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 travel Blog photograph of vintage cars and shops on the High Street in Biggar, South Lanarkshire, Scotland. In the 14th century, the Fleming family were given lands in this area by Robert the Bruce, whose cause they had supported. This Scottish town is situated in the Southern Uplands, near the River Clyde, around thirty miles from Edinburgh along the A702. The closest towns are Lanark and Peebles. Biggar was the birthplace of Thomas Gladstones, the grandfather of William Ewart Gladstone. Hugh MacDiarmid spent his later years at Brownsbank, near the town. Ian Hamilton Finlay's home and garden at Little Sparta is nearby in the Pentland Hills. The fictional Midculter, which features in Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles novels, is set here. The town hosts an annual arts festival, the Biggar Little Festival. The town has traditionally held a huge bonfire at Hogmanay.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
Old travel Blog photograph of Robert Tannahill's thatched cottage in Paisley by Glasgow, Scotland. Robert Tannahill was born at Castle Street in Paisley on 3 June 1774, the fourth son in a family of seven. His mother was Janet Pollock from Boghall Farm near Beith and his father was James Tannahill from Kilmarnock. Soon after his birth the family moved to a newly built cottage in nearby Queen Street, which became both family home and weaving shop. Robert had a delicate constitution and a limp, due to a slight deformity in his right leg. On leaving school at age twelve, he was apprenticed to his father as a handloom weaver. It was during this time that Tannahill began to show an interest in poetry. With his apprenticeship completed, Tannahill left the town but, after two years working in Bolton, Lancashire, England from late 1799 to late 1801, he returned home to support the family. His father died soon after and his mother was infirm. As he reported in a letter to a friend, " My brother Hugh and I are all that remain at home, with our old mother, bending under age and frailty; and but seven years back, nine of us used to sit down at dinner together. " Then Hugh married and Robert was left the sole support, making a resolution which he records in a touching but substandard poem in English, "The Filial Vow". As things fell out, however, his mother was to outlive him by thirteen years. In the years which followed, his interest in poetry and music blossomed after becoming acquainted with the composer Robert Archibald Smith, who set some of his songs in the Scots language to music. While taking part in the literary life of the town, he helped found the Paisley Burns Club and became its secretary. His work now began to appear in periodicals such as The Scots Magazine and in 1807 he published a small collection of poems and songs in an edition of 900 copies which sold out in a few weeks. Out on a walk some time later, he heard a girl in a field singing his "We'll meet beside the dusky glen on yon burnside" and was greatly encouraged. But in 1810, following the rejection of an augmented collection of his work by publishers in Greenock and Edinburgh, he fell into a despondency aggravated by fears for his own health. Eventually he burned all his manuscripts and drowned himself on May 17, 1810, in a culverted stream under the Paisley Canal, where he was found because he had left his jacket at the mouth of the tunnel.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
Old travel Blog photograph of vintage cars outside St John's Kirk in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland. The burgh of Perth was important in medieval times due to its position as the lowest safe crossing point on the River Tay and its proximity to Scone, the Coronation site for Scottish kings. St John’s, the burgh church, stood at its centre giving Perth its alternative name St John’s Town, a name which lives on in that of the local football team, St Johnstone. Earliest written record of St John’s is 1128 when King David I ceded its revenue to the Abbey of Dunfermline in Fife, in return for which the Abbey provided a priest.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
Old travel Blog photograph of Dr Gray's Hospital in Elgin, a former cathedral city and Royal Burgh in Moray, Scotland. The hospital was founded as a result of a bequest by Dr Alexander Gray, died 1807, who was born in Elgin but worked as a surgeon for the East India Company. His will was contested by his family, but eventually his bequest of £20,000 for the establishment of a hospital in the town of Elgin for the sick and poor of the county of Moray was proven in the Court of Chancery, and work on building the hospital at the western end of the town's High Street took place between 1815 and 1818. The hospital was designed by James Gillespie Graham, born 1815, featuring a large classical block with giant Doric columns that supported a portico and was topped with drum tower and dome. The hospital opened on 1 January 1819, providing 30 beds that could be used for any parishioner of Moray who could produce a note of recommendation from their local minister of the established church. Often those of the Episcopalian or Catholic faith were turned away, causing conflict with the Burgh council on a number of occasions. Some patients who required urgent assistance were sent home critically ill lacking the paperwork from the Kirk minister, ultimately causing their death. 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.
Old travel Blog photograph of the walking path to Kemnay by the River Don in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. James Burnett, the next younger brother of Sir Thomas Burnett, 1st Baronet, married Elizabeth Burnett. Their second son, Thomas Burnett of Kemnay was the first laird of Kemnay. Thomas was a writer in Edinburgh and married Margaret Pearson, daughter of John Pearson, a merchant in Edinburgh. He purchased Kemnay House from Sir George Nicolson, Lord Kemnay, a Lord of Session. The older residence that the newer mansion replaced, was built by Sir Thomas Crombie, had been owned previously by the Auchinlecks and the Douglases of Glenbervie.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
