.

This simple little building must have a long history, but most of it remains deeply hidden.   It is thought to date from the 15th century, and may have fallen out of use sometime in the mid-1600s, but no one knows for sure.  It was reported as being ruinous in 1678, and for the next 50 years local services were held in Ardchattan Priory, before a new church was built nearby.

The RCAHMS sums it up quite neatly:

“Uncertain age.  Oblong.  Random rubble, much dilapidated.  Overgrown.  Roofless.  Window in each gable.”

and then adds an interesting footnote:

“Burnt to the ground c.1800.”

On the surface, it therefore appears that Ardchattan Priory was founded long before this little church was built, but by its name I wonder if the opposite is true.   In the 13th century, something would have drawn the Valliscaulian monks to Ardchattan, and the presence of an ancient shrine and a holy well (Tobar Baodan or Baodan’s spring issues from the hillside nearby) would have held a strong appeal.  But this is purely speculation.

“There is a forest walk from the A828 just past the Sea Life Centre – it is called the Coffin Trail and it leads up to this ruin.”

Geolocation

In the east gable wall, two aumbries or cubby holes can be seen, and the east window is still there, but that is pretty much it in terms of surviving features;  instead, in the walls on either side, the trunks of dead trees bulge from the stonework, showing just how overgrown this place must have become when it was abandoned.  The branches may have been felled to preserve the structure, but it would be impossible to remove their trunks as the walls would come away with them.   Most of the west gable has fallen since the date of an RCAHMS visit in 1980, as the surveyor noted “a window in each gable”.

The walls are rubble-built, and I wonder if they were originally rendered both outside and inside, like the chapels at Keills and Kilmory Knap.

What’s left is a crumbling shell, lonely but not lifeless:   ferns and mosses are softening the broken edges, and thrushes find the slabs very handy for tapping snails.  Like so many of these old churches – roofless or otherwise – you can stand in the nave and feel the stillness.

Kilmodan’s gravestones

Assuming that the place was indeed burnt to the ground around 1800, this would explain why some grave stones dating from the 19th century can be found within the building itself, because this is what happened with many derelict churches over time.   Some of them tell the fragments of interesting stories:

“This is the burying ground of Dugald Thomson, late joiner, Barcaldine, and his wife, Flora McIntyre, and their heirs”

“In memory of Peter McIntyre, late of Ardachy, died 26th April 1838 aged 77
Isabella McIntyre, his wife, died 12th Nov 1847 aged 71
Donald, their son, died 5th (?) April 1824 (?) aged 26
Anne, their daughter, died 23rd Sept 1845 aged 29
whose remains are interred in the adjoining grave No.2(?)”

“Erected by Alexʳ McCallum of the Smack Henry
In memory of his father Duncan McCallum who died 30th Novʳ 1823
and of his Mother Betty Niven who died 11th March 1840″

Small burial ground nearby (19th century onwards)

Looking on a large-scale map, I see the area around the church still bears the name Baile Mhaodain, which suggests that it was once the ‘place’ or ‘home’ of St Baodan.  It’s possible that it still is.

Sources:

• RCAHMS
• Saints in Scottish Place-Names
• Undiscovered Scotland
• ‘Saint Modan of Rosneath: A Fragment of Scottish Hagiology‘ by Robert Herbert Story, 1878
• National Library of Scotland
• Geograph.org

Photos copyright © Colin & Jo Woolf

Footnote:   I originally described this church as being dedicated to St Modan, assuming that the name derived from Baodan or Bhaodain, and it is indeed described as ‘Kilmodan’ in historical records.  However, a reader has kindly pointed out that St Baodan and St Modan were two different men, and the confusion arose in the 19th century because of the similarity of sound in genitive mutations.   My thanks to Gilbert, whose helpful comments you can read below.

Ardchattan Priory

Read about Ardchattan Priory, just down the hill from here;  or explore some more lovely little churches of Argyll:

• Keills Chapel, Knapdale
• Kilmory Knap
• St Moluag’s Cathedral, Lismore
• Kilvickeon, Isle of Mull
• St Brendan’s monastery on the Garvellachs

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 vague suggestion about who was buried there, or who used it, and when they might have lived.

But on a hillside above Lochgilphead in Argyll, an extraordinary place continues to resist the logic of science.

“…the largest and most extensive group of prehistoric rock-carvings in Scotland.”   RCAHMS Canmore

This is Achnabreck, where three outcrops of rock are covered in wonderful carved symbols.  Most are concentric circles, some with a straight line cutting through to the middle, sometimes overlapping, and varying in size from a few inches to three feet across;  around them, apparently at random, are cup-marks and occasionally spirals, and many are connected by lines cut into the rock.  Some of these straight lines look like glacial striations, but often they are crossed and overlaid with deeper grooves, either dividing or connecting the circles.

