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.
Old photograph of a steam train locomotive and a diesel passenger train meeting at the Georgemas Junction by Halkirk, Caithness, Scotland. Georgemas Junction is the junction of the Thurso branch from the Inverness to Wick line, the most northerly railway junction in the United Kingdom. The station was built by the Sutherland and Caithness Railway and opened on 28 July 1874.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
Old photograph of a steam locomotive in the railway station in Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. The station on the Far North Line opened on 28 July 1874. The station buildings were designed by the architect William Fowler. The station's passing loop is often used to allow trains in opposite directions to cross, though the points work automatically under the remote supervision of the signalling centre at Inverness in the Highlands. On 29 April 1891 there was a collision between a down mixed train from Inverness which ran into an engine which had arrived earlier. Major Marindin of the Board of Trade investigated and found that the driver Robert Lindsay deliberately ignored the signals as he would have had difficulty in re-starting the train on the rising gradient of 1 in 59.
Tour Scotland video of old photographs of Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland. The modern village was planned in 1814 to resettle communities that had been removed from the surrounding straths as part of the Highland Clearances. It is a fishing port at the estuary of the River Helmsdale, and was once the home of one of the largest herring fleets in Europe. The village is on the A9 road, at a junction with the A897, and has a railway station on the Far North Line. Andrew Rutherford, born 23 July 1929, died 13 January 1998, was born in Helmsdale. He was a British scholar and university administrator. He was Vice Chancellor of the University of London from 1994 to 1997. In 1953 he married Nancy Browning and they had two sons and a daughter. He died in Edinburgh. Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
Tour Scotland wee travel video of photographs of a small group mainly misty walking tour to Glencoe on ancestry, genealogy, history visit and trip to the Scottish Highlands of Scotland. The Glen is named after the River Coe which runs through it. Glen Coe was once part of the lands of Clan Donald, though since the ending of the clan structure they have progressively sold off their estates. Early in the morning of 13 February 1692, in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution and the Jacobite uprising of 1689 led by John Graham of Claverhouse, a massacre took place in Glen Coe, in the Highlands of Scotland. This incident is referred to as the massacre of Glencoe, or in Scottish Gaelic Mort Ghlinne Comhann, or murder of Glen Coe. The massacre began simultaneously in three settlements along the glen, Invercoe, Inverrigan, and Achnacon, although the killing took place all over the glen as fleeing MacDonalds were pursued. Thirty eight MacDonalds from the Clan MacDonald of Glencoe were killed by the guests who had accepted their hospitality, on the grounds that the MacDonalds had not been prompt in pledging allegiance to the new monarchs, William and Mary. Another forty women and children died of exposure after their homes were burned.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
Tour Scotland wee travel video of photography of Dun Telve Iron Age Broch on ancestry, genealogy, history visit and trip South of Glenelg in the Highlands of Scotland. Dun Telve stands on the north bank of the Abhainn a’Ghlaine Bhig, in the lower reaches of Gleann Beag. It lies next to the minor road which leads south from Glenelg. It is thought that the broch was robbed for stone in 1722, probably for the building of Bernera Barracks in Glenelg. A broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow walled structure of a type found only in Scotland.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
Tour Scotland wee video of photographs of Bernera Barracks on a small group walking tour of Glenelg in the West Scottish Highlands of Scotland. The barracks were constructed between 1717 and 1723 as part of a campaign by the British government to subdue the local population which had risen up in arms in the Jacobite Rising of 1715, and which would do so again in 1745. The barracks were designed by Andrews Jelfe and John Lambertus Romer of the Board of Ordnance, or possibly their predecessor James Smith, and built by Sir Patrick Strachan. Some of the stone used in the construction was taken from a nearby broch. The Government troops who were garrisoned here during the Jacobite uprisings were also intended to control the crossing to Skye.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
