1 August 2012 - Bridge of Earn

Catchup for a few days.

Sunday the main event was a return to the battlefield of Culloden. Since the last time we were here a modern visitors centre has been added. It contains a great display of the events leading up to the battle, but we felt that it detracted from the atmosphere of the remote moor that we found last time. The memorial cairn and the markers placed in the late 19^th century to mark the clans involved still have the most impact – the battle seems to have touched almost every known highland family and you have to wonder why Charlie had the ability to convince the others that he had a chance.

On Monday we called into Scone, the traditional place for crowning the Scottish kings, and spent some time touring the country house (Scone Palace) built by the Murray family. The coronation mound is supposed to have been built up by soil the lords brought on their boots when they came to swear fealty to the current monarch. I have some doubts that the odd 500m3 of the mound actually was just the mud on their boots. The alleged copy of the “Stone of Destiny” certainly doesn't appear much like the stone that was kidnapped from Westminster a while ago, but artistic licence forgiven it is nice to have a point on the ground where you can say “history happened here”.

Gillian with the Stone of Destiny at Scone

The Murray family were given the lands of Scone in 1600, but the current house dates from 1808. The scale of the rooms is huge with a massive state dining room, ante-chambers and galleries. The contents of the house are either priceless collectables or stuff about the family – they assume that someone cares....

The next stop was Arbroath to visit the abbey. Although the building was ruined during the reformation, what remains is impressive. The main historical link here is the Declaration of Arbroath which sought to lift the excommunication of Robert the Bruce and to establish Scotland as an independent nation.

The remains of Abroath Abbey

On the way back to the hotel we called into St Andrews, but decided not to take the time for a round of golf.  However the town was very pleasant with a long main street lined with solid buildings, many of them related to the university.  At the Eastern end the remains of the Cathedral are impressive - this was the main administrative seat for the church in Eastern Scotland.

St Andrews Cathedral

Tuesday we continued the Bruce quest with visits to Dunfermline and Stirling. In the Dunfermline abbey church there is a wealth of historic context. The identified coffin of Robert is re-interred under the pulpit and there are many other Scottish kings (and Robert's wife) that are also in the church, but not identified. Out in the graveyard there is a tree supposedly planted over the grave of the mother of William Wallace (a supposed ancestor of mine). We spent some time debating the merits of various versions of history with a very helpful and enthusiastic guide. The general consensus seems to be whatever story fits your own vision is near enough...

Stirling is the area for the battle of Bannockburn which was Robert's major victory over Edward II. The stories on what happened vary and no-one know exactly where it happened, but the basic facts seem reasonably clear – the event started with a one to one challenge between an English knight and Robert which ended up with Robert's axe buried in the opponents skull, the first day was a minor skirmish which went in favour of Robert and on the second day the Scots had superior tactics and wasted the English. It's ironic that Robert's son ended up marrying Edward's daughter and promoting the cause of the English...

Robert's statue at Bannockburn

We spent quite some time talking to a presenter at the visitor centre.  He had given a demonstration of the armour and weapons that would have been in use and was dressed in full chain mail weighing 5 stone (35kg).  He seemed quite at home swinging broadswords, double handed swords, battle axes and a few other nasties and his descriptions of the effect of the weapons was graphic. 

On Gillian's insistence we then headed to Falkirk where, after a few navigational discussions, we found the Falkirk wheel. This is an amazing bit of show-off engineering designed to reconnect the Union and the Forth & Clyde canals as the connection has been in ruin for the last 50 years. The wheel consists of 2 big tubs, each of which contains 360,000 litres of water with a total weight of 1,000 tonnes. They are connected on opposing sides of an axles so that as the “wheel” turns one sinks as the other rises. As the weight of each is the same it takes little power to carry out the lift. A single half turn lifts boats 75 ft to float down a futuristic aqueduct to the Union canal towards Glasgow. The most impressive achievement to me was the excellent seal that the gates on the tubs which only seemed to lose a litre or 2 on the way round.

The Falkirk Wheel in action.