“It is clear that the potential date range is very long, from around 3500 to around 1000 BC.  The Kilmartin Glen rock art, including that at Achnabreck, is likely to be around 5,000 years old.”   Historic Scotland

The information signs at Achnabreck are candid about the mystery, suggesting that the symbols may have had some significance in rituals, at a time when people believed that “the landscape itself was alive and had powers of its own”.  I’ve got to say that this is something I still like to believe.   Visitors are invited to open their minds and draw their own inspiration about the site, and with these photographs I hope that you will enjoy doing the same.

It has been suggested that the carvings were made with quartz tools, because fragments of white quartz that had been used in hammerstones have been found close by.

There are three separate outcrops of carved rock at Achnabreck – although more may yet be hidden under the earth – and the walk there is a delight, especially on a crisp morning with the sunlight sparkling on forests of moss and thrushes singing from the oak woods.

You can find Achnabreck just a couple of miles north of Lochgilphead on the road up through Kilmartin Glen.   A  forest track leads to a car park, and from there you will see waymarked woodland paths.

Sources & more information:

• Kilmartin Glen
• ‘The Petroglyphs at Achnabreck, Argyll’, by Ronald W B Morris via Archaeology Data Service
• Historic Scotland
• RCAHMS Canmore

Photos copyright © Colin & Jo Woolf

Coming soon…

Temple Wood stone circle and Nether Largie burial chamber in 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 years – and are, in fact, still evolving.

For archaeologists, places like Temple Wood in Kilmartin Glen must present an ongoing headache.  Instead of a few scattered pieces of the same jigsaw, they are working with the fragments of different pictures, spread over a time span of about 2,000 years, mingled and overlapping, and garnished with a generous topping of Victorian romanticism.

This probably isn’t the best moment to remember Einstein’s famous observation, that “the only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”

It’s thought that Temple Wood began life around 3500 BC, as a circle of upright timber posts.  Then, around 3000 BC, the posts were replaced by a setting of at least five stones.  There’s a suggestion that this construction was never finished.

For some reason which we may never fathom, but which I’d love to know, “at some date after 3000 BC” another stone circle was set up a few yards to the south-west, adjacent to the first one.  The information sign at the site suggests that for some time at least, the two circles existed side by side, before the first one was deliberately dismantled and covered with a layer of cobble stones.

 The first ‘circle’ (foreground) with the second in the distance

Only a few low stones can be seen amid the cobbles of the first circle

The second circle is, in fact, slightly oval in shape, and originally consisted of 22 upright stones, of which 13 remain.

The second circle

For the first few millennia, it seems that Temple Wood’s only purpose was as a ritual site.  But around 2000 BC, two small burial cairns were dug outside the second stone circle, and over the centuries more burials were placed inside the ring of stones.  The central box-shaped cist is still a striking feature.  At some stage, it was decided to surround the perimeter of the circle with a bank of cobbles, held in place by slabs that connected the stone uprights to form a complete ring.  This band of cobbles would have covered the two outside burial cairns, as shown on the Historic Scotland information board (below).

The central cairn

When they were excavated, the outer cairns yielded some interesting evidence:

Historic Scotland information board (click to enlarge)

“The central cist [of the NE cairn] was covered by a massive slab (1.65 m by 0.95 m and 0.15 m thick);  on its pebble floor were found a fine Beaker, three barbed-and-tanged arrowheads and a flint scraper, all of which had probably accompanied an inhumation burial, as the phosphate analysis of the floor deposits clearly suggests…

The W cairn held a cist… floored with flat stones, on which there was a thin layer of gravelly earth containing only the tooth of a child aged between four and six years.”   RCAHMS Canmore

Historic Scotland’s sign alludes to the ‘archer’s ghost’, which is enough to set your mind racing, but this turns out to be speculation about the owner of the flint arrowheads, referring to the fact that his physical remains have completely disappeared.

The database of the RCAHMS states that an axe-head is carved on the head slab of the cist within the circle.  This is later described as “unrecognisable”, which is a relief to me, as I certainly missed it.   Other carvings are recorded, including a “magnificent” spiral on one of the outer stones, and there is mention also of a concentric circle and cup-marks.  These would be hard to spot, as the stones are covered in lichen.

The spiral is carved on the face of this stone, somewhere just above and to the left of the lower hole.  It was in shadow at the time of our visit, and no amount of photo-editing will show it up!

