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 a horse drawn Tram in Edinburgh, Scotland. The first trams in Edinburgh were horse drawn and operated by the Edinburgh Street Tramways Company. This replaced an earlier horse drawn coach system. The inaugural service, Haymarket to Bernard Street, ran on 6 November 1871. The tracks were laid by Sir James Gowans with John Macrae as engineer. These lines complemented and partly replaced the pre existing horse drawn carriage from Edinburgh to Leith, the only essential difference being the addition of guide rails. Leith Corporation took over the still horse drawn Leith tramlines in 1904 and introduced electric traction in 1905.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
Old travel Blog photograph of vintage cars, houses and cottages on Crescent Street in Halkirk, Caithness, Scotland. Halkirk has had two whisky distilleries, Gerston from 1796 to 1885, and Ben Morven from 1886 to circa 1911. Both were established on the banks of the River Thurso, near Gerston Farm, and both drew water from Calder Burn. The Ben Morven distillery was named for the mountain of the same name. The original Gerston distillery was first registered by a Francis Swanson, and was expanded by two sons, John and James, in 1825. Sir Robert Peel is said to have acquired a taste for the whisky. The distillery closed not long after it was sold to new owners in 1872, and a London company, calling themselves the Gerston Distillery Company, decided to build a new distillery. In 1897 the new distillery was sold to Northern Distilleries Limited, who gave it the Ben Morven name. It was never very successful, and it closed around 1911. The stillhouse is still standing.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
Old travel Blog photograph of boys fishing in the Clunie Water which runs through Braemar, Royal Deeside, Scotland. Clunie Water is a tributary of the River Dee, joining the river at Braemar, among grey stone buildings. Callater Burn is a tributary of the Clunie; the confluence is at Auchallater. The river flows alongside the A93 road. During the fishing season, from March to September, permits are granted for fishing brown trout along the river.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
Old travel Blog photograph of boys in a rowing boat in the Loch and Linlithgow Palace, Scotland. Linlithgow Loch lies immediately north of the town of Linlithgow in West Lothian. The loch is fed by four small streams, the Hatchery Burn, the Bonnytoun Burn, the Springfield Burn, and Bell's Burn, and drained by the Mill Burn on its western side, which eventually joins the Avon. The loch is the source of the town of Linlithgow's name; the British llyn laith cau translates to " lake in the damp hollow ". Two islets in the loch, Cormorant Island and the Rickle, are thought to be the 5,000 year old remains of crannogs. Linlithgow Loch was once famed for its brown trout, but most of the sport today comes from stocked rainbow trout, regularly released by the Forth Area Federation of Anglers. The palace was one of the principal residences of the monarchs of Scotland in the 15th and 16th centuries. 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 vintage cars and caravans at the camping and caravan site in Glen Trool in the Southern Uplands of Galloway, Scotland. This was the location, in 1307, of the Battle of Glen Trool. Loch Trool is aligned on an east to west axis and is flanked on both sides by steep rising hills, making it ideal for an ambush. Robert Bruce had been involved in the murder of John " the Red " Comyn, a leading rival, and one of the most powerful men in Scotland, the previous year 1306. This led to a bitter civil war between the Bruce's faction and the Comyns and their allies, notably King Edward I. After his defeat at the Battle of Methven in Perthshire and subsequently at the Battle of Dalry in the summer of 1306 the recently crowned King Robert was little better than a fugitive, disappearing altogether from the historical record for a number of months. It wasn't until the spring of 1307 that he made a reappearance, landing in the south-west of Scotland with soldiers recruited, for the most part, from the Western Isles. It was an understandable move; for he came ashore in his own earldom of Carrick, where he could expect to command a large degree of local support. Perhaps even more important the countryside itself was well known to Bruce, and there were plenty of remote and difficult areas to allow cover and protection for his band of guerillas. But it was also a move bold to the point of foolhardiness. The English border was not far distant; many of the local castles were strongly held by Edward's forces; and, perhaps most important of all, the Lordship of Galloway, the old Balliol patrimony, was adjacent to Carrick, and many of the local families were hostile to Bruce and his cause. When his brothers Thomas and Alexander attempted a landing on the shores of Loch Ryan, they met with disaster at the hands of Dungal MacDougall, the leading Balliol supporter in the area. Bruce managed to establish a firm base in the area; but it was vital that he made progress against the enemy if his cause was to attract the additional support that was so clearly needed. An early success came with a raid on an English camp on the eastern shores of the Clatteringshaws Loch. It also alerted the enemy to his presence. Aymer de Valence, Bruce's old opponent at Methven, received intelligence that his enemy was encamped at the head of Glen Trool. This was a difficult position to approach, for the Loch takes up much of the glen, with only a narrow track bordered by a steep slope. At about the middle, the hill pushes forward in a precipitous abutment. Valence sent a small raiding party ahead, perhaps hoping to catch the enemy offguard, in much the same fashion as Methven. This time, however, Bruce made effective use of the terrain. During the night Bruce sent some of his men up the slope with orders to loosen with levers and crowbars as many of the detached blocks of granite as they could. As the English approached up the defile, called by the locals, the " Steps of Trool ", they were forced to proceed single file. Bruce observed their progress from across the loch, and at a given signal, pushed the wall of boulders down the slope. This was followed by arrows and hand to hand combat, as Bruce's men charged down the slope. The narrowness of the path prevented support from either the front or the rear. Without room to manoeuvre, many of the English below were killed, and the rest withdrew. Bruce not only survived but went on the following month to win his first important engagement at the Battle of Loudon Hill. The English soldiers killed in the skirmish were buried at flat ground at the head of the loch, known as Soldier's Holm.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
