Edinburgh has the tale of Greyfriars’ Bobby and San Diego has the story of Bum the dog, who for a homeless dog became something of a celebrity, loved by all in his hometown, much like our very own Bobby. When the two cities twinned in 1977, they each presented the other with a statue of these loveable dogs.

This statue of Bum the dog is found in Princes Street Gardens, alongside the following plaque…

San Diego has the original statue of Bum alongside a replica of Edinburgh’s Bobby statue…

Which includes a plaque explain more about Bum…

The love and loyalty of both legendary dogs forever joins San Diego and Edinburgh as sister cities.

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The Royal Mile, one of the most famous streets in Edinburgh, runs from the castle all the way down to Holyrood Palace. When Edinburgh castle was first established this was the only accessible route, a natural ramp formed thousands of years ago gave access to a castle otherwise impregnable from the east.

With the establishment of Holyrood palace, or rather the original monastery in the 12th century, the route between the two became an important thoroughfare. Businesses and government offices sprang up as well as several churches such as the magnificent St Giles Cathedral.

By the 16th century many parts of this route became dedicated to markets and the wide area running down from St Giles towards the Canongate featured some of the city’s first permanent shops. Many of these housed small trade people who made and sold their wares, and among the most popular were the jewellers. The shops themselves were very small and were known as ‘Locked Booths’. From this we get the word ‘Luckenbooth’.

The Luckenbooth brooch became a very popular item in 16th century Scotland. It featured the ‘Heart & Crown of Scotland’ and was romantically linked to the tragic Mary, Queen of Scots as it was the brooch she had given to Lord Darnley.

The style of the Luckenbooth brooch became very popular throughout the UK. By the 18th century the trade in silver to the new world featured the little brooch and many ended up traded with Native Americans, particularly the Iroquois of the Six Nations. As a result of this the Luckenbooth became a popular decorative symbol in their costumes.

The tradition was that the young man would give his lady a Luckenbooth brooch on their wedding day. When their first child arrived the brooch would then be pinned to the babies shawl to protect it from “evil spirits”. As such it had very similar connotations to the Irish ‘Claddagh’ ring especially with the similar heart shaped theme. This tradition can be carried over to today. A Luckenbooth Brooch makes a fantastic gift for your bride on your wedding day, or a gift for a newborn as a symbol of protection and love. Whatever you pick one up for, it is and always will be an enduring symbol of Edinburgh and of Scotland.

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A few years ago I read James Robertson’s excellent book; ‘The Fanatic’. The book tells the story of an Edinburgh tour guide and how he becomes obsessed with the gruesome character he portrays. In one passage of the book the character mentions a place called the ‘Gallow Lee’ an area just beside Leith Walk in Edinburgh where all manner of executions were carried out. I recently came across some more information about this place and its real history was even more ghastly than the fictional account.

Leith Walk is a ribbon of Shops Café’s and bars that runs from the east end of the city centre to the historical port of Leith. The origin of this thoroughfare goes back to the time of Oliver Cromwell and his attempts to capture the city. In order to repel his attacks Sir Alexander Leslie in command of the Scottish Army created a ‘breastwork’; a chest high defensive earthwork wall as part of the city defences. This wall ran northwards from the city centre down to the shore. The defences were incredibly effective and Cromwell was held off till after his victory at Dunbar.

In time buildings began to spring up along the line of these defences, a gravel path was laid down and coaches would ferry people to and from the port. Leith Walk was born!

At around the halfway point, just where the traditional boundary where Edinburgh and Leith meet is an area called Shrubhill. This was a sandy hill on the western side of the road. Being outside the city boundaries this was where the city of Edinburgh disposed of its more troublesome problems!

In 17^th century Edinburgh public executions were a common spectacle. But sometimes there was a problem where a person sentenced to execution was either too high profile or for one reason or another there was concern that the execution may cause unrest.In some cases the manner of execution was too much even by 17^th century standards. Edinburgh chose the Gallow Lee in Shrubhill to deal with its dirty business. A permanent ‘gibbet’ was set up on the hill and on most days a body would be seen swinging from it. Witches were put to death, sometimes mercifully strangled before being burned and as the years progressed the ashes of the dead added to the sandy mound.

Covenanter executions were a frequent site too and there were a few high profile scandalous murderers who were put to death on the Gallow Lee: There was the ReverentJohn Kelloe for example; a respectable minister from Dunbar who had murdered his wife. Another very notable ‘customer’ was Norman Ross, a footman who had murdered his employer Lady Baillie, sister of the Laird of Wedderburn. For around two years his rotting corpse was left to swing on the gibbet being picked at by crows.

Until halfway into the 18^th century this ghastly landmark stood on the route into Edinburgh. However the draining of the Nor loch and the expansion of the city to the North led to a new period of development. Stone was quarried from nearby Craigleith quarry to build the fashionable ‘New town’ The builders looked for a source of sand to add to the lime mortar and hit upon the Gallow Lee. The owner of the land charged the builders to cart away the sand, containing the ashes and other remainsof thousands of victims. It is said that every penny he earned went straight to the local publicans – so much so that a public house (the halfway house) sprung up nearby!

Soon the sandy mound of the Gallow Lee was gone and all that remained was a hollow. As I write this the site of the Gallow Lee is once more waste ground, formerly occupied as a bus depot now awaiting redevelopment. But how many of those living in the trendy apartments in Edinburgh’s New town realise that the very fabric of their building is bound together with the remains of Witches, covenanters and criminals?

Sleep tight!

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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 poet, novelist, ballad-collector, critic and man of letters, but is probably most renowned as the founder of the genre of the historical novel, involving tales of gallantry, romance and chivalry. Beginning with the publication of Waverley in 1814, one of the most significant books of the nineteenth-century, his anonymously published Waverley novels proved hugely popular in Europe and America, and established his reputation as a major international literary force. It is a measure of Scott’s influence that Edinburgh’s central railway station, opened in 1854, is called Waverley Station, the only station in the world to be named for a book.

By the 1820s, Scott was probably the most famous of living Scotsmen, and was consequently chosen to organise the visit to Edinburgh in 1822 of George IV. He was heavily criticised by his Scottish contemporaries for the resultant tartan pageantry, in which the King appeared in Highland dress complete with salmon-pink leggings.

In 1825, his financial state deteriorated drastically, and rather than declare bankruptcy he placed his home, Abbotsford, and income into a trust belonging to his creditors, and proceeded to write his way out of debt. He continued to live at Abbotsford near Melrose, where he died on the 21st September 1832. Among other tributes, the Scott monument was raised on Princes Street in Edinburgh…

Upon his death the great and good of Edinburgh came together to agree on a fitting monument to this outstanding Scottish man. In 1836, an architectural competition was launched, inviting designs for an appropriate memorial. One entrant went under the unlikely name of ‘John Morvo’, a name shared by the medieval architect of Melrose Abbey. Morvo was in fact George Meikle Kemp, a 45 year old joiner, draughtsman and self-taught architect. Kemp had feared his lack of architectural qualifications and reputation would influence judges against his design. In 1838 it was announced that Kemp’s design had won the competition and his monument was to be built. At the same time the result was announced, Sir John Steell was unanimously selected to undertake the sculpture of Scott at the base of the monument.

The foundation stone was laid on the 15th August 1840, the anniversary of Scott’s birthday. In the foundations were deposited a glass jar ‘time capsule’ and two bronze plaques – one from the Freemasons, the other celebrating the author.

A silver trowel with a mahogany handle was used during the ceremony for laying the foundation stone of the monument. It has an engraved border of a rolling thistle flower and leaf, and on it is written:

‘To Commemorate the Laying of the Foundation Stone of the Monument at Edinburgh in honour of the Immortal Scott.
This trowel to be used at the ceremonial was presented to the Right Honourable Sir James Forrest of Comiston Bart., Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Most Worshipful Grand Mason over all Scotland.

