Posts Tagged With: statue

St Cuthbert’s Church and Kirkyard, Edinburgh

I wanted to visit St Cuthbert’s Church because I’m a big Agatha Christie fan and this is where she married her second husband the archaeologist Max Mallowan in 1930. However, I’d already scoped out prior to arriving in Scotland that none of the opening times of the church were going to work around what day trips I already had planned so I went along knowing that I wouldn’t be able to go inside. I was pleasantly surprised therefore to find that the grounds were more extensive than I had expected and I had a very nice walk around the kirkyard late one afternoon.

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Categories: Edinburgh, Scotland | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh

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.

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Categories: Edinburgh, Scotland | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Greenock, Scotland

As I mentioned in my previous post I visited Greenock last year because my grandmother was born there and her grandparents moved there from England for work. I’ve done a lot of family tree research over the years – particularly during the COVID lockdowns – and this was a chance to explore some of the places she, her mother, aunts and grandparents lived and worked.

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McLean Museum and Art Gallery, Greenock

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.

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Cambridge Statues

Cambridge is a city where interesting sculptures and statues are at every corner, some ancient and some significantly less so. This post is about some of the pieces that caught my eye starting with this one outside the Department of Engineering. Dating from 1967 it is called Construction in Aluminium and was made by Kenneth Martin. Apparently it represents a formula used in jet propulsion and is one of about 40 sculptures in Cambridge with the specific aim of bringing public spaces back to life after World War II.

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Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge

I was a bit on the fence about visiting the museum at first – I feel like museums of anthropology in particular have a lot of caveats attached to their collections related to colonisation and theft. To be fair to the museum they are aware of this themselves with the below sign greeting visitors in the entrance and their website stating they were one of the first museums to return items to their country of origin in 1961. The latest items to be returned when I visited were some Aboriginal spears stolen by James Cook and his men from Australia in 1770.

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The Homecoming, Cambridge War Memorial, Hill’s Road

This war memorial can be found just outside the Botanic Gardens and is a rather well done figure of a marching soldier by Canadian sculptor Robert Tait McKenzie. He also designed the Scots American War Memorial in Princes Street, Edinburgh.

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The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

The Fitzwilliam Museum has been on my to visit list for a very long time and I made sure to fit it into my plans on this trip. Entrance is free but it is advised to book a timed ticket anyway for the exhibitions even though they’re also free. When I visited the exhibition was Islanders: The Making of the Mediterranean and I had a ticket for opening time at 10am which meant I had plenty of time to wander around the exhibition and then through the rest of the museum without it feeling too crowded.

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Gedling Country Park – December 2023

Last Boxing Day my Dad and I decided to go for a walk around Gedling Country Park for a bit of fresh air and nature. Lots of other people, and their dogs, had had a similar idea so we did have to wait about 10 minutes before we could find a parking spot but after that the park is so big that it was easy not to feel crowded.

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King’s College Chapel, Cambridge

Last March I went on a five night trip to Cambridge. One of the reasons I wanted to visit the city was to see King’s College Chapel. I’m not at all religious but I do like a good Christmas carol and watch the carols from King’s programme each year and have always admired the setting. Needless to say I was not disappointed.

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