Photos and the City

Tag: my new british summer

Abbotsford House

Welcome to Scotland! From Newcastle, I travelled by train to Edinburgh and from there to Galashiels in the Scottish Borders, my home for the next week. Just a short walk from Galashiels is Abbotsford House, the home of Sir Walter Scott.

It was a lovely, slightly wet, walk along the River Tweed until I reached Abbotsford, situated above the Tweed, nestled in between the hills, Sir Walter Scott loved to roam around, and overlooking the stunning landscape

Sir Walter Scott is a beloved Scottish writer if you´ve ever been to Edinburgh you can´t miss his monument next to Princes Street Gardens, the second biggest monument for a writer worldwide.

Born in 1771 in the Old Town of Edinburgh he spent a lot of his childhood with his grandparents in the Scottish Borders, in Sandyknowe near Smailholm Tower, the former family home.

After finishing his education in Edinburgh Scott became a lawyer. But he was always fascinated by the oral traditions of the Scottish Borders. He collected stories and wrote them down. At the age of 25, he started to write professionally by translation works from German.

On on Christmas Eve 1797, Scott married Charlotte Charpentier and the newlyweds settled in Edinburgh and had five children together.

In 1796, Scott’s friend James Ballantyne founded a printing press in Kelso, in the Scottish Borders. Through Ballantyne, Scott was able to publish his first work, including “Glenfinlas” and “The Eve of St. John”, and his poetry then began to bring him to public attention. In 1805, The Lay of the Last Minstrel captured wide public imagination, and his career as a writer was established in spectacular fashion. (Wikipedia)

Scott’s first novel “Waverly”, a tale of the Jacobite rising of 1745, was published anonymously in 1814.

When Scott was a boy, he sometimes travelled with his father from Selkirk to Melrose, where some of his novels are set. At a certain spot, the old gentleman would stop the carriage and take his son to a stone on the site of the Battle of Melrose (1526). (Wikipedia)

In 1811 Walter Scott bought Cartley Hole Farm on the south bank of the River Tweed and built a family cottage in 1812 which he named “Abbotsford”. Abbotsford House was built in a series of extensions and the farmhouse cottage became a romantic fairy palace.

Scott was a pioneer of the Scottish Baronial style of architecture, therefore Abbotsford is festooned with turrets and stepped gabling. Through windows enriched with the insignia of heraldry the sun shone on suits of armour, trophies of the chase, a library of more than 9,000 volumes, fine furniture, and still finer pictures. Panelling of oak and cedar and carved ceilings relieved by coats of arms in their correct colours added to the beauty of the house. (Wikipedia)

Scott used many sculptured stones from ruined castles and abbeys of Scotland and even collected Roman and medieval stones and statutes.

The house was opened to the public after Scott’s death in 1833 but continued to be occupied by Scott’s descendants until 2004. Electricity was only installed in 1962.

Today Abbotsford House is one of the main tourists’ attractions in the Scottish Borders and you can even stay there, probably not sleeping in Scott´s bed but nearby!

29/10/2019
Newcastle upon Tyne

It was hard to say goodbye to Ralph (the cutest dog in Saltburn) and to Yorkshire, but it was time for my last day in England – at least I thought it would be my last one… and I had chosen Newcastle upon Tyne as my last English stop.

Newcastle developed around a Roman settlement, known as Pons Aelius, founded in the 2nd century and was named after the castle built in 1080. In the 14th century, Newcastle became an important player in the wool trade and later on became a major coal mining area.

For me it was just a short walk from the train station to my hotel in the middle of the city, ready to go explore! Right around the corner was Newcastle Cathedral, filled with stunning coloured glass windows.

Cathedral Church of St Nicholas

Founded in 1091 at the same time as the castle, the original Norman church was destroyed by fire in 1216. The current cathedral was completed in 1350.

The cathedral is notable for its unusual lantern spire, which was constructed in 1448. For hundreds of years, it was a main navigation point for ships using the River Tyne. (Wikipedia)

The Castle in Newcastle

Right next to the cathedral is the Castle of Newcastle, founded in 1091 on the site of the Roman fort Pons Aelius, guarding the bridge of the River Tyre.

