Photos and the City

Tag: travel

Melrose

Melrose Abbey

A Scottish Border Bus (my ride for the next week) brought me from Abbotsford House to Melrose and it was just a short walk to Melrose Abbey, one of the jewels in the Scottish Borders.

Founded in 1136 by Cistercian monks it was the chief house of the order until the Reformation. Today the monastery is partly ruined and under the care of the Historic Environment Scotland. Last year I used their Explorer Pass for visiting lots of places but this year I upgraded to the membership. It´s really worth it and gives you free entry to 70 places in Scotland! The others are either private (Historic Houses) or under the care of the National Trust for Scotland, I´ll be getting that membership next year.

The Cistercians were drawn to this fertile spot beside the River Tweed by its close associations with St Aidan and St Cuthbert. The monks came from Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire, the Cistercians’ great northern English missionary base.

Monastic life continued at Melrose for the next 450 years. The last monk, John Watson, died around 1590. The crumbling abbey church was used as a parish church until a new kirk was built nearby in 1810.

(Historic Enviroment Scotland)

Even so, just a small part of the abbey survived it´s been one of the most beautiful ones I´ve seen so far. And it´s fun to look out for the famous gargoyle of the pipe playing pig.

It is believed that Robert the Bruce loved the abbey so much, that his heart was buried here. Today marked by a memorable stone saying “The heart of a brave man was buried here”.

The monastery contained several houses and plots of land, the Commander’s house is a museum today and has a beautiful view of the abbey.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Sir Walter Scott was appointed Sheriff-Depute of Roxburghshire. In 1822, with the financial assistance of the Duke of Buccleuch, Sir Walter supervised the extensive repair work that was to preserve the ruins. In 1918 the Duke gave the ruins to the state. (Wikipedia)

Scott also described the abbey in a few of his poems.

Harmony garden

Just a short walk from Melrose Abbey lies the Harmony Garden, a peaceful and stunning garden cared for by the National Trust for Scotland.

The garden offers beautiful views of the abbey and the Eildon Hills…

As its name suggests, at Harmony Garden nature is perfectly in tune. Step out of normal life and into somewhere more colourful, relaxing and balanced.

Manicured lawns, scented borders and fruit and vegetable beds spread out from a beautifully proportioned Georgian manor house – available as holiday accommodation. (nts.org.uk)

Priorwood garden

Another beautiful and very calming garden lies on the other side of the abbey: Priorwood Garden, a former house garden of a manor house and a communal garden during WWII.

Priorwood garden has three different sections, a woodland area, a garden dedicated to dried flowers and the orchard.

With wonderfully framed views across to the abbey, the orchard cultivates many historical apple varieties, as well as plums, pears, damsons and greengages. (nts.org.uk)

There were plans to transform the garden into a big parking space for visitors but luckily the National Trust for Scotland was able to buy and conserve it.

MELROSE

After visiting the abbey, the gardens and having a walk along River Tweed it´s time for a little break in one of the tea rooms or cafés in Melrose. There is a wide variety of lovely little shops along the main road and also lots of places for a cup of tea or coffee.

05/11/2019
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