The Right Worshipful Master, Office Bearers and Brethren of the Grand Masters Mother Lodge, The Ancient Lodge of Edinburgh No.92. Aug 15th 1840.’

The trowel can be found on display at the Writers’ Museum, Lady Stair’s Close, Lawnmarket, Edinburgh.

Construction began in 1841 following permission by an Act of Parliament. Specifically the Monument to Sir Walter Scott Act 1841, which allowed the monument to be built on the site chosen, as there was a ban on any construction between Princes Street and the Old Town, so as not to obscure the historic view.

Tragically George Meikle Kemp died when the monument was only half completed, on the night of 6th March 1844. It is thought he was to have lost his way in very thick fog after visiting his contractor near the old Canal Basin in Fountainbridge. His body was found in the canal one week later. Over 1000 people attended his funeral. His coffin was carried to St Cuthberts graveyard by his workmen, who by all accounts, thoroughly respected his humble origins and great depth of knowledge.

After Kemp’s death, work continued under the supervision of his brother-in-law, William Bonnar. He proposed an amendment to the height from 176 feet to 200 feet and six inches. For a while there was dissent from outsiders, especially when a rise in costs from £10,000 to £12,000 was forecast. However, when workmen on the project offered two weeks labour without pay in order to support Bonnar, the money was found.

Taking nearly four years, construction ran until August of 1844 with Kemp’s son placing the finial in that month.

The actual date of the inauguration ceremony seems to have been lost to time, but most accounts give it as the 17th or 18th of August 1846, with contemporary newspapers stating that it was the 15th (Scott’s Birthday).

Thousands of people attended the inauguration ceremony, some travelling great distances to see the monument. The steamer ‘Britannia’ brought nearly 300, the evening before some 400 people came from Dundee, other ferries arrived in the morning from Fife, and a train came from Burns country with hundreds aboard.

The procession comprised the Monument Committees, the Town Council of Edinburgh, the Magistrates of Edinburgh, Canongate, Leith and Portsburgh, various Masonic Lodges and Officials, who all assembled in the Royal High School. It was described in The Scotsman newspaper as “a moving stream of umbrellas, with long lines of stationary umbrellas for its banks”, although there is not an umbrella to be seen in this image.

It was preceded by mounted military band, and a detachment of Dragoons. There was an opening address by Lord Glenlyon, Grand Master of Scotland and a reply by the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, the Right Honourable Adam Black – whose statue is 100 yards to the west of the monument.

From the ground the pinnacle of the monument rises 200ft and 6in above Princes Street and the gardens surrounding it. The foundations were sunk 52ft into the ground to support its considerable weight, and added considerably to the total cost of the structure which amounted to £16,154 which today would be around £1.5m.

The monument was constructed of Binny sandstone, from the local Ecclesmachan quarry in West Lothian, which has left it’s own unique stamp on the structure. As it is an oily stone it has prematurely aged the appearance of the structure, although the soot of Victorian times and the exhaust fumes of the modern road and rail routes close by will have contributed a great deal.

On the ground, in the centre of the monument on a platform up seven massive steps, there is a statue of Scott carved from carrara marble and scale at double life-size. This was the work of the aforementioned Sir John Steell. It features Scott in a seated position, book in hand, with one of his favourite dogs, Maida, reclining at his feet.

This statue was carved from a 30 ton block imported from Livorno in Italy, which was no easy task. The block had to be retrieved from the bottom of the city harbour, as it was so heavy it ended up crashing through the hull of the ship and when it eventually arrived in Edinburgh, at Leith docks, it took a total of 25 horses to drag the cart carrying it through the streets to Steell’s studio on Princes Street.

It is actually the first marble statue to ever be displayed in Scotland and almost glows out from under the monument and the dark stone that surrounds it.

The monument also features a total of 68 figurative statues (not including Scott and his dog), placed all over the structure. 64 are visible from the ground, but 4 are hidden away above the final viewing gallery.

Each statue represents a famous Scottish person or a character from Scott’s literary work. Just a few of the figures that can be seen are Rob Roy MacGregor, Robert Burns, Mary, Queen of Scots, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Robert the Bruce, and John Knox.

Also featured are several ‘grotesques’. The grotesque character faces are a typical stonemasons ‘joke’. Common in Gothic Architecture when medieval stonemasons carved all manner of weird and wonderful faces, gargoyles and other ‘grotesques’, on the great cathedrals of Europe.

Today the monument still stands proud in the heart of Edinburgh, instantly recognisable and loved by the cities residents. Of the visitors that flock to Edinburgh every year, thousands still visit this fantastic attraction and take on it’s 287 steps to get access to some of the best views of the city centre.

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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 be taking a look at this marvellous attractions history and a few of the things that make it so special….

The Beginning…

Before there was the zoo there was a charity that was behind the endeavour, the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, founded in 1909 by Edinburgh lawyer, Thomas Hailing Gillespie and others. The Society’s first president was lawyer and politician Edward Theodore Salvesen, son of the Norwegian merchant Christian Salveson—a connection which would prove significant in later years.

Gillespie set out to build a zoological park and was inspired by the open design of Tierpark Hagenbeck in Hamburg and the New York Zoological Park. The design promoted a more spacious and natural environment for the animals, and stood in stark contrast to the steel cages typical of the menageries built during the Victorian era. All that was needed was a suitable site for the park and Gillespie hoped for a site that could shelter the park and therefore the animals from the cold north and east winds and luckily just such an area was available.

The society secured an option to purchase the 75-acre (30 ha) Corstorphine Hill House estate for £17,000. Unfortunately the society had a fair amount of trouble raising the necessary funds for the purchase and the option to buy was nearing expiry. An unlikely hero came to the rescue in the form of Edinburgh City Council, who purchased the site outright in February 1913. The zoological society was granted full use of the estate in return for a 4 percent annual repayment of the cost. This also meant the funds the society had raised could be put to good use building and stocking the park.

Town planner Patrick Geddes came on board to design the park following Gillespie’s vision of an open design. The Scottish National Zoological Park, as it was initially called, opened to the public with a large collection of gifted and borrowed animals on 22 July 1913, after only 15 weeks of work. The zoo still occupies very much the same area of land today, though the park has, and still is, being extensively redeveloped.

Early History

The Scottish National Zoological Park was opened to the public in 1913 and was incorporated by Royal Charter later that year. In 1948, following a visit by His Majesty King George VI, the Society was granted the privilege of adding the prefix ‘Royal’ to its name. It remains the only zoo with a Royal Charter in the United Kingdom.

Edinburgh Zoo’s long association with penguins began in January 1914, thanks to the zoological society’s connection with the Salvesen family, with the arrival of three king penguins from the Christian Salvesen whaling expedition which docked in Leith. These where the first penguins in the world to be seen outside of the south Atlantic, and the subsequent hatching of a king penguin chick in 1919 was the first penguin ever to be hatched in captivity. Penguins continued to arrive with whaling ships for years afterwards and even today penguins are closely associated with the zoo, as you can see by their logo.

In 1925 a tropical bird and reptile house was added, followed in 1927 by an aquarium and in 1929 an ape house. In 1930, the now famous, penguin pool was constructed, though it has since been rebuilt, in 1990, to include a new under water viewing area. In 1928 the Corstorphine Golf Club evacuated the 47 acres to the north of the estate, allowing the zoo to expand significantly and this new area was completed in 1937.

Hagenbeck’s modern zoo techniques proved effective, and Edinburgh quickly gained a reputation for its good animal conditions. 1934 saw the births in captivity of a sea lion and beaver, and in 1936 a baby chimpanzee followed. A litter of wolves was born in 1938, and soon afterwards the first orangutan to be born in Britain.

