Old Travel Blog Photograph Sheep On The Road To Tomintoul Scotland

Old travel Blog photograph of a shepherd with sheep on the road to Tomintoul, a village in Moray, Scotland. It is said to be the highest village in the Scottish Highlands. The village was laid out on a grid pattern by the 4th Duke of Gordon in 1775. It followed the construction, twenty years previously, of a military road by William Caulfeild, now the A939. The 2004 film One Last Chance starring Kevin McKidd and Dougray Scott was filmed in the village and the areas around it. James Stuart, born 1791, died 1874), a local farmer at Lynchork appears in a number of birth, baptism, death and Kirk Session records in this and surrounding parishes as the admitted or reputed father of children of his female servants. Grigor Willox was a reputed white witch who lived in Tomintoul in the 18th century. He was said to derive his powers from two amulets: a brass hook from a kelpie's bridle and a mermaid's crystal. Among his alleged powers were making cows produce milk, curing barren women, and detecting thieves. Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day.



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Old Travel Blog Photograph West Doorway Inchmahome Priory Scotland

Old travel Blog photograph of the West Doorway of Inchmahome Priory, Lake Of Menteith, Scotland. The priory was founded in 1238 by the Earl of Menteith, Walter Comyn, for a small community of the Augustinian order, the Black Canons. The Comyn family were one of the most powerful in Scotland at the time, and had an imposing country house on Inch Talla, one of the other islands on the Lake of Menteith. There is some evidence that there was a church on the island before the priory was established. The priory has a long history of receiving many notable guests. King Robert the Bruce visited three times: in 1306, 1308 and 1310. His visits were likely politically motived, as the first prior had sworn allegiance to Edward I, the English king. In 1358 the future King Robert II also stayed at the priory. In 1547 the priory served as a refuge for Queen Mary, aged four, hidden here for a few weeks following the disastrous defeat of the Scots army at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh during the Rough Wooing.



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

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Old Travel Blog Photograph River Girvan Straiton Scotland

Old travel Blog photograph of the River Girvan by Straiton, Ayrshire, Scotland. The Water of Girvan, or River Girvan is a river in South Ayrshire, which has its source at Loch Braden Reservoir in the Carrick Forest section of Galloway Forest Park. This 28 mile long river passes through the villages of Straiton, Kirkmichael and Dailly en route to the Firth of Clyde at Girvan Harbour.



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

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Old Travel Blog Photograph The Hydropathic Skelmorlie Scotland

Old travel Blog photograph of the Hydropathic in Skelmorlie, Ayrshire, Scotland. In Europe, the application of water in the treatment of fevers and other maladies had, since the seventeenth century, been consistently promoted by a number of medical writers. In the eighteenth century, taking to the waters became a fashionable pastime for the wealthy classes who decamped to resorts around Britain and Europe to cure the ills of over-consumption. In the main, treatment in the heyday of the British spa consisted of sense and sociability: promenading, bathing, and the repetitive quaffing of foul tasting mineral waters.



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

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Old Travel Blog Photograph Waterworks Skelmorlie Scotland

Old travel Blog photograph of the Waterworks in Skelmorlie, Ayrshire, Scotland. On Saturday 18 April 1925, an embankment on the Waterworks reservoir which belonged to the Eglinton Estate and provided the main water supply for the whole village gave way, releasing millions of gallons of water down through the village. After 10 minutes many homes, streets and gardens were shattered and five people, four of them children, lay dead.



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

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