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

Tour Scotland travel video of an Autumn morning road trip drive from Upper Largo through Colinsburgh on ancestry visit to Pittenweem, East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. 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. A new breakwater further to the east was developed over the years into a deep, safe harbour with a covered fish market. As the herring disappeared from local waters and the fishing fleet shrank, this harbour and its attendant facilities became the main harbour for the fishermen of the East Neuk of Fife. The Pittenweem witches were five Scottish women accused of witchcraft in the small fishing village of Pittenweem in Fife on the east coast of Scotland in 1704. Another two women and a man were named as accomplices. Accusations made by a teenage boy, Patrick Morton, against a local woman, Beatrix Laing, led to the death in prison of Thomas Brown, and, in January 1705, the murder of Janet Cornfoot by a lynch mob in the village. Two of the accused women, Laing and Nicholas Lawson, were imprisoned again in 1708 after charges of witchcraft were levelled against them by Cowper and another local minister. They were released in April 1709 and pardoned after Queen Anne issued an Act of Indemnity. Another of the accused women, Janet Horseburgh, sued the bailies responsible for her incarceration; she received an apology and monetary recompense.

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Tour Scotland Video Autumn Morning Drive To Lower Largo East Neuk Of Fife

Tour Scotland travel video of an Autumn morning road trip drive from Leven through Lundin Links on ancestry visit to Lower Largo, East Neuk of Fife. Lower Largo or Seatown of Largo is a village in Fife, situated on Largo Bay on the north side of the Firth of Forth. An ancient fishing village, Lower Largo has gained fame as the 1676 birthplace of Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Alexander Selkirk, born in 1676, the son of a shoemaker and tanner in Lower Largo. Selkirk was an unruly youth, and joined buccaneering voyages to the South Pacific during the War of the Spanish Succession. One such expedition was on Cinque Ports, commanded by William Dampier. The ship called in for provisions at the Juan Fernández Islands, and Selkirk judged correctly that the craft was unseaworthy and asked to be left there. When he was eventually rescued by follow on English privateer Woodes Rogers, Selkirk had become adept at hunting and making use of the resources that he found on the island. His story of survival was widely publicised after their return to England, becoming a source of inspiration for writer Daniel Defoe's fictional character Robinson Crusoe.

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

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Old Photograph Doonfoot Ayr Scotland

Old photograph of Doonfoot a suburb in the south west of Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland. Doonfoot extends westwards from the River Doon to the ruin of Greenan Castle, overlooking the coast. The island of Arran is clearly visible across the Firth of Clyde from many points throughout Doonfoot. The beach at Doonfoot is popular in summer. The area known as Doonfoot was incorporated as part of the town of Ayr when the former Burgh of Ayr's boundaries were expanded in 1935 to take in the former villages of Alloway and Whitletts.



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Old Photograph Citadel Ayr Scotland

Old photograph of the tower in the Citadel in Ayr, Scotland. Tour Ayr and Kilmarnock. Under Oliver Cromwell five citadels were built in Scotland to control the Scots, such as at Leith in Edinburgh, Perth in Perthshire, Inverlochy, Ayr and Inverness in the Highlands, with Ayr being the largest. The Ayr Citadel, built in 1653, was designed by the Dutch architect named Hans Ewald Tessin. After 1660 the citadel had been partly dismantled to prevent its use by persons hostile to King Charles II. The tower was used by Cromwell's soldiers as a look out tower as well as an armoury and chapel.



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Old Photograph Hume Castle Scotland

Old photograph of Hume Castle located between Greenlaw and Kelso, two miles north of the village of Stichill, in Berwickshire in the Scottish Borders, Scotland. First mentioned in the twelfth century, the castle was the seat of the powerful Home family. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the English besieged the castle no less than four times. During the first of these sieges, it was Lady Home who was required to defend her home and it only fell when the attackers began to hang her young son within her view. The castle was reportedly destroyed in 1651, after it fell to Cromwell's troops. Though rebuilt as a folly in the eighteenth century, the castle resumed a military role during the Napoleonic wars, when it became the site of a signalling beacon. A nation wide panic almost ensued when an accidental fire in Northumberland was spotted and misinterpreted. In World War II, an observation post was also located here.



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

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