Lunar and solar alignments

Looking south-west, a line drawn through the centre of the two circles and the north-east cairn points towards the midwinter sunset;  lunar alignments have been described, but these are quite complex and include the Nether Largie stones, in a field close by.  They are best seen in a diagram, and you can read more in the excellent article ‘Recent Astronomical Observations at Kilmartin Glen‘ by Doug Scott in ‘Antiquity’.

Peat began to form over the site in the second millennium BC, and Historic Scotland believes that by 1000 BC it had been abandoned.  In the 19th century, a ditch that was made to assist peat cutting may have traced the line of a much older ditch, and it’s possible that the activity also aroused the interest of amateur historians.  A report from the early 1800s suggests that a cache of coins, possibly medieval, was discovered within the “Druidical Circle”, but these disappeared, no doubt into eager hands.   Later in the 19th century the local landowner, Sir John Malcolm, decided to plant oak trees around the site, presumably to enhance its appearance, and it was he who named it ‘Temple Wood’.  That is interesting, as I always thought it was an ancient name.

Writing in ‘The Stones Circles of the British Isles’, Aubrey Burl doesn’t have a great deal to say about Temple Wood, except that to its east is the setting of standing stones “thought by [Alexander] Thom… to form a lunar observatory, with the circle standing in line with a notch in the western mountains where the whole horizon looks as though it had been chewed by beavers.”

It’s difficult to imagine these distant periods of prehistory with any kind of definition:  it’s the time factor that gets in the way.   I can imagine the people of the Bronze Age, burying their child with sadness and reverence… but how connected did they feel to a stone circle that had been put up perhaps a thousand years before?   And if they could feel that connection strongly, and understood why it was there and what it was for, at what stage did their descendants forget?

Perhaps there are still clues to be had, although you need a certain amount of imagination.  While the trees around Temple Wood are a comparatively recent addition, it’s interesting to note their behaviour.   Some of the oaks are bending over the stone circle as if their branches are being whirled into some kind of unseen vortex, while a group of smaller trees – mountain ash, I think, although they were bare of leaves – are leaning in unison towards the site, like worshippers hurrying for the church door.  On the field boundary, two oaks appear to be whispering together, their trunks forming an incomplete arch, which makes you wonder what lies between them.

My dowsing rods might have come in handy, if I’d brought them.  But sometimes I think it’s just as rewarding to sit or stand quietly, and observe.

Another question that occurs to me is about the cobble stones.  They must have been gathered from a not-too-distant shore, but why?  Did wave-rounded stones have some kind of harmonious energy?  Was it just that they were more plentiful?  Were they chosen for their pale colour?   They give a strange experience as you walk around, because your footsteps crunch a little, making you feel like an intruder.  And, of course, that is what you are.  If Einstein is right about time – and who am I to argue? – then perhaps it is all still going on in there, and even if we can’t see it, the trees certainly can.

Sources:

• RCAHMS Canmore
• Historic Scotland
• Historic Scotland Portal
• Undiscovered Scotland
• Kilmartin Museum
• ‘The Stone Circles of the British Isles‘ by Aubrey Burl

Photos copyright © Jo Woolf

In a field close to Temple Wood lies the chambered cairn of Nether Largie South;   it is so called because it is one of five cairns, stretching for several hundred yards in a straight line down Kilmartin Glen.   Four of them date from the Bronze Age, but the fifth, Nether Largie South, is even older, and it is still possible to crawl inside.  I’ll tell you about this soon!

Meanwhile, you might like…

• Prehistoric rock art at Achnabreck
• The Ballymeanoch stones
• Nether Largie standing stones
• Dunchraigaig burial chamber
• Dunadd – behold the king!

From droplets to a roaring torrent… this is the majesty of Bracklinn Falls after heavy rain, photographed on a wet day at the end of summer.   I’m including a video with this one, to give you an idea of the spectacle!

To get to the falls…

Look for the brown signpost as you come into Callander from the east, and follow the road up to a car park.  It’s a lovely woodland walk and there is a beautiful bridge over the falls.

Photos copyright © Jo Woolf

After my review of ‘The Rainforests of Britain and Ireland’ by Clifton Bain, I was inspired to take a look at a few more of these wonderful natural places;  and so, with warm weather finally in sight, we visited Ballachuan hazel wood in early May.

We’ve been to Ballachuan before, but in late summer, when the canopy of leaves casts a perpetual shadow over the woodland floor, creating a deep green shade.

How different was the effect this time, with the hazel leaves just emerging and the sunlight dancing through their branches to cast pools of light onto a carpet of lush grass and freshly-opening bluebells.  Here and there, raising their shy flowers amid a cushion of damp moss, were the stars of wood sorrel and wood anemones.