The War Years…

Edinburgh Zoo, like most of the Zoos in the UK during the war, was significantly affected even though they would not normally be considered a target. Bombs could fall at any time and the zoos housed animals that would be dangerous to the public if they should escape due to a damaged enclosure. Edinburgh Zoo was bombed twice during the Second World War, but remained mostly unharmed although it was reported that one of the bombs killed a giraffe. In 1941 the recently born wolves had to be euthanized, along with a collection of dangerous snakes in case more bombs hit the zoo and allowed them to escape.

Despite the war the zoo continued to grow, with land to the east being purchased in 1942 and construction of a lake beginning soon afterwards.

Following the War…

It was around 1950 that one of Edinburgh Zoos most famous traditions began, the penguin parade and it was all started by a mistake. One of the zookeepers who had been working in the penguin enclosure had left the gate open on their way out. The penguins followed the zookeeper out of the enclosure and around the park much to the delight of visitors, and from then on it became a regular occurrence up to today, when it occurs every afternoon. The birds have even paraded along Princes Street in 1955 and at the Royal Highland Show for the Queen in 1960. It’s interesting to note that the penguin parade is run on an entirely voluntary basis. The penguins are not encouraged to take part with food or other tricks.

One of the zoo’s famous inhabitants during the post-war period was Voytek, a Syrian brown bear and a member of the Polish army. During the Second World War, Voytek was sold to a group of Polish soldiers who taught him to carry crates of ammunition, and took him in as an unofficial mascot. In 1944 when the Polish II Corps where to sail to Italy along with the British 8th Army, Voytek had to be officially drafted into the Polish army in order to secure him passage on a British transport ship.

The II Corps were demobilised in 1946 and ended up settling in Winfield Camp near Hutton, Berwickshire, Scotland. Voytek retired to Edinburgh Zoo in 1947 and lived there until his death in 1963. During his time in the army Voytek had developed a liking for cigarettes, and this may have contributed to his popularity as an attraction at the zoo.

In 1972 the zoo gained yet more military credentials when king penguin Nils Olav was adopted by the Norwegian King’s Guard. Norway’s connection with Edinburgh’s penguins began with the Salvesen family’s links to the zoo, and renewed interest was sparked when a lieutenant called Nils Egelien visited the zoo with the King’s Guard in 1961. On his return in 1972 Egelien arranged for the unit to adopt one of the penguins. Nils Olav was named after Egelien and in honour of King Olav V of Norway, and given the rank of lance corporal. He died in 1987 and his successor, Nils Olav II, inherited his rank. Nils was visited by the Norwegian King’s Guard on 15 August 2008 and awarded a knighthood. The honour was approved by the King of Norway, King Harald V. During the ceremony a crowd of several hundred people joined the 130 guardsmen at the zoo to hear a citation from King Harald the Fifth of Norway read out, which described Nils as a penguin “in every way qualified to receive the honour and dignity of knighthood”.

Three-year-old polar bear Mercedes was given to the zoo in 1984, after she was rescued in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. She had begun wandering into the town in search of food. Because of the danger she posed to residents, Mercedes was tagged with a number so she could be tracked. When she could not be persuaded to return to the wild, a decision was taken to shoot her. A member of the Edinburgh Zoological Society collaborated with a cousin in Canada and they were able to rescue Mercedes, finding her a new home at Edinburgh zoo. The bear would become one of the zoo’s most popular attractions.

The Modern Day…

In October 1999 the zoo had begun to explore the possibility of relocating in order to improve its facilities as there was limited room for expansion in the current site. As of February 2000 the zoo had scrapped its plans to relocate, instead announcing a “masterplan” for the redevelopment of the entire site, which continues to today.

The foot-and-mouth scare of 2001 forced the zoo to close to protect the animals from possible infection. Since the zoo could not welcome any visitors, it faced significant financial losses. Questions were posed about the zoo’s future, though in the end the park was able to reopen after only five weeks. The generosity of a former resident of the city was a huge help to the zoo in this difficult time, as in early April they donated £1.9 million just as the zoo reopened.

In 2005 the new Budongo chimp house was unveiled, along with the Living Links to Human Evolution Centre, Britain’s first primate behaviour research site. Named after the Budongo Forest in Uganda, the Budongo Trail is a state-of-the-art facility that houses a troop of common chimpanzees. The main building features viewing galleries, a lecture theatre and interactive games and displays that are designed to teach the public about chimpanzees and their lifestyle, social structure and what threats they face in the wild. The Living Links centre is an area built around a field station and research centre for the study of primate behaviour. The exhibit also features enclosures housing common squirrel monkeys and brown capuchin monkey. In a scientific breakthrough in 2006 chimpanzees at Edinburgh were found to use word-like vocal labels for food.

In 2011, two giant pandas, a male named Yáng Guāng (陽光, meaning “sunshine”) and a female named Tián Tián (甜甜, meaning “sweetie”), were leased by Edinburgh Zoo from the Bifengxia Breeding Centre in China at a cost of $1m a year. An enclosure was constructed especially for the pandas. Both pandas have identical, but separate indoor and outdoor enclosures as giant pandas are entirely solitary animals that only meet during breeding season once a year. The outdoor enclosures feature tree trunks for the pandas to scratch against and climb; large wooden climbing frames and tree houses; caves and ponds. The indoor enclosures, where they often choose to sleep, include raised wooden platforms and hammocks. They will remain at the zoo for a maximum of ten years before being returned to China. Edinburgh Zoo is currently the only zoo in the United Kingdom that houses giant pandas.

Edinburgh Zoo is home to the only four koalas in the UK, Goonaroo, Yabbra, Alinga and the newest arrival, Yoonarah, who was the first koala born in the UK. The koalas are part of the European Breeding Programme. Edinburgh Zoo is the European ‘holding facility’ for male koalas that are either too young to breed or have successfully bred and are now “retired”.

Edinburgh Zoo has recently opened two very unique exhibits, the Wallaby Outback and the Lemur Walkthrough. Both are a new design which allows visitors to enter and follow a trail around the enclosure, getting closer to these species than ever before. Visitors enter via a double-gated entry system and can take a leisurely stroll on a looped pathway and although visitors will not have direct physical contact, the new walkthrough experiences immerse people in the enclosure, offering them an unrestricted view of the animals.

Edinburgh Zoo is now fully interactive on the internet with several live cam feeds, take a look at them below:

Panda Cam

Penguin Cam

Underwater Penguin Cam

Squirrel Monkey Cam

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If you were not aware UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and they are in charge of running the World Heritage Programme. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humanity. There are currently 1008 sites listed across 161 countries including such wonders as the Great Wall of China, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks, Statue of Liberty in the USA, Uluru in Australia and many, many more.

Now let’s take a look at what Scotland has to offer, starting with the most recent addition…

Forth Bridge

The Forth Bridge is one of 3 crossings over the Firth of Forth beginning just west of Edinburgh over to Queensferry. Alongside it are the Forth Road Bridge and the yet to be completed Queensferry Crossing. It is a fantastic example of single cantilever bridge and was the longest such bridge in the world until 1917 when the Quebec Bridge in Canada was completed but it continues to be world’s second-longest single cantilever span. It is 8,094 feet in length, and the double track is elevated 150 feet above the water level at high tide. The weight of the bridge superstructure was 50,513 long tons, including the 6.5 million rivets used. The bridge also used 640,000 cubic feet of granite.

