Having seen dozens of top ten places to visit in Scotland, mostly compiled by tourist guides who’s writers have barely scratched the surface we felt it was time to weigh in with our personal view. At ScotClans we spend a lot of time travelling to parts of Scotland collecting stories and legends and capturing the […]
I have just returned from a trip to Lewis and came across this wonderful story. It is from the Shiant islands (meaning the holy or enchanted islands). The Shiant Islands lie four miles or so off the coast of Lewis and 12 from the northern tip of Skye. The Shiants are a wild and dramatic […]
The Scott Monument, sometimes referred to as the ‘gothic rocket’, is a Victorian Gothic monument to the author Sir Walter Scott. It stands towards the east end of Princes Street in Edinburgh, and happens to be the largest monument to a writer in the world, and was completed on August 1st 1846. Scott was a […]
On Wednesday 22nd July Edinburgh Zoo celebrated the 102nd anniversary of the day it first opened to the public. Going from strength to strength through the years the zoo has become Scotland’s second largest paid for tourist attraction, only being beaten by Edinburgh castle, and attracting over 600,000 visitors every year. This week we will […]
Glamis Castle, found in the Angus area, is the historic seat of the Lyon family. The estate was presented to Sir John Lyon as a gift by Robert II in 1376. The Bowes-Lyon family, as they are now, still owns the castle and grounds as the Earls of Strathmore. The family has a large link […]
With the Forth Bridge having recently joined five other areas of Scotland as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, we thought this week we would take a look at what makes these sites so special and worth preserving for future generations. If you were not aware UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and […]
After more than a year of consideration by the UN cultural committee, the Forth Bridge has finally been awarded the coveted Unesco World Heritage status. The Forth Bridge shares this status with only five other sites around the country, New Lanark, St Kilda, the Old and New Towns in Edinburgh, Neolithic Orkney and the Antonine […]
The letters of Rachel Erskine, Lady Grange, who was exiled to St Kilda by her husband have now been made public by The Edinburgh University Image Collections. The letters were smuggled to Lady Grange’s solicitor in Edinburgh and offer an incredible insight into the suffering and hardships she endured on the island. Lady Grange spent […]
Having grown up just a few miles east of Edinburgh and lived within the city my entire adult life, I’ve always had great views of the Islands of the Forth travelling around. This week whilst gazing out at the great view of Inchkeith Island from the sands of Portobello I wondered what the island had […]
Our wee series of articles on Edinburgh continue today with a look at some of the symbols that have become synonymous with the city, their origins and what they represent and we’ll start off with what must be the most famous of them all, the Luckenbooth…. The story of the Luckenbooth begins on the Royal […]