The path to Ballachuan led us over several stiles, a couple of fields, and a bridge across a fast-running burn which must connect the little freshwater lochan with the Sound of Seil;   the sea here is never more than a stone’s throw away.   As the morning grew from warm to hot, we were glad of the cool breezes that rose from time to time, and it was bliss to finally head into the cool shade of the hazel woods.

The enchantment that met us was so beautiful that we stopped and gazed around us just a few yards in.  It was like stepping into a pool.  Underfoot, the long grass was speckled with flowers, and the fragrance of bluebells was in the air.  Willow warblers were singing, and from somewhere close by a cuckoo started cuckoo-ing with happy confidence, lending his voice to the first day of real summer sunshine, as if nothing else mattered in the world.

Our progress after that was pretty slow, as we spent ages taking pictures and just drinking in the pure beauty of the place.

Wood sorrel

Dog violet

Ballachuan is considered to be one of Scotland’s finest examples of an ancient Atlantic hazel wood.  It occupies about 56 acres on the south-east shore of Seil, a small island off the coast of Argyll, and it’s thought to have been here since about 7,500 BC.  If this is the case, it must be one of Britain’s very oldest woodlands.

“The rich diversity of lichens and mosses and fungi in these woods far outmatches that of the more heavily grazed coppiced hazelwoods elsewhere.”   (‘The Rainforests of Britain and Ireland’)

The trees themselves are not that ancient, because hazel is not a long-lived tree;  but it is the continuous existence of the woodland itself that is so remarkable.  Hazel trees are naturally coppicing, meaning that they produce several stems (you can’t really call them trunks) from the same root, and the canopy that they create is only a few metres high.

The sensation of walking through such a woodland is therefore quite unique, and very different from the airy sense of space that you get in a wood of oak or beech, with their cathedral-like arches and majestic size.  At Ballachuan, although you don’t have to bend to walk along the paths, you feel as if you are almost brushing the canopy with your head;   and looking through the woodland in every direction, all you see are short, multi-stemmed trees, their bark crusty with lichen, every twig tipped with fresh green as the leaves unfold in perfect fans.   Some branches are bent as if labouring under an unseen burden while the younger ones reach for the sky, pale and slim and straight.

Keeping to the path, we made our way out to a clearing that was already baking in the midday sun, with primroses valiantly blooming in a heat that must have caught them unawares;   over a little rise and another wooden stile, and then back into the realm of trees, thankfully breathing in the cool air as if we hadn’t been complaining about the cold wind only a few days before.

This part of the woodland inclines gently towards the sea, and as we got closer we could glimpse it through the trees.   The shore was scattered with the slate that these islands are famous for, and the bigger boulders were splashed with orange lichen and tufts of pink sea-campion.  It was about this time that we heard the strangest clacking noise, which could only be made by an animal, although we were at a loss to know what kind;  it was only when a couple of big grey birds flapped overhead that we realised we’d stumbled on a heronry.

Herons, for reasons possibly best known to themselves, like to nest in trees;  and at Ballachuan they had chosen a wonderful old beech tree for their nursery.   The noise was made by their beaks, which they were clattering to ward away the intruders.

We didn’t linger, as we didn’t want to disturb them.  Taking a quick route away from the beech trees – which rose like giants in a field of pygmies – we made our way back up the hill and away from the shore.   Lush beds of wild garlic added their pungent aroma to the bluebells, and as I breathed in the scents and listened to the birdsong, I felt as if I’d strayed into some real-life version of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’.

Cherry blossom

The name ‘Ballachuan’ comes from the Gaelic words meaning ‘settlement by the sea’.   The website of Gaelic place names says that:  “It would appear the area around Cuan Sound was called Cuan, perhaps with reference to the area of sheltered sea between Torsa, Luing and Seil”, and adds that the Irish sense of the word ‘cuan’ meant ‘bay’.  I was interested to find that one of the little coves along the woodland shore is known as Port an Duine Mhairbh, ‘dead man’s harbour’.

Ballachuan is managed by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, who allow cattle grazing within the wood as a natural means of keeping the undergrowth under control, allowing the more light-loving plants to thrive.  The cows also make deep footprints in the soft ground, and these hollows offer cover for nesting birds.

I have seldom seen trees make such beautiful shapes as those at Ballachuan;  in a mixed wood, hazel can often look haphazard and a bit spindly, but these ones have matured into elegant shapes with symmetry and grace.   On the fringes of the wood, a few bushes stand alone in grassy clearings, and these have achieved a lovely all-round shape – a slightly flattened dome so typical of hazel;  but those that grow more closely together seem to be behaving as one, each a distinct but integral part of the whole, joining their energy so that the entire woodland seems like a living entity in itself.  I have often thought this about trees:  the flow of their shape has so much to tell.