Prior to the construction of the bridge the only way across the Forth was by ferry. In 1806 it was proposed that a tunnel was dug under the Forth to provide a crossing route and in 1818 James Anderson produced a design for a three-span suspension bridge close to the site of the present one but that proved to not move forward any further than a design. Thomas Bouch became involved in 1871 and designed a suspension bridge that would have crossed the Forth at almost the same point as the present bridge, and after careful verification, work started in 1878 on a pier at Inchgarvie. However following the Tay Bridge disaster in 1879, all confidence in Bouch quickly evaporated. The public inquiry into the disaster found the Tay Bridge to be “badly designed, badly constructed and badly maintained,” with Bouch being “mainly to blame” for the defects in construction and maintenance and “entirely responsible” for the defects in design. Bouch’s design was formally abandoned on 13 January 1881, and Sir John Fowler, W. H. Barlow and T. E. Harrison, consulting engineers to the project, were invited to give proposals for a bridge. It was two of these men, the English engineers, Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker, that designed the bridge we know and love today.

In April 1883, construction of a landing stage at Inchgarvie commenced. Extensive preparations took place to prepare the are for the bridge and included removal of an old coastguard station at the Fife end to make way for the north-east pier, a steep hillside had to be terraced on the Queensferry end and wooden huts and shops for the workmen were put up in the area, a cable was laid across the Forth to allow telephone communication between the centres at Queensferry, Inchgarvie, and Fife. Near the shore a sawmill and cement store were erected, and a substantial jetty around 2,100 feet long was started early in 1883 and sidings were built to bring railway vehicles among the shops, and cranes set up to allow the loading and movement of material delivered by rail. On Inchgarvie extant buildings, including fortifications built in the 15th century, were roofed over to increase the available space, and the rock at the west of the island was cut down to a level 7 feet above high water, and a seawall was built to protect against large waves.

At its peak, approximately 4,600 workers were employed in its construction, it used 55,000 tonnes of steel and 140,000 cubic yards of masonry including Aberdeen granite, Arbroath rubble, sand and timber the marvel of engineering was completed after 6 hard years in December 1889. The first complete crossing took place on 24 February, when a train consisting of two carriages carrying the chairmen of the various railway companies involved made several crossings. The bridge was officially opened on 4 March 1890 by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, who drove home the last rivet, which was gold plated and suitably inscribed. The key for the official opening was made by Edinburgh silversmith John Finlayson Bain, commemorated in a plaque on the bridge.

Something interesting happened between competing railway operators following the opening of the bridge. Previously a trip from London to Aberdeen would have taken around 13 hours up the west coast lines(from Euston and using the London and North Western Railway and Caledonian Railway on a west coast route), with the opening of the east coast lines(starting from King’s Cross up to the Great Northern, North Eastern and North British railways east line) the two different routes began to unofficially race reducing the journey time to about 8½ hours on the overnight runs. When the public interest in these ‘races’ began to subside the journey pulled back to an average time of around 10 hours, still a big improvement.

In the First World War British sailors would time their departures or returns to the base at Rosyth by asking when they would pass under the bridge. This practice continued at least up to the 1990s.

The first German air attack on Britain in the Second World War took place over the Forth Bridge, six weeks into the war, on 16 October 1939. Although known as the “Forth Bridge Raid”, the bridge was not the target and not damaged. The target of the attack was shipping from the Rosyth naval base in the Forth, close to the bridge.

Network Rail plans to add a visitor centre to the bridge, which would include a viewing platform on top of the North Queensferry side, or a bridge climbing experience to the South Queensferry side.

St Kilda

St Kilda is an isolated archipelago 64 kilometres west-northwest of North Uist in the North Atlantic Ocean. It contains the westernmost islands of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The largest island is Hirta, whose sea cliffs are the highest in the United Kingdom; three other islands (Dùn, Soay and Boreray) were also used for grazing and seabird hunting.

St Kilda may have been permanently inhabited for at least two millennia, the population probably never exceeding 180 but the entire remaining population was evacuated from Hirta (the only inhabited island) in 1930. It became one of Scotland’s six World Heritage Sites in 1986 and is one of the few in the world to hold joint status for its natural and cultural qualities, an honour the islands share with internationally important sites such as Machu Picchu in Peru, Mount Athos in Greece and the Ukhahlamba/Drakensberg Park in South Africa.. Parties of volunteers work on the islands in the summer to restore the many ruined buildings that the native St Kildans left behind. They share the island with a small military base established in 1957.

One of the primary themes of life on St Kilda for the natives was that of isolation. Separated by distance and weather, the natives knew little of mainland and international politics. After the Battle of Culloden in 1746, it was rumoured that Bonnie Prince Charlie and some of his senior Jacobite aides had escaped to St Kilda. An expedition was launched, and in due course British soldiers were ferried ashore to Hirta. They found a deserted village, as the St Kildans, fearing pirates, had fled to caves to the west. When the St Kildans were persuaded to come down, the soldiers discovered that the isolated natives knew nothing of the prince and had never heard of King George II either.

Even in the late 19th century, the islanders could only communicate with the rest of the world by either lighting a bonfire on the summit of Conachair and hoping a passing ship might see it, or by using the “St Kilda mailboat”. This was the invention of John Sands, who visited in 1877. During his stay, a shipwreck left nine Austrian sailors marooned there, and by February supplies were running low. Sands attached a message to a lifebuoy salvaged from the Peti Dubrovacki and threw it into the sea. Nine days later it was picked up in Birsay, Orkney, and a rescue was arranged. The St Kildans, building on this idea, would fashion a piece of wood into the shape of a boat, attach it to a bladder made of sheepskin, and place in it a small bottle or tin containing a message. Launched when the wind came from the north-west, two-thirds of the messages were later found on the west coast of Scotland or, less conveniently, in Norway.

Above and beyond the isolation the life of a St Kildan was very different for several other reasons. Their diet was heavily restricted by what could be farmed or hunted on the island. The islanders kept sheep and a few cattle and were able to grow a limited amount of food crops such as barley and potatoes and they generally shied away from the fishing that you would expect from such an area due to the unpredictable nature of the seas around the island. Instead the mainstay of their diet was the profusion of island birds, especially gannet and fulmar. They harvested the eggs and young birds and ate both fresh and cured. Adult puffins were also caught by the use of fowling rods. These fowling activities involved considerable skills in climbing, especially on the precipitous sea stacks. An important island tradition involved the ‘Mistress Stone’, a door-shaped opening in the rocks north-west of Ruival over-hanging a gully. Young men of the island had to undertake a ritual there to prove themselves on the crags and worthy of taking a wife.

Another important aspect of St Kildan life was the daily ‘Parliament’. This was a meeting held in the street every morning and attended by all the adult males during the course of which they would decide upon the day’s activities. No one led the meeting, and all men had the right to speak.

On 29 August 1930, the residents of the island were removed to Morvern on the Scottish mainland at their own request. Numerous factors led to the evacuation of St Kilda. The islands’ inhabitants had existed for centuries in relative isolation until tourism and the presence of the military in World War I disconnected the islanders from the way of life that had allowed their forebears to survive in this unique environment. After World War I most of the young men left the island, and the population fell from 73 in 1920 to 37 in 1928. After the death of four men from influenza in 1926 there was a succession of crop failures in the 1920s. Investigations by Aberdeen University into the soil where crops had been grown have shown that there had been contamination by lead and other pollutants, caused by the use of sea bird carcasses and peat ash in the manure used on the village fields. The dwindling population and the isolation from medical care led to the islanders eventually abandoning St Kilda.

In 1931 St Kilda was sold to the Marquess of Bute, a keen ornithologist. He bequeathed them to The National Trust for Scotland in 1957.

New Lanark

New Lanark is a village on the River Clyde, just over a mile from Lanark, in Lanarkshire, and some 24 miles from Glasgow. It was founded in 1786 by David Dale, who built cotton mills and housing for the mill workers. Dale built the mills there in a brief partnership with the English inventor and entrepreneur Richard Arkwright to take advantage of the water power provided by the only waterfalls on the River Clyde. Under the ownership of a partnership that included Dale’s son-in-law, Robert Owen, a Welsh philanthropist and social reformer, New Lanark became a successful business and an epitome of utopian socialism as well as an early example of a planned settlement and so an important milestone in the historical development of urban planning.

