Old Travel Blog Photograph North Coast Road To Durness Scotland

Old travel Blog photograph of the North coast road to Durness, Northern Sutherland, Scotland. The name was originally Norse " Dyrnes ", meaning " deer headland." Near Durness is the Judgement Stone. This was said to be where judgement was meted out to malefactors and those found guilty were thrown over the cliff to their doom below. Durness is on the A838 road. This links the parish to the A836 at Tongue to the east and loops around the coast through Rhiconich near Kinlochbervie to meet the A836 again north of Lairg to the south. The road is single track along most of its length. Bus services are sparse in the area, although one bus a day links Durness with the Far North railway line at Lairg railway station. This provides rail services north to Wick and south to Inverness.



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Tour Scotland Travel Video Corran Ferry Loch Linnhe Scottish Highlands

Tour Scotland travel video of the Corran Ferry arriving at Nether Lochaber on Loch Linnhe at the Corran Narrows in the Scottish Highlands south of Fort William, Scotland. This Scottish Ferry crosses Loch Linnhe at the Corran Narrows, south of Fort William. It links the main A82 road with Morvern, Moidart and Ardnamurchan, via the village of Strontian. It also provides a link to Lochaline, thirty miles to the south west, from where a ferry crosses to Mull. The route lies on one of the ancient drove routes from the Hebrides to the cattle markets in Central Scotland. Today, the ferry is a crucial link between the main A82 road, serving Inverness, Fort William, and Glasgow, with the otherwise extremely remote Morvern and Ardnamurchan peninsulas. Use of the ferry saves over an hour from the land route between Ardgour and Corran, which would involve use of the A861 and the A830.

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

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Old Travel Blog Photograph School Auchinleck Scotland

Old travel Blog photograph of children outside the school in Auchinleck, Ayrshire, Scotland. Auchinleck is situated at the heart of the ancient Kyle district of Scotland. The place name means, " field of flat stones " in Scottish Gaelic, from achadh, " field, " and leac, " slab ". The small locality of Auchincloich has a comparable meaning. Although record of a community exists from as early as 1239, reliable records can really only be said to date from the arrival of the Boswell family in 1504. Near this Scottish village is Auchinleck House, past home of the lawyer, diarist and biographer James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck.



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

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Old Travel Blog Photograph Harbour Furnace Loch Fyne Scotland

Old travel Blog photograph of the harbour in Furnace, a village in Argyll and Bute, on the west coast, on the north shore of Loch Fyne, Scotland. Furnace is around eight miles south west of Inveraray on the A83 road. It is unusual for a West Highland village in having an industrial past in addition to the usual focus on agriculture and fishing. Industrial activity was led by three main businesses: the iron furnace, the powdermills and the quarry. The Gaelic poet Evan McColl was born in 1808 at Kenmore, a township on the northern fringe of Furnace. McColl, who wrote The Mountain Minstrel, died at the end of the 19th Century. A stone cairn was erected in his memory at Kenmore, on the rocks above the loch and was unveiled in 1930 by the Duke of Argyll. Former residents of Furnace include the late Duncan Williamson, a celebrated traditional storyteller, author of The Horsieman and a member of Scotland's gypsy travellers. Williamson's first wife was his cousin, Jeannie Townsley with whom he had ten children. There are still members of the Townsley family living in Furnace. An American academic, now Dr Linda Williamson, became his second wife and guided his career as a celebrated and published storyteller. They had two children. The Tower of London’s first female Beefeater, Moira Cameron, appointed in 2007, is from Furnace, living above the village at Goatfield.



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

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Old Travel Blog Photograph Invermoriston Bridge Scotland

Old travel Blog photograph of Invermoriston Bridge over the falls of the River Moriston near Loch Ness, Scotland. Invermoriston is a small village 7 miles north of Fort Augustus in the Scottish Highlands. When Thomas Telford built his road up the Great Glen at the beginning of the 19th Century, he was starting from scratch along the shores of Loch Ness. The only previous road through the Glen was General Wade's Road on the opposite side of the loch, now the B862 and B852. Wade had chosen the east shore to avoid so many river crossings, Telford chose the west shore to connect the communities. Invermoriston Bridge was initially started in 1805, but it took eight years to complete. It consists of two stone arches, straddling the two channels either side of a large rock " island " in the middle of the channel. It is now used only by pedestrians.



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

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