Old Photograph Aboyne Castle Scotland

Old photograph of Aboyne Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. In 1242, after the expulsion from Scotland of John and Walter Byset of Clan Bissett, who had been alleged of the murder of Patrick, Earl of Atholl, at Haddington, East Lothian, Aboyne Castle passed to the Knights Templar in that year. It passed next to the Frasers of Cowie, before passing yet again, this time by marriage, to Sir William de Keith, Great Marischal of Scotland around 1355. In 1449, De Keith's great granddaughter, Joan, brought the castle by marriage to Alexander Gordon, 1st Earl of Huntly. Its present owner is the Marquis of Huntly whose family has owned it since the early 15th century.



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Old Photograph Dalguise Castle Scotland

Old photograph of the castle in Dalguise, Perthshire, Scotland. Located on the western side of the River Tay on the B898 road, north of Dunkeld, This is the place, in this 18th Century mansion house, where Beatrix Potter stayed in her childhood as a summer visitor, and acted as inspiration for some of her later stories.



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Old Photograph St Ronan's Well Scotland

Old photograph of St Ronan's Well, Innerleithen near Peebles in the Borders of Scotland. Originally constructed by the Earl of Traquair in the 1820s to provide a comfortable retreat for visitors to the spa, it was largely rebuilt and extended in 1896 to accommodate indoor bathing facilities and a bottling plant. The spa was frequented by Sir Walter Scott as a boy.



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Old Photograph Cathkin Braes Scotland

Old photograph of a house in Cathkin Braes which is an area of hills to the south east of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. Cathkin Braes lies to the south of the districts of Castlemilk, Fernhill and Burnside, and to the east of Carmunnock. Rising to over 200m in elevation, it includes the highest point in the Glasgow City area. It was a rallying point in the Radical War. The Radical War also known as the Scottish Insurrection of 1820, was a week of strikes and unrest, a culmination of Radical demands for reform in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland which had become prominent in the early years of the French Revolution, but had then been repressed during the long Napoleonic Wars. On Monday 3 April work stopped, particularly in weaving communities, over a wide area of central Scotland including Stirlingshire, Dunbartonshire, Renfrewshire, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, with an estimated total of around 60,000 stopping work. Reports came in that men were carrying out military drill at points round Glasgow, foundries and forges had been raided, and iron files and dyer's poles taken to make pikes. In Kilbarchan soldiers found men making pikes, in Stewarton around 60 strikers was dispersed, in Balfron around 200 men had assembled for some sort of action. Pikes, gunpowder and weapons called wasps, a sort of javelin and clegs, a barbed shuttlecock to throw at horses, were offered for sale. Rumours spread that England was in arms for the cause of reform and that an army was mustering at Campsie commanded by Marshal MacDonald, a Marshal of France and son of a Jacobite refugee family, to join forces with 50,000 French soldiers at Cathkin Braes under Kinloch, the fugitive Radical laird from Dundee. In Paisley the local reformers' committee met under command of their drill instructor, but scattered when Paisley was put under curfew. Government troops were ready in Glasgow, including the Rifle Brigade, the 83rd Regiment of Foot, the 7th and 10th Hussars and Samuel Hunter's Glasgow Sharpshooters. In the evening 300 radicals briefly skirmished with cavalry, but no one came to harm on that day.



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Old Photograph Guild Hall Stirling Scotland

Old photograph of the Guildhall in Stirling, Scotland. Cowane's Hospital was a 17th century almshouse in the Old Town of Stirling. It was established in 1637 with a bequest of 40,000 merks from the estate of the merchant John Cowane, born 1570, died 1633. During the later 17th and early 18th century the hospital was well used by pensioners, though a strict set of rules seems to have discouraged some from taking up residence. Further improvements to the gardens were ordered in 1712 when Thomas Harlaw, gardener to the Earl of Mar, was appointed to draw up plans for the site. Around 1720 the hospital was converted, by removing internal partitions, into a hall for use of the Merchant Guildry. The building was subsequently referred to as the Guildhall. In 1832 the building was pressed into service as an isolation hospital during a cholera epidemic which killed around one third of Stirling's population. The hospital building itself is now used as an arts venue, and remains in use by the Merchant Guildry.



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