Thousands of years ago, the first people who lived here would have known and used the hazel wood throughout the seasons:  the straight stems for poles and stakes, the more slender branches for weaving into fences, and of course the nuts were an important source of food that could be stored for the winter.  Interesting to reflect that Ballachuan was here before these first settlers, and, like Taynish further south, would have seen their arrival and heard their footfall.  The whole landscape did, of course:  but as we struggle to grasp the elusive threads left by our ancestors in a world of endless information and few answers, it’s the continuity that we cling to, like a path that beckons to our feet and our heart.

As we trudged back up the hill to the car under a scorching sun, I was quite glad that my five-year-old bottle of sun lotion had rediscovered its purpose in life.  But I was also glad that we’d walked under those wonderful trees, because I can remember them on rainy days in winter and wonder if they are dark and forbidding and dripping with water, or creaking wildly with the wind, and whether their ancient spirits have come back to haunt them.

Wildlife of Ballachuan

Apart from herons and cuckoos, the other birds that we noticed included willow warbler, sedge warbler, chiffchaff, bullfinch, meadow pipit, pied wagtail, wren, song thrush, robins and great tits;  tufted ducks and mallards were on the lochan.  We saw no mammals, but snapped bracken fronds hinted at browsing deer, and Colin noticed a flattened patch in the bluebells where a deer had recently been resting.  I can’t find any clear evidence as to whether red squirrels are present on Seil, but I am inclined to think that they are, although in small numbers.

Discarded hazel shells

Among the plant species were bluebell, wood anemone, wood sorrel, yellow saxifrage, wild garlic, early purple orchid (our amateur opinion), herb Robert, and many ferns and mosses.  Butterflies are plentiful here, including common blue, small heath and occasionally marsh fritillary.  Don’t ask me about lichens – I’m no expert! – but Ballachuan boasts an amazing 250 species.  The woodland also provides the right conditions for the rare hazel gloves fungus, Hypocreopsis rhododendri, to thrive in autumn.

Wood sorrel

Footnote:  The website of the RCAHMS suggests that the burn that connects the lochan to the sea was artificially widened at some stage in its past (no date is suggested).  In addition, there are the foundations of an old chapel somewhere in the field, but we missed these, being unaware of their presence.

Getting to Ballachuan

There are no ferries involved in getting to Seil, because it is joined to the mainland via the ‘Bridge over the Atlantic’.   A map and directions are given on the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s website.  You can park on the side of the road and then walk down a farm track;  there’s an information sign with a map of the woodland, and the paths are marked with occasional signposts.

With this feature, I’m happy to support The Woodland Trust’s Charter for Trees, Woods and People which is being planned for 2017.   The charter aims to increase our awareness of our natural woodland heritage, and encourages you to share your own experiences of Britain’s woodlands.  “The charter will mark the start of a new era for the UK in which the many benefits of trees are treasured, understood and fully realised.”  For more details, visit the Tree Charter page.

References:

• Scottish Wildlife Trust
• Scottish Natural Heritage
• SNH Reports:  Introduction to Atlantic Hazel;  Description of Atlantic Hazel;   Atlantic Hazel: Management Examples;  all by Sandy and Brian Coppins
• Gaelic Place Names
• RCAHMS
• ‘The Rainforests of Britain and Ireland’ by Clifton Bain

Photos copyright © Colin & Jo Woolf

The Atlantic Bridge

You may also like to visit…

Taynish oak woods
The Atlantic Bridge and its fairy foxgloves
The island of Easdale

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 fence, and a couple of hundred potholes in the road.  Progress was slow.

I wanted to take a look at Loch Avich, a five-mile stretch of water that somehow manages to conceal itself from most visitors to Argyll, largely because of its remote position;  if you’re a fisherman, however, you probably know it well.

I’d read a lovely old story about a castle, several moons ago, and I couldn’t even tell you now where I first found it.  But it was simple and sad, in the way that ancient Scottish stories so often are.  On a tiny island in the loch, known as Innis Luana, are the ruins of a castle known as Caisteal na Nighinn Ruaidhe – ‘the castle of the red-haired maid’.