The New Lanark cotton mills were founded in 1786 by David Dale although he sold the mills, lands and village in the early 19th century for £60,000, payable over 20 years, to a partnership that included his son-in-law Robert Owen. Owen, who became mill manager in 1800, was an industrialist who carried on his father-in-law’s philanthropic approach to industrial working and who subsequently became an influential social reformer. In Owen’s time some 2,500 people lived at New Lanark, many from the poorhouses of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Although not the grimmest of mills by far, Owen found the conditions unsatisfactory and resolved to improve the workers’ lot. He paid particular attention to the needs of the 500 or so children living in the village and working at the mills, and opened the first infants’ school in Britain in 1817.

The mills thrived commercially, but Owen’s partners were unhappy at the extra expense incurred by his welfare programmes. Unwilling to allow the mills to revert to the old ways of operating, Owen bought out his partners. In 1813 the Board forced an auction, hoping to obtain the town and mills at a low price but Owen and a new board, that was sympathetic to his reforming ideas, won out.

New Lanark became celebrated throughout Europe, with many leading royals, statesmen and reformers visiting the mills. They were astonished to find a clean, healthy industrial environment with a content, vibrant workforce and a prosperous, viable business venture all rolled into one. Owen’s philosophy was contrary to contemporary thinking, but he was able to demonstrate that it was not necessary for an industrial enterprise to treat its workers badly to be profitable. Owen was able to show visitors the village’s excellent housing and amenities, and the accounts showing the profitability of the mills.

In 1825, control of New Lanark passed to the Walker family when Owen left Britain to start settlement of New Harmony in the US. The Walkers managed the village until 1881, when it was sold to Birkmyre and Sommerville and the Gourock Ropeworks. They and their successor companies remained in control until the mills closed in 1968. The town and the industrial activity had been in decline before then, but after the mills closed migration away from the village accelerated, and the buildings began to deteriorate. In 1970 the mills, other industrial buildings and the houses used by Dale and Owen were sold to Metal Extractions Limited, a scrap metal company. In 1974 the NLCT (now the NLT) was founded to prevent demolition of the village. A compulsory purchase order was used in 1983 to recover the mills and other buildings from Metal Extractions after a repairs notice had been served in 1979. This was because of the state of repair of the buildings despite their listing as historic buildings that required their legal preservation in 1971. By 2005 most of the buildings had been restored and the village has become a major tourist attraction.

It has been estimated that over 400,000 people visit the village each year and about 200 people currently live in New Lanark. Considerable attention has been given to maintaining the historical authenticity of the village. No television aerials or satellite dishes are allowed in the village, and services such as telephone, television and electricity are delivered though buried cables. To provide a consistent appearance all external woodwork is painted white, and doors and windows follow a consistent design. Householders used to be banned from owning dogs, but this rule is no longer enforced.

Edinburgh’s Old & New Town

The Old Town is he name given to the oldest part of Scotland’s capital, and is an area that has retained much of the medieval street plan and many of the reformation era buildings. The New Town is the name given to the are just north of the Old Town, built between 1767 and around 1850, which retains much of the original neo-classical and Georgian period architecture and is considered a masterpiece of city planning. Together these two areas of the city form one World Heritage Site.

The Old Town makes up the heart of Edinburgh and has done since the beginnings of the city of Edinburgh. The Royal Mile is at the heart of the area and makes up it’s main artery, running from Edinburgh Castle all the way down to Holyrood Palace. Narrow closes (alleyways), often no more than a few feet wide, lead steeply downhill to both north and south of the main spine which runs west to east.n addition to the Royal Mile, the Old Town may be divided into various areas, namely from west to east: West Port, the old route out of Edinburgh to the west, Grassmarket, the area to the south-west, Edinburgh Castle, The Cowgate, the lower southern section of the town, Canongate, a name correctly applied to the whole eastern district, Holyrood, the area containing Holyrood Palace and Holyrood Abbey, Croft-An-Righ, a group of buildings north-east of Holyrood. Notable buildings in the Old Town include St. Giles’ Cathedral, the General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland, the National Museum of Scotland, the Old College of the University of Edinburgh and the Scottish Parliament Building.

Due to the space restrictions imposed by the narrowness of the “tail” the Old Town became home to some of the earliest “high rise” residential buildings. Multi-story dwellings were the norm from the 16th century onwards. A census 0f 1792 put the Old Town and Canongate population at around 30,000 residents. As the population was for a long time reluctant to build outside the defensive wall, the need for housing grew and hence the buildings became higher and higher. Many of these buildings were destroyed in the Great Fire of Edinburgh (1824); the rebuilding of these on the original foundations led to changes in the ground level and the creation of many passages and vaults under the Old Town. The construction of new streets including North Bridge and South Bridge in the 18th century also created underground spaces, such as the Edinburgh Vaults below the latter. Traditionally buildings were less dense in the eastern, Canongate, section. This area underwent major slum clearance and reconstruction in the 1950s, thereafter becoming an area largely of Council housing. Further Council housing was built on the southern fringe of the Canongate in the 1960s and 1970s in an area generally called Dumbiedykes. From 1990 to 2010 major new housing schemes appeared throughout the Canongate. These were built to a much higher scale than the traditional buildings and have greatly increased the population of the area.

The idea of a New Town was first suggested in the late 17th century when the Duke of Albany and York (later King James VII and II), when resident Royal Commissioner at Holyrood, encouraged the idea of having an extended regality to the north of the city and a North Bridge. The decision to construct a New Town was taken by the city fathers, after overcrowding inside the Old Town city walls reached breaking point and to prevent an exodus of wealthy citizens from the city to London.[2] The Age of Enlightenment had arrived in Edinburgh, and the outdated city fabric did not suit the professional and merchant classes who lived there. Lord Provost George Drummond succeeded in extending the boundary of the Royal Burgh to encompass the fields to the north of the Nor Loch, the heavily polluted body of water which occupied the valley immediately north of the city. A scheme to drain the Loch was put into action, although the process was not fully completed until 1817. Crossing points were built to access the new land; the North Bridge in 1772, and the Earthen Mound, which began as a tip for material excavated during construction of the New Town. The Mound, as it is known today, reached its present proportions in the 1830s.

As the successive stages of the New Town were developed, the rich moved northwards from cramped tenements in narrow closes into grand Georgian homes on wide roads. However, the poor remained in the Old Town.

The street names applied to the New Town are something of interest when investigated. The principal street was named George Street, after the king at the time, George III. Queen Street was to be located to the north, named after his wife, and St. Giles Street to the south, after the city’s patron saint. St. Andrew’s Square and St. George’s Square, located at either end of George Street, were the names chosen to represent the union of Scotland and England. The idea was continued with the smaller Thistle Street (for Scotland’s national emblem) between George Street and Queen Street, and Rose Street (for England’s emblem) between George Street and Princes Street.

King George rejected the name St. Giles Street as St Giles was known as the patron saint of lepers and the name was also connected with a slum area on the edge of the City of London. It was therefore renamed Princes Street after his sons. The name of St. George’s Square was changed to Charlotte Square, after the Queen, to avoid confusion with the existing George Square on the South Side of the Old Town. The westernmost blocks of Thistle Street were renamed Hill Street and Young Street, making Thistle Street half the length of Rose Street. The three streets completing the grid, Castle, Frederick and Hanover Streets, were named for the view of the castle, King George’s father Frederick, and the name of the royal family respectively.

The New Town was envisaged as a purely residential suburb but it did not take long for the commercial potential of the site to be realised. Shops were soon opened on Princes Street, and during the 19th century the majority of the townhouses on that street were replaced with larger commercial buildings.

