Tour Scotland Video Winter Morning Drive To Pittenweem East Neuk Of Fife

Tour Scotland video of a Winter morning drive to the old fishing village of Pittenweem on ancestry visit to the East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. Until 1975 Pittenweem was a royal burgh, having been awarded the status by King James V in 1541. Founded as a fishing village around a probably early Christian religious settlement, it grew along the shoreline from the west where the sheltered beaches were safe places for fishermen to draw their boats up out of the water. Later a breakwater was built, extending out from one of the rocky skerries that jut out south west into the Firth of Forth like fingers. This allowed boats to rest at anchor rather than being beached, enabling larger vessels to use the port.

Sir Walter Watson Hughes was born in Pittenweem on 22 August 1803. He was a pastoralist, public benefactor and founder of the University of Adelaide, South Australia. He was the third son of Thomas Hughes and his wife Eliza, née Anderson. Hughes attended school in Crail and was apprenticed to a cooper for a short time, he then entered the merchant service and became a master, including whaling in the Arctic for several years. After hearing of opportunities for trade in Asia, Hughes purchased a brig, Hero, in Calcutta and traded opium in the Indian Ocean and seas of China having to contend with pirates. Hughes emigrated to South Australia in 1840, started business with Bunce & Thomson and took up land. Hughes suspected the land on which he kept sheep contained mineral deposits and informed his shepherds to look for minerals. In 1860 the Wallaroo copper mine was discovered on his property, and in 1861 the even more important Moonta mine was discovered nearby. Hughes secured the largest interest in both mines and became wealthy, despite paying several thousand pounds to rival claimants. Hughes subsequently returned to England, bought the Fancourt estate in Chertsey, Surrey, and died there on 1 January 1887 after a long illness. Hughes married in 1841 Sophia, daughter of James Henry Richman, who died in June 1885.

All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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Tour Scotland Video Winter Morning Drive Through Cellardyke East Neuk Of Fife

Tour Scotland video of Winter morning drive through Cellardyke on ancestry visit to the East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. I was raised in this old fishing village on the East coast and attended Cellardyke Primary School and Waid Academy in Ansruther. I was raised a Dyker. Cellardyke was formerly known as Nether Kilrenny, Scots for Lower Kilrenny, or Sillerdyke, and the harbour as Skinfast Haven, a name which can still be found on maps today. The harbour was built in the 16th century and was rebuilt between 1829 and 1831. By 1860 Cellardyke was a thriving town, with more than fifty boat owners and skippers year round, and one hundred other captains joining in for the annual herring fishing drive or Lammas drave which took place around the Lammas festival on August 1st. There was also a February surge in fishing, when shoals of herring arrived in the Firth of Forth. The fish curers of Cellardyke salted and smoked cod and herring from Anstruther as well as their own fish, sending some to London, and some as far as the West Indies. The village is located on the Fife Coastal Path. A small selection of my personal photographs shot on small group tours of Scotland.

All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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Tour Scotland Video 2015 Santa Run Perth Perthshire

Tour Scotland video of the 2015 Santa Run on visit to Perth, Perthshire, Scotland. The run started at Horsecross Plaza, Mill Street. The runners then ran through the streets of Perth City Centre along Tay Street and under the old bridge by the River Tay before finishing on the North Inch Park.

All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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Tour Scotland Video Accordion Buskers Christmas Market Perth Perthshire

Tour Scotland video of accordion Buskers playing music by the Christmas Market in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland.

All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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Old Photograph River Carron Attadale Scotland

Old photograph of the River Carron in Attadale, Wester Ross, Scotland. The River Carron, Scottish Gaelic: Carrann, is a west coast river in the Highlands. The river rises in Ledgowan Forest. It gathers its head streams through Carron Bog, then enters Loch Scaven and flows out from there. From Achnashellach the river meanders twelve miles South West through the broad strath of Glen Carron and expands at one part into Loch Doule. About two miles further South West, it enters the Inner Sound at the head of Loch Carron near Achintee. The A890 and a branch of the Highland railway, which extends to Kyle of Lochalsh, runs along part of the river's South East shore. Stocking of juvenile Atlantic salmon into the River Carron has brought this fish back from the brink of local extinction. Having made a dramatic recovery, the salmon has contributed to an improvement in the biodiversity of the whole area with kingfishers now established locally, as well as increased numbers of ospreys visiting.



All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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