Here is the story, as told in Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal in 1832:

“Such are the tales which used to be related by the Celtic inhabitants of this region, which bounds in legendary stories of the same description.  These chroniclers of the origin of Loch Awe say nothing of the tributaries from whence its waters are partly supplied.  One of these is a stream flowing from Loch Avich, a small lake in the vicinity, also possessing a certain romantic beauty in its scenery, and enriched in appearance by some beautiful little islands.  On the northern margin of the lake are situated the ruins of a place of strength, receiving a name in Gaelic signifying “the Castle of the Red-haired Maid.”  A considerable portion of this edifice is still extant, though of very remote antiquity.  The origin of the name is singular, but accords with the barbarous usages of the desultory age in which it took place.  According to tradition, the lord of the castle had a daughter of great beauty;  she was of a fair complexion;  and her hair consisting of flowing ringlets of a golden hue, she hence received the name of the Red-haired Maiden of Loch Avich.  Having once been rescued from a band of freebooters by a neighbouring chieftain, an attachment grew up between her and her deliverer, unknown to her father, with whom the chieftain was at feud.  It seems she was to have been privately married to her gallant preserver, and her father being made aware of the arrangement by an insidious follower, he called her to the top of his castle just at the time she was to have eloped, and sacrificing every thing to his vengeful passion, threw her remorselessly from the battlements.  Her lover, who waited for her below, beheld the dreadful catastrophe, and instantly rushed to her father, and stabbed him to the heart.  The castle having been afterwards deserted, in time became ruinous;  and from its tragical history, it received the name it still bears.”

Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, Saturday June 2, 1832

We don’t even know the name of the red-haired girl.   That’s the thing about history, from this kind of era anyway – it was written largely by men, for whom women were often bargaining tools in the quest for power.

In ‘A History of the Clan Campbell‘, Alastair Campbell lists Caisteal na Nighinn Ruaidhe as one of a handful of fortresses that can be dated back to the earliest of Scotland’s stone castles, built between 1200 and 1250.  He reveals that a woodman named John Dewar, who collected tales in the mid-19th century, believed that the castle was built by the MacFiachars, who claimed descent from Niall of the Nine Hostages, an ancient Irish king.  But then, at some stage, the castle came to be owned by a family named MacCaurre.   Just how this transfer from MacFiachar to MacCaurre came about seems to be a bit of a grey area, and I’m not going to attempt to sort it out.  It may even be a mutation of the same name.  If anyone can shed any light on it, I’d be glad to hear from you!

The website of the Scottish Castles Association has this to say:

“The Manuscript History of Craignish, compiled about 1700, recounts how Dugal [Campbell of Craignish], in about 1190, ‘married Brihid or Bridget, Daughter to Dugal MacCaurre, Tossach* of Lochavich, by whom he got the Lands commonly call’d the pennies of Lochavich being four in number, or Four merk land, as also the Old Tower and Fortalice in the island of that Loch called Castle Lochavich, but of old Castle nahine ruai (Caisteal na h-Ighinne ruaidh) or the red maid’s Castle, some say so call’d from an Apparition or familiar Brounie that was said to frequent it in that Shape in those Days of Dark Ignorance, but rather as I imagine from the heiress who might have been a red hair’d or a Ruddie complexion’d lass.  Of this Dugal I find no more but that he died about the Year 1220, and was succeeded by his son, also Dugal’.”

Scottish Castles Association

*A ‘Tossach’ or ‘Toiseach’ was a tribal ruler, an early form of clan chieftain (Dictionary of the Scots Language)

It should be said that the writer of the article from which this extract is taken (Tony Dalton) gives his opinion that the ‘old tower and fortalice’ referred to was not, in fact, Caisteal na Nighinn Ruaidhe but the dun or fortress at nearby Duninveran, as he considers the late 12th century to be too early for the building of the castle;  looking at the archaeological remains, and comparing them with similar sites, he proposes that Caisteal na Nighinn Ruaidhe* was built by Sir Colin Campbell shortly after 1316.  But this is not to say that there wasn’t an earlier hall-house on the island, whose traces have since disappeared.

*I believe that the name is pronounced roughly ‘castyel na nee-an roy-ah’.

So was the red-haired girl a real person, or an apparition – or did the fate of one lead to the other?

The castle itself…

It was originally a three-storey oblong tower house with walls seven feet thick, surrounded by a defensive wall with a small outbuilding.  Most of it has now fallen to rubble, apart from the south wall of the tower house.  Viewed from the shore, it’s almost completely obscured by trees, but through the branches an arch and a window can just be seen.

The great hall, which had a large fireplace, would have been at first floor level;  and on the second floor were two apartments with south-facing windows and latrine chutes.  No staircases survive.  The upper floors would have been built of timber and the roof was probably thatched.   (Details from The Scottish Castles Association and RCAHMS)

Back to Mr Campbell again, who says that Dugal MacCaurre’s son, also Dugal or Dougall, married “a daughter of MacSween of Skipness, son of Sween the Red who built Castle Sween”.  So it sounds as if we have some red-haired genes, at any rate.   But we still don’t really know when the castle actually got its name.  And the red-haired maid is still anonymous.

