Tour Scotland photographs and videos from my tours of Scotland. Photography and videography, both old and new, from beautiful Scotland, Scottish castles, seascapes, rivers, islands, landscapes, standing stones, lochs and glens.
August 10th photograph of the RRS Discovery in Dundee, Scotland. The RRS Discovery was the last wooden three-masted ship to be built in Britain. Designed for Antarctic research, she was launched in 1901. Her first mission was the British National Antarctic Expedition, carrying Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their first, successful journey to the Antarctic, known as the Discovery Expedition. She is now the centre piece of visitor attraction in her home, Dundee.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
Over 125 years ago, barely a year and a half after the Tay Railway Bridge was built, William McGonnagal composed his poem about the Tay Bridge Disaster, the poem about Britain's worst-ever civil engineering disaster. Over 80 people lost their lives in the fall of the Tay Bridge, but how did it happen? The accident reports say that high wind and poor construction were to blame, but Peter Lewis, an Open University engineering professor, tells the real story of how the bridge so spectacularly collapsed in December 1879. The Tay Bridge disaster of December 28th 1879 shocked and horrified Victorian society. It came at the end of a terrible year for the British Empire. They had lost a whole army brigade in the Zulu War in January, and the Consul in Afghanistan had been butchered in September. The country was suffering a severe economic depression, partly because the rail network had opened up the country to products from abroad, such as cheap grain from the American prairies. And then the longest bridge in the world (approved by the Government) collapsed in a storm. This book describes the reinvestigation of the disaster from the original witness evidence and the set of photographs of the remains now held in Dundee City Library. It confirms everything concluded at the time: the bridge was badly designed, built and maintained. However, it is likely that metal fatigue helped bring the structure down that fateful night. Enlargements of the court pictures shows all the terrible design! Defects in the high girders section of the bridge, which brought it down. Warnings of the deteriorating state of the structure were ignored or concealed, and a whole train with at least 75 passengers and crew were lost that night. Never before (or since) has such an event occurred. The forensic re-investigation also shows why engineers had to convince the travelling public that they could build safely, the new bridge being the first result. However, it was the Firth of Forth bridge which came to symbolise that effort, a bridge which has become an icon to structural integrity. The book reveals that other engineers could build safe brisges from iron, especially Gustave Eiffel, whose iron pipe bridges still survive and carry trains in the Massif Centrale in France. His bridges predate the old Tay bridge by 10 years. And it his methods which have resulted in the brand new Millau road bridge in the same region. Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay: Reinvestigating the Tay Bridge Disaster of 1879 (Revealing History).
Tour Scotland photograph of Duart Castle, Isle of Mull, Scotland. The castle dates back to the 13th century and was the seat of Clan MacLean. In 1350 Lachlan Lubanach Maclean of Duart, the 5th Clan Chief, married Mary, daughter of the John of Islay, Lord of the Isles and she was given Duart as her dowry. In 1647, Duart Castle was attacked and laid siege to by the Argyll government troops of Clan Campbell, but they were defeated and driven off by the Royalist troops of Clan MacLean. In September 1653, a Cromwellian task force of six ships anchored off the castle, but the Macleans had already fled to Tiree. A storm blew up on the 13 September and three ships were lost, including HMS Swan. In 1678, Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll, son of the Marquess of Argyll, successfully invaded the Clan MacLean lands on the Isle of Mull and Sir John Maclean, 4th Baronet fled the castle and withdrew to Cairnbulg Castle, and afterward to Kintail under the protection of the Earl of Seaforth. In 1691 Duart Castle was surrendered by Sir John Maclean, 4th Baronet to Argyll. The Campbell clan kept a garrison there, but soon after the that defeat, the Campbells also demolished the stone house of Torloisk, and after loading the furnishings, the door and window sills, joists and slates from the house aboard a galley, they carried away their loot. The stones from the walls they scattered over the moor. Donald Maclean, 5th Laird of Torloisk used some of the stones to build a cottage for his family close to the site of the castle from some of these stones. In 1751 the castle was abandoned. Descendants of Archibald Campbell, 1st Duke of Argyll sold the castle in 1801, to MacQuarrie, who in turn parted with it to Campbell of Fossil, who later on sold it to A. C. Guthrie in 1865, and on September 11, 1911, the castle was bought by Sir Fitzroy Donald Maclean, the 26th Chief of the Clan MacLean and restored.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
Old photograph of The Brig o' Doon, near Alloway, Ayrshire, Scotland. A late medieval bridge used as the setting for the final verse of the Robert Burns's poem Tam o' Shanter. In this scene Tam is on horseback and is being chased by the Nannie the witch. He is just able to escape her by crossing the bridge, over a running stream, narrowly avoiding her attack as she is only able to grab the horse's tail which comes away in her hands. The bridge is located near Alloway in South Ayrshire and crosses the River Doon. It was rebuilt in the 18th century. The Burns monument is nearby. The bridge is allegedly the inspiration for the name of the musical 1947 Brigadoon. Today, the bridge features on the 2007 series of £5 notes issued by the Bank of Scotland, alongside the statue to Robert Burns which is located in Dumfries.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
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