The Black Gate was added by Henry III between 1247 and 1250, a fortified gatehouse. Later on, houses were added on both sides of the passageway, part of the building became a pub. But at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Black Gate had become a slum tenement, housing up to sixty people.

Today it houses the ticket office and a tiny museum. Both the Black Gate and Castle Keep underwent restoration works and were reopened in 2015 as Newcastle Castle.

The entrance to Castle Keep itself is on the other side of the railway tracks.

Inside there is a big hall, some living areas and more but the real interesting part for me was climbing up the stairs to the rooftop and enjoying the view over Newcastle from up there!

Back downstairs I continued my walk through Newcastle towards the Quai, with a short break at Side Gallery to visit an amazing photo exhibition.

Quayside High Level Bridge

The Quayside High Level Bridge, designed by Robert Stephenson, was built across the Tyne in 1849, joining Newcastle and Gateshead to carry road and rail traffic. This was followed in 1876 by the Swing Bridge which was built and designed by William Armstrong to allow larger ships to pass either side. Both of these bridges pre-date the iconic Tyne Bridge but allowed Newcastle’s trade and ship-building industries to flourish in the latter part of the 18th century. (Newcastle Gateshead)

There are many more bridges over River Tyne today…

After a short walk along the river, I made my way back up into the city centre, towards the Victorian Market. Many of the buildings in the city were built during the Victorian era after builder Richard Grainger won a competition to produce a new city plan for central Newcastle.

Chinatown

Newcastle´s Chinatown lies next to the shopping district within the historic centre on land that was once part of Blackfriars monastery. The very first Chinese restaurant opened here in 1949 and was later followed by a Chinese supermarket and many other businesses. Some of them looked like casinos.

These remains of Newcastle city walls are the boundary of the district on the northeast side.

16/10/2019
Robin Hood´s Bay

It´s a wonderful bus ride from Whitby to Robin Hood´s Bay driving through the picturesque landscape and catching a view of the sea. Even better I rode on a double-decker bus in the front row – the best seat in the house!

robin hood´s bay

It´s just a very short walk from the bus stop in the “upper village” down to Robin Hood´s bay – a stunning old fishing village on the Heritage Coast of the North York Moors. Wandering down the very steep main street I instantly fell in love with all the narrow, twisting cobbled streets and alleyways going right and left and up and down.

Today Robin Hood´s Bay is filled with lovely independent shops and tea rooms and the perfect place to get lost in all the alleys.

The area around the Yorkshire coast was settled by Danes and Norwegians around 1000 but after the Norman conquest in the 11th century, much of the land in Northern England laid waste and later on sold to the Abbot of Whitby.

In 1536 “Robin Hoode Baye” was described as

A fischer tounlet of 20 bootes with Dok or Bosom of a mile yn length. (Wikipedia)

In the 16th century, Robin Hood´s Bay was a more important port than Whitby, whose Abbey was dissolved in 1540.

The town, which consists of a maze of tiny streets, has a tradition of smuggling, and there is reputed to be a network of subterranean passageways linking the houses. During the late 18th century smuggling was rife on the Yorkshire coast. Vessels from the continent brought contraband which was distributed by contacts on land and the operations were financed by syndicates who made profits without the risks taken by the seamen and the villagers. Tea, gin, rum, brandy and tobacco were among the contraband smuggled into Yorkshire from the Netherlands and France to avoid the duty. (Wikipedia)

But fishing and farming were the original occupations of the people living along the coast. Fishing reached its peak in the 19th century: the men went on the sea to catch the fish and the women carried the buckets full with the catch over the moors to Pickering or York.

A lot of the houses were built between 1650 to 1750 and the whole family was involved in the fishing business.

Today the main income for Robin Hood´s Bay comes from tourism.

The village was also featured in several movies like “Wild Child”, “Turn of the tide” or quite recently for “The Phantom Thread” with Daniel Day-Lewis.

If you´re interested in even older times, a lot of fossils can be found along the coast and on the beach.

After some time on the beach, I made my way up back to the clifftops towards the bus stop.

11/10/2019