Then I find that this little island is mentioned in an Ossianic poem, which was translated by John Smith of Campbeltown in ‘Galic Antiquities:  Consisting of a History of the Druids, particularly of those of Caledonia’, published in 1780.

On the first page of ‘Cathluina: A Poem’ he adds a note to the effect that:  “In the district of Lorn in Argyle-shire, there is a lake which is now called Loch-avich, but anciently Loch-luina, or Lochluana.  Near it was probably the scene of this poem.”

The poem tells of how two famous warriors, Gaul and Garno, came to the “hall of the chief, where it lifts its gray head, in the midst of trees, in the green isle of Innisluina.”   The chief was named Moran, and he had a beautiful daughter called Annir.   As Annir played the harp to entertain the guests, both Gaul and Garno fell in love with her.  “Their souls melted at the song, like a wreath of snow before the eye of the sun.”  The friends were now rivals;  and, unfortunately for Garno, it was Gaul whom Annir favoured.  She “turned her eye from the brow of Garno;  for she often saw the fire of his wrath arise, like a dark flame when clouds of smoke surround it.”

For three days the heroes feasted at Innisluina as the honoured guests of Moran;  and on the fourth day they went hunting.  Annir followed them, possibly to admire Gaul’s skill in the chase, but she was haunted by fear and wished that Garno would leave the land.

That same day, an unknown youth appeared separately to both Garno and Gaul as they sat resting in the sun with their hunting dogs at their feet.  Garno was the first to receive a visit.  The youth told him that he was sent by the mighty Duaran, chief of the halls of Comara.  His message was this:  that Duaran himself loved Annir and intended to marry her;  and anyone who defied him would feel the strength of his arm in battle.  Duaran, the youth assured Garno, was a formidable foe, “his strength as the thunder that rolls thro’ heaven;  and his sword as the lightning that blasts the affrighted groves.”

Garno was having none of that.  “Tell that proud son of the sea,” he said, “that Garno will never yield.  My arm is strong as the oak of Malla, and my steel knows the road through the breast of heroes.  To Gaul alone, of all the youths on the hill, I yield the right-hand in battle, since he slew the boar that broke my spear on Elda.”

The dispute can only be settled by combat, and the duel must take place that night.  Despite all the sabre-rattling, there is a sense that Garno knows what is coming.  He bids his servant fetch his sword, his shield and his spear;  but then, as if with second sight, he has a premonition of doom:

“What mean these two angry ghosts that fight in air! – The thin blood runs down their robes of mist;  and their half-formed swords, like faint meteors, fall on sky-blue shields.  Now they embrace like friends.  The sweeping blast passes through their airy limbs.  They vanish.  I do not love the sign;  but I do not fear it.”

Annir, who has been secretly watching the confrontation all the time, quietly withdraws in despair.  But she has heard Garno say that he would yield to no one but Gaul;  and it is to Gaul’s side that she then hastens her steps.

Gaul is resting on his own hillside, next to a freshly-killed ‘branchy deer’ with his panting dogs all around.   He is satisfied with the day’s work, and his thoughts turn to the lovely Annir:

“Fair is my love as the bow of heaven:  her robe is like the beam of the morning.  Mild is the blushing of thy face, O Annir, as that sun, when he looks through the red-tinged clouds of the west, and the green tops of the mountains smile.  O that I saw thee on the hill of deer, in all thy beauty;  that I saw thee like the young pine in the vale of Luina, when it softly waves its head in the gale, and its glittering leaves grow in the shower of the sun!  Then would my soul rejoice as the roe, when he bounds over the heath in his speed;  for lovely art thou in the eye of Gaul, thou daughter of car-borne* Moran!”

*car-borne = chariot-borne

Gaul’s reflections are interrupted by the arrival of a stranger – the same youth who had appeared to Garno.  The visitor gets straight to the point:  “Thy Annir may be lovely, son of Ardan;  but dire is the battle thou must fight.  Duaran loves the maid:  on that hill he awaits thy coming.  Yield, Gaul, thy love to Duaran.”

Gaul tries to reason with him:

“My love I will yield to no one.  But tell thou that chief to come to the feast to-night.  To-morrow he shall carry away the gift of a friend, or feel the strength of a foe.”

The youth’s reply is enough to send shivers down your spine, even now.

