You can’t really miss St. Giles Cathedral, its looming presence in the Old Town of Edinburgh means its visible from all over the city. Saying that, I found I wasn’t really as impressed by St Giles as I have been of other cathedrals I’ve visited. One of Scotland’s most important medieval buildings the current structure was begun in the 14th century and has been a centre of Scottish historical events ever since.
As I mentioned in my Abbotsford post, the house provides a free volunteer lead shuttle from Tweedbank Railway Station to Abbotsford, but also from Abbotsford to Melrose Abbey. As it’s volunteer lead this isn’t always available (check Abbotsford’s website for details/contact info) but happily the shuttle was available on the day I visited and the driver offered to take me to the Abbey when I was done at the house (I was the only person using the shuttle that day). The drive didn’t take very long and you’re set down in a car park opposite the Abbey. The shuttle doesn’t take you back to the station but the driver pointed to a bus stop nearby and said that was where I could get the bus back to Tweedbank (it wasn’t – but more on that later!)
As I’d been to Edinburgh before a lot of my stay there was using the city as a base and going on day trips by train. The one I was most excited about and proved to be excellent was Abbotsford, the home author Walter Scott had built in 1811. I caught the train from Edinburgh Waverley Station to Tweedbank Station which took around one hour. One useful thing the house provides is free transport from the train station to the house. It’s volunteer lead so isn’t always available – you can find times and a phone number to see if it’s happening on the day you’re traveling on the house website – but the day I travelled it was waiting just outside the station, and I was the only passenger! If it isn’t there the house is a 20 minute walk away that is described on the house website, or you can get a local bus. There is also of course a car park at the house if you’re driving.
Part of my reason for travelling to Scotland last year, and Greenock in particular, was to do some family tree research. My paternal grandmother was born in Greenock, her grandfather having been moved up there from Kent in the early 1900s to work at the Torpedo Factory which was, at the time, an extremely secretive job. My first stop therefore was to the McLean Museum where I had been hoping to find more information about the factory. There was, in fact, barely any mention of it that I hadn’t already found elsewhere – a veil of secrecy seems to still hang around the details – but there was plenty of other items of interest in the museum.
Back in October last year I spent just under a week in Edinburgh, using it as a base to explore other areas of Scotland as well as the city itself. This was my second visit to the city – you can read my previous posts about Edinburgh Castle, the National Museum of Scotland and Edinburgh Zoo. With the exception of the zoo which I revisited, I wanted to visit places that I hadn’t managed to the first time. One of these was Calton Hill which I headed to straight after checking in to my accommodation (The Elder York Guest House – highly recommended). Situated to the east of the city it is one of the best places to get a view of Edinburgh.
If you follow me on Instagram you’ll know that I recently returned from a week away in Scotland. It’ll be a little while before I start on those posts in depth but in honour of the spooky season I’m bringing forward a couple of them. On one of my evenings in Edinburgh I decided to do a ghost/history tour, and this one was the one that came most highly recommended. I didn’t take a huge amount of photos since much of the tour took place in the dark. The tour was lead by John Napier who was dressed in period costume (I can’t remember who he said he was representing now – a scientist of some sort) and he was a very engaging guide. The group was quite large, around 20 or so of us I think and we met here at the tour’s ticket booth.
The University of Glasgow was founded in 1451 making it the fourth oldest university in the UK and second oldest in Scotland. They do run tours of the building for visitors but they weren’t running on the day I went so I did the self-guided tour which can be found on the university’s website.
I’m not a big fan of modern art as regular readers will know but Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art is free to explore and I was intrigued by the history of the building itself. The gallery was opened in 1966 but the building dates from 1778 when it was the townhouse of William Cunninghame a tobacco merchant and slave trader.
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