Occasional piecemeal redevelopment continues to this day, though most of Queen Street and Thistle Street, and large sections of George Street, Hanover, Frederick and Castle Streets, are still lined with their original late 18th century buildings. Very large sections of the Second New Town, built from the early 19th century are also still exactly as built.

The Antonine Wall

The lesser known brother to England’s Hadrians Wall, the Antonine Wall is a stone and turf fortification built by the Romans across what is now the Central Belt of Scotland, between the Firth of Forth and the Firth of Clyde. It spanned approximately 39 miles and was about 3 metres high and 5 metres wide.

The Antonine wall was built from turf on a stone foundation, and the stone foundations and wing walls of the original forts demonstrate that the original plan was to build a stone wall similar to Hadrian’s Wall, but this plan was at sometime abandoned. The Romans initially planned to build forts every 6 miles, but this was soon revised to every 2 miles, resulting in a total of nineteen forts along the wall. The best preserved but also one of the smallest forts is Rough Castle Fort. In addition to the forts, there are at least 9 smaller fortlets, very likely on Roman mile spacings, which formed part of the original scheme, some of which were later replaced by forts.

Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius ordered the construction of the Antonine Wall around 142 and took around 12 years to complete. The wall was intended as a replacement for Hadrians Wall, 99 miles south, and to extend the borders and dominance of the Roman Empire becoming the new frontier of Britannia.

The wall was abandoned only eight years after completion, when the Roman legions withdrew to Hadrian’s Wall in 162, and over time reached an accommodation with the Brythonic tribes of the area whom they fostered as the buffer states which would later become “The Old North”. After a series of attacks in 197, Emperor Septimius Severus arrived in 208 to secure the frontier, and oversee repairs to the wall. Although this re-occupation only lasted a few years, the wall is sometimes referred to by later Roman historians as the Severan Wall.

Today the remains of the wall and several of the forts can still be seen along it’s original route, and due to it travelling across such a vast area it’s fairly easy to visit and view sections, although it may take a awhile to take in the whole monument.

The Heart of Neolithic Orkney

The Heart of Neolithic Orkney refers to a group of Neolithic monuments found on the Mainland, one of the islands of Orkney, and the name was adopted by UNESCO when it proclaimed these sites as a World Heritage Site in 1999.

The grouping currently consists of four important sites found in and around this are; Maeshowe, Standing Stones of Stenness, Ring of Brodgar and Skara Brae.

Maeshowe is a Neolithic chambered cairn and passage grave that was likely built around 2800 BCE.

The mound encasing the tomb is 35m in diameter and rises to a height of 7.3m. Surrounding the mound, at a distance of 15m to 21m is a ditch up to 14m wide. The grass mound hides a complex of passages and chambers built of carefully crafted slabs of flagstone weighing up to 30 tons. It is aligned so that the rear wall of its central chamber held up by a bracketed wall,is illuminated on the winter solstice.

Maeshowe is the largest burial cairn of it’s class and gives it’s name to other such chambered cairns, which are limited to Orkney. It is believed a monument such as this, built at the time it was, would have taken a considerable amount of effort to build. Estimates put it somewhere in the area of 100,000 man-hours. It represents a significant example of Neolithic craftsmanship.

The Standing Stones of Stenness, another Neolithic monument, are found 5 miles northeast of Stromness on the mainland of Orkney and may be the oldest henge site in the British Isles.

The monument is made up of thin slabs, approximately 300 mm (12 in) thick with sharply angled tops. Four, up to about 5m high, were originally elements of a stone circle of up to 12 stones, laid out in an ellipse about 32m diameter on a levelled platform of 44m diameter, surrounded by a ditch. Based on radiocarbon dating, it is thought that work on the site had begun by 3100 BC.

Traditions involving the stones survived for centuries, right up to the 18th century. One tradition involved a particular stone, known as the “Odin Stone” which stood in the field to the north of the henge,was pierced with a circular hole, and was used by local couples for plighting engagements by holding hands through the gap.

Unfortunately this stone was destroyed in late 1814. Captain W. Mackay, a recent immigrant to Orkney who owned farmland in the vicinity of the stones, decided to remove them on the grounds that local people were trespassing and disturbing his land by using the stones in rituals. He started by smashing the Odin Stone. This caused outrage in the locals and they managed to stop him causing any more damage, but only after he had destroyed one other stone and toppled another. The toppled stone was re-erected in 1906 along with some inaccurate reconstruction inside the circle.

The Ring of Brodgar (or Brogar, or Ring o’ Brodgar) is another Neolithic henge and stone circle found about 6 miles north-east of Stromness and is the northern most example of a henge found in Britain.

Brodgar is a striking exception of a henge containing a stone circle, ranking with Avebury (and to a lesser extent Stonehenge) among the greatest of such sites. The site has resisted attempts at scientific dating and the monument’s age remains uncertain. It is generally thought to have been erected between 2500 BC and 2000 BC, and was, therefore, the last of the great Neolithic monuments built on the Ness.

Skara Brae is a stone-built Neolithic settlement, located on the Bay of Skaill on the west coast of Mainland which was occupied from roughly 3180 BCE–2500 BCE. It makes up Europe’s most complete Neolithic village older than both Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids, and is often called the “Scottish Pompeii” because of its excellent preservation.

In the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll known as “Skerrabra”. When the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs.

William Watt of Skaill, the local laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after four houses were uncovered, but the work was abandoned in 1868. The site remained undisturbed until 1913, when during a single weekend the site was plundered by a party with shovels who took away an unknown quantity of artifacts. In 1924, another storm swept away part of one of the houses and it was determined the site should be made secure and more seriously investigated. The job was given to University of Edinburgh’s Professor Vere Gordon Childe.

The houses used earth sheltering, being sunk into the ground. It is believed they were sunk into mounds of pre-existing prehistoric domestic waste known as middens. The midden provided the houses with a small degree of stability and also acted as insulation against Orkney’s harsh winter climate. On average, the houses measure 40 square metres in size with a large square room containing a stone hearth used for heating and cooking. Given the number of homes, it seems likely that no more than fifty people lived in Skara Brae at any given time.

The dwellings contain a number of stone-built pieces of furniture, including cupboards, dressers, seats, and storage boxes and each dwelling even included a primitive form of a toilet.

The Grooved Ware People, a distinctive form of pottery found around all the sites in the Neolithic Heart of Orkney, who built Skara Brae were primarily pastoralists who raised cattle and sheep. It was originally believed that the inhabitants did not practice agriculture, but excavations in 1972 unearthed seed grains from a midden suggesting that barley was cultivated.

This pastoral lifestyle is in sharp contrast to some of the more exotic interpretations of the culture of the Skara Brae people. Euan MacKie, a British archaeologist and anthropologist, suggested that Skara Brae might be the home of a privileged theocratic class of wise men who engaged in astronomical and magical ceremonies at nearby Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness. Doubt has been cast on this interpretation as there is no archaeological evidence to back it up.

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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 Wall.

Around the world other such sites that have been awarded the same status include the Great Wall of Chine, the Pyramids of Eqypt and the Sydney Opera House.  The World heritage status is only given to those sites that offer ‘outstanding universal value’ with the aim of the status being to protect these valuable sites for future generations to enjoy.

The bid for World Heritage status was led by the Forth Bridges Forum, which was established by the Scottish government to promote the three Forth Bridges; the Forth Bridge itself, the Forth Road Bridge and the Queensferry Crossing which is due to open in 2016.

The rail bridge, designed by Sir John Fowler and Benjamin Bakerwhich, is 2,529 metres (8,296ft) long and 100 metres high, weighs 53,000 tonnes, and was the largest cantilever span in the world until 1917 when the Quebec Bridge in Canada was completed, although it continues to be world’s second-longest single cantilever span to this day.