“Thou mayst spread the feast but thou must eat it alone, for Duaran comes only to lift the spear.  Already I see his distant steps.  He stalks like a ghost on that dusky heath.  The beam of his steel supplies the departing light;  and the clouds brighten their dark-brown sides around him.  Hark!  he strikes his shield.  Its sound is the death of heroes.”

Trying to appear unperturbed, Gaul gathers his own weapons and hums a careless tune.  But he clothes himself with his arms “like a ghost that clothes his dark limbs with meteors of light, when the mountain-heads are shaking in thunder.”   From the shadows Annir watches, unseen.

Accordingly, when darkness fell, Garno and Gaul went to the appointed hillside;  each, unknown to the other, was expecting to fight Duaran to the death, “for night was dark on the hills, and this oak concealed the sky.”   They engaged in battle, unaware that friend was fighting friend.

“Dreadful was the wrath of the heroes;  dreadful was the echo of their swords, as they mixed on high, like streams of lightning…  Luina trembles, with all its woods…  Rocks with their earth and moss fly from their heels.  Blood, mixt with sweat, descends in streams to the ground.  It wanders through the green grass, and dyes the passing rill.”

The duel lasted all night, but in the light of sunrise, as Gaul and Garno lay dying of their wounds, each finally recognised the other.  The last words they exchanged were of deepest sorrow.   Annir was the first to discover their bodies, and she sank to her knees beside Gaul with a cry of unbearable grief.  She would not be parted from her love;  and the next day she, too, lay dead.

“Death came, like the calm cloud of sleep, when the hunter is tired upon his hill, and the silence of mist, without any wind, is around him.”

For two days afterwards Annir’s father, Moran, grieved within his castle walls, and then he asked for his staff and left his fortress forever.

With the walls of Innis Luana standing deathly silent, it is the poem itself that sings the story of eternal life:

“O Garno, warrior bold!  Gaul, thou lovely hero!  and Annir, fair and unhappy! – Whether you ride on the silent clouds, or turn the course of the tempest;  whether you rest in the peaceful halls of your fathers;  visit the cloud-robed hills of Morven, or haunt the green groves of Luina:  – O let your love, your grief, and your wounds, be forgot;  and listen with joy to your fame in the song.  – While harps remain, they will repeat your name;  and the last voice of bards shall praise you.”

Quotes from: ‘Galic Antiquities:  Consisting of a History of the Druids, particularly of those of Caledonia’ by John Smith (1780)

Hazel trees grow on the shore of Loch Avich, and beneath them a patch of wood anemones had opened wide in the afternoon sun.  These flowers are usually pure white, but curiously a couple of them were flushed with pink.   A lovely echo, perhaps, of the blood of the two heroes staining the waters of the ‘passing rill’.

And meanwhile the Castle of the Red-haired Girl remains largely hidden from prying eyes, and even if we’d bought a fishing licence and hired a boat I’m not entirely sure I would have gone and trampled all over the memories.  Some places seem to exist only partly in this world, and they are best left to their own dreams.

A note about the Ossianic poems:   In the mid and late 1700s a writer from Inverness named James Macpherson published a wealth of poetry which he said he’d translated from the works of a third-century bard named Ossian, who is a figure in Irish legend.  Macpherson claimed that the original verses had been collected from people he’d met during his travels in the Highlands.   Some contemporary historians were immediately suspicious, seeing anachronisms in the language, and today the general opinion seems to be that the works were largely the product of Macpherson’s fertile imagination.  They are strangely spellbinding, though, drawing you in like the tales in the Mabinogion, with their characters that look human but can harness the wind and split rocks to make thunder.  And, like the legends of Arthur and so many others, they have underlying morals that would have spoken clearly to medieval ears, had they chanced to hear them.

The collection of works I have quoted from was compiled by John Smith, a minister at Campbeltown;  his offering is described by one source as ‘a powerful auxiliary to the cause of Macpherson’.  It was obviously in the same tradition.  Maybe we’ll never know their real provenance.

For myself, I must say that I love these old texts, because I don’t mind following strands of thought, even if they lead you all around the hills.  I love the halls and hunting dogs and the ‘branchy deer’.  There’s a peculiar joy in the telling that lingers over every detail and strays all over the place before it gets to the point, because story-telling was such an old and important tradition, and some tales took several days to tell.  And most of all, I am grateful to John Smith for giving me a name for the red-haired girl.

Sources:

• RCAHMS Canmore
• Ground plan of ruins (Canmore)
• Scottish Castles Association
• Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, 1832
• ‘A History of the Clan Campbell‘ by Alastair Campbell (pub. Polygon, 2000)
  
• ‘Galic Antiquities:  Consisting of a History of the Druids, particularly of those of Caledonia’ by John Smith (1780)