Come back on Friday to find out more about this fantastic feat of engineering and the other World Heritage Sites in Scotland.

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Inchkeith

Inchkeith is actually part of the Fife council area but due to it’s proximity to Edinburgh has had one of the most colourful histories of the islands of the Forth.

Not much is known about the earliest history of the island and no mention can be found until around the 12th century. Although it is believed the island would have seen a lot of traffic when travel across the Forth could only be made by boat. When the Scottish wars for Independance were in full swing, in the 14th century, Inchkeith and the nearby Inchcolm and Isle of May were often targeted by English raiders, as the islands were effectively in the route of any supply or raiding vessels and control of them was strategically vital.

1493 saw an extraordinary experiment take place on Inchkeith under the orders of King James IV. The King ordered that a mute woman and 2 infant children were to be transported to the island and to remain there. The experiment took place in order to ascertain what language the infants would grow up to speak, being isolated from the rest of the world and any form of language. it was thought at the time they would learn the ‘original’ language or the language of the Gods, but by all accounts and records they grew up with no language skills whatsoever.

In 1497 the island was put to an important use by the City of Edinburgh as a quarantine zone. A minutes of the Town Council of Edinburgh, recognised something of an epidemic of the ‘grandgor’ known to us today as syphilis and an act was passed in September of that year causing Inchkeith, and other islands of the Forth such as Inchgarvie, to become a place of ‘compulsory retirement’ for people suffering from the illness. They were ordered to board ships from Leith and once there to ‘remain till God provide for their health’. There are no records as to the fate of the people sent off to the islands, but it is likely they all died from the disease.

During the War of the Rough Wooing in the 16th century, the island was fortified by the English. After the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547, the Earl of Somerset garrisoned the island, and with the help of a company of Italians built a large square fort on the site of the present day lighthouse. This garrison was ejected a couple of years later in 1549 by a combined Franco-Scottish force under General D’Essé.

After the end of the war of the Rough Wooing, the island was occupied by the French, under Mary of Guise during her period as the Regent of Scotland between 1554 and 1560.[25] The old English fortifications were further strengthened by the Scots and French, who under D’Essé built a larger and stronger fort. Accounts for this rebuilding written in French survive with the names of the Scottish craftsmen and women who worked there in 1555.

Mary, Queen of Scots, inspected the island and it’s French garrison in the 1560s and a stone from the original gateway with “MR”, Maria Regina, and the date still exists, built into a wall below the lighthouse. The guns were used during the rebellion against Mary called the Chaseabout Raid. Lord Darnley was sent to inspect the armaments in August 1565. The English ship, The Aide captained by Anthony Jenkinson arrived in the Forth on 25 September 1565, and was bombarded by the cannon on Inchkeith. Jenkynson had intended to blockade Leith to prevent Lord Seton bringing more munitions for Mary from France. After Mary was deposed in 1567, the fort was ordered to be razed. As her opponents were anti-French they were none too happy with a French garrison so close to the city. The Captain of the garrison, Robert Anstruther, was rewarded with all the ironwork timber and slates to be salvaged, and ownership of the island was given to John Lyon, 8th Lord Glamis. The remaining buildings were later used as a prison.

The construction of Inchkeith Lighthouse began on the island in 1803, and was designed and built by Thomas Smith and Robert Stevenson(the grandfather of author Robert Louis Stevenson). The lighthouse, standing 67 metres high, was first operational by 1804, and is now listed as a building of architectural and historic significance.

Inchkeith continued to be fortified over the coming years. From the 1890s until the early 1900s, the fort at Inchkeith underwent a sequence of gun improvements and replacements and the island being made ready in August 1914 for the first world war.

During World War I, the Royal Navy battleship HMS Britannia, at the time a part of the 3rd Battle Squadron in the Grand Fleet, ran aground at Inchkeith on 26 January 1915, suffering considerable bottom damage. She was refloated after 36 hours and was repaired and refitted at Devonport Dockyard.

In 1938, following the Munich Crisis, the island was further mobilised, and had Nissen Huts installed, presumably for equipment and personnel. In that year, during a practice firing of the guns on Inchkeith, a practice shell landed on a building on Salamander Street in Leith.

Inchkeith, along with several other islands in the Forth formed an important part in the defensive strategy of the Firth of Forth and from this point on her defences were continually upgraded, added to and generally improved.

In 1944 Inchkeith was chosen as the site for Operation Fortitude North, part of a wider deception plan known as Operation Bodyguard orchestrated by the Allied forces and carried out as part of the build-up to the Invasion of Normandy. The main objective of the plan was to lead the Germans to believe the the Allied invasion of Northern Europe would be coming at a much later date than that actually planned and was likely to be launched at a much different location. Spoof radio traffic and double agents were used to spread misinformation about the operation and on 3rd March 1944, members of a “Special RS (Royal Signals) Unit” from the British Fourth Army landed on Inchkeith, with a detachment of 22 men and 4 officers, with two radio vans. At the beginning of April, a further 40 men arrived, and proceeded to stage mock attacks of the Inchkeith defences via the cliffs, until their departure in September.

Although Operation Fortitude was a great success, Inchkeith appears not to have been overflown by German Reconnaissance planes until October 7. Examination of the footage taken in 1945 appeared to indicate that the plane flew too high to ascertain anything meaningful.

Following the end of World War II dismantling of the defences was begun in 1945 and by early 1946 only a small number of troops remained stationed on the island and finally in 1957 all military use of the island ceased. Owner ship of the island then passed over to the Northern Lighthouse Board. In 1986 the lightkeepers were withdrawn when the lighthouse was automated and the owners sold the island to the millionaire philanthropist Sir Tom Farmer, best known for founding Kwik-Fit. Under current ownership, permission is needed to land at Inchkeith.

Bass Rock

The beautiful island known as Bass Rock is found just off the coast of the small town of North Berwick. The rock is currently uninhabited, but historically has been settled by an early Christian hermit, St Baldred is said to have lived there in 600 AD, and later was the site of an important castle, which after the Commonwealth period was used as a prison.

The earliest recorded proprietors are the Lauder of the Bass family and according to legend, the island is said to have been a gift from King Malcolm III of Scotland. The crest on their heraldic arms is, appropriately, a gannet standing upon a rock.

In 1497 King James IV visited the Bass and stayed in the castle with a later Sir Robert Lauder of the Bass. George Lauder of the Bass entertained King James VI of Scotland when he visited the Bass in 1581 and the king was so enamoured that he offered to buy the island, a proposition which did not commend itself to George Lauder although the King appears to have accepted the situation with good grace.

James I consigned several of his political enemies to the Bass in the 15th century. Many members of the Clan MacKay ended up here, including, Neil Bhass MacKay, who gained his epithet from being imprisoned there as a fourteen-year-old in 1428. He was kept there as a hostage, after his father, Aonghas Dubh of Strathnaver in Sutherland was released, as security.

After owning the island for almost 600 years, the Lauders lost control of it in 1650, during Cromwell’s invasion, and the castle ended up as notorious prison which for many years held religious and political prisoners, especially Covenanters. The fortress was destroyed by the government in 1701, and on 31 July 1706 the President of the Court of Session, Hew Dalrymple, Lord North Berwick, acquired the Bass by charter (ratified by Parliament in March 1707), for a purely nominal sum, and the island has been ever since in the uninterrupted possession of the Dalrymple family.

Today the island is uninhabited by humans but does play host to over 150,000 gannets and is the largest single rock gannetry in the world and described by Sir David Attenborough as ‘one of the wildlife wonders of the world’. In fact the scientific name for the northern gannet, Sula bassana or Morus bassanus, derives its name from the rock. When viewed from the mainland, large regions of the surface appear white due to the sheer number of birds and their droppings.

The Scottish Seabird Centre at North Berwick has solar powered cameras located on the island which beam back live close up images of the seabirds to large screens on the mainland, just over a mile away. The images are sharp enough for visitors at the Scottish Seabird Centre to read the ID rings on birds’ feet. The Seabird Centre has a total of 10 cameras located on the islands of the Forth and also broadcasts the images live on the internet. Take a look at their webcams here.

Cramond Island

Cramond is a tidal island about one mile off the coast of Edinburgh. A paved path, exposed at low water, allows easy access, but at high tide the path is covered by several feet of seawater which cuts the island off from the mainland. It is safe to walk along the raised causeway to the island at low tide, but only if visitors ensure that they leave enough time to return to the mainland before the water rises. The speed at which the tide comes in can easily trap the unwary.

There is evidence to suggest that the island may have had special significance to the prehistoric peoples who lived along the coast of the Firth of Forth, as at least one stone burial cist was found.

Cramond island has been used for farming, especially sheep farming, throughout most of it’s history and was at one time famous for it’s oyster beds, although these have now been destroyed due to over fishing.

Cramond island, much like the other islands of the Forth, was fortified at the outbreak of the Second World War to protect the coasts in the event of enemy warships entering the channel. A number of these buildings remain and can be explored. After crossing the causeway, the first structures are the emplacements for a 75 mm gun and its associated searchlight. More buildings are in the north east corner of the island, which include a variety of stores, shelters and gun emplacements, as well as two engine rooms that once contained all the equipment necessary to supply power to the military installations on the island. Further along the northern coast, low concrete stumps protrude from the undergrowth, all that remain of the barracks that housed the garrison on the island. On the western side, perched precariously on the rocky shore, is the ruin of a small square building which was used as an ammunition store during the war, though its stone construction suggests it is much older than either World War.

Inchcolm

Inchcolm is located to the north of the Forth, fairly close to the coast of Fife. It’s well known as a tourist destination with people flocking to see, the former Augustinian, Inchcolm Abbey. It was the home of a religious community linked with St Colm or St Columba, the 6th-century Abbot of Iona. King Alexander I was storm-bound on the island for three days in 1123 and in recognition of the shelter given to him by the hermits, promised to establish a monastic settlement in honour of St Columba. Though the king died before the promise could be fulfilled, his brother David I later founded a priory here for monks of the Augustinian order; the priory was erected into an abbey in 1223.

Inchcolm Island was supposedly visited by St Columba in 567, and was thought to have acted as an ‘Iona of the east’. A primitive stone-roofed building survived on the island, preserved and given a vaulted roof by the monks of the later abbey, probably served as a hermit’s oratory and cell in the 12th century, if not earlier. Fragments of carved stonework from the Dark Ages testify to an early Christian presence on the island. A hogback stone, preserved in the abbey’s visitor centre, can be dated to the late 10th century, making it probably Scotland’s earliest type of monument originating among Danish settlers in northern England.

Much like the nearby Inchkeith and Isle of May, Inchcolm was subject to raids by the English during the Scottish Wars of Independence in the 14th century. There was a particularly infamous raid that took place in 1335 when an English ship raided the island. The raiders took treasures from the abbey, along with a statue of Columba. The story goes that as the raiders were making their escape they were nearly wrecked on the shores of Inchkeith, and the sailors being of a religious nature felt it was the wrath of Columba himself, and so returned the treasures to the abbey. From then on they experienced a calm and uneventful journey. In 1384, an English raid attempted to set alight Inchcolm Abbey, but this again was foiled by the weather – in this case a strong wind blew out the flames.

In the 16th century the island was fortified by the English, much like Inchgarvie and was also used as a kind of prison. Archbishop Patrick Graham of St Andrews and Euphemia, mother of Alexander, Lord of the Isles, were two of the most well known persons to be held there.

Inchcolm, much like the other islands of the Forth was fortified during World War I & II, to help defend the Forth against attack.

The island gets a mention in Shakespeare’s Macbeth; “That now Sweno, the Norwayes King,
Craves composition:
Nor would we deigne him buriall of his men,
Till he disbursed, at Saint Colmes ynch,
Ten thousand Dollars, to our generall use”.

The island can be visited today, as two ferry services run regular trips out to the island from South Queensferry.

Inchgarvie

Inchgarvie is a fairly small island found right next to the Forth Bridge and four caissons that make up the foundations can be found around the island.

Inchgarvie more so than the other islands, was right in the path of any boats crossing the Forth, before any bridges were in place.

King James IV licensed the island to John Dundas in 1491, with the power to build a fort. However this did not come to pass, and James IV ordered the building of a strong tower in 1513. By 1514 the tower was still not complete and Margaret, granddaughter of John Dundas, undertook the task of overseeing the completion of the project started so many years before. The fort was captured by Richard Brooke in the Galley Subtile on 6 May 1544 during an attack on Edinburgh and demolished a week later. The English commander Lord Hertford wrote that it would have been useful to garrison Inchgarvie, but his orders from Henry VIII would not allow it.

On 6 September 1627, the Laird of Dundas was invited to meet the Privy Council at South Queensferry and discuss building a modern fort on the island.

During the reign of Charles II as King of Scots, the island was subject to continued maintenance for defensive purposes. The island was inspected by Charles in 1651 before falling into disrepair after his army was defeated by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester.

In 1707 the island is known to have been rented to Archibald Primrose, 1st Earl of Rosebery. In 1779, however, the island’s fortifications were renewed once more, in response to the threat posed by John Paul Jones, American Naval Commander, who harassed British ships from a base in the Forth.

In 1878 the island became a foundation for Thomas Bouch’s Forth Bridge. It became a construction office for the project, as well as accommodation for the workers. Some of the stone from the former castle was used to help build the caissons of the Forth Bridge.

During the wartime fortifications of the islands it became a primary defence against air and submarine attacks on the Forth Bridge and the Rosyth Dockyard with the gun emplacements being permanently manned throughout war. Like nearby Inchmickery, its profile and colour makes it look like a battleship from a distance which added to it’s defensive nature.

Inchmickery

Inchmickery is a tiny island, only 100 metres by 200 metres, found about two miles north of Edinburgh.

During both World War I and II the island was used as a gun emplacement and the buildings were constructed, much like Inchgarvie, to give the appearance that the island was in fact a battleship. Much of the structures remain to this day, although have been long abandoned.

The island is now an RSPB reserve, and is home to breeding pairs of common eider, Sandwich terns and various gulls. It used to be a nesting site for the very rare roseate tern, but the roseate terns have now moved elsewhere in the Firth of Forth.

Isle of May

The Isle of May is located in the north of the outer Firth of Forth, approximately 8km off the coast of mainland Scotland. It is 1.8 km long and less than half a kilometre wide.

The island was the site of one of the earliest Christian churches in Scotland, founded in the 9th century and built into an unusual mass-burial mound that probably dates from prehistoric times. Although radiocarbon dating of bones reveal them to date from the 7th century to the 10th century, remains of Bronze Age funeral urns suggest that the mound may be older. The current chapel on the site is dedicated to Saint Adrian of May, who was killed on the island by Danish invaders in 875.

The original church was expanded during the 12th century by David I of Scotland. The monks agreed to maintain nine priests on the island to pray for the souls of the Kings Of Scots.

Evidence found on the island suggests it was an important place for pilgrimage during the 12th century. The remains of a 12 seat communal lavatory, which is much larger than necessary for the 9 monks who resided there, give the impression many visitors were seen on the island.

The ownership of the island passed between many hands over the course of time. Bishop Wishart of St Andrews bought the priory in the middle of the 13th century. The priory was finally transferred to the Canons of St Andrews in 1318, and was relocated at Pittenweem. The Prior of Pittenweem passed the island to Patrick Learmonth of Dairsie, Provost of St Andrews in 1549. He sold it to Balfour of Manquhany in 1551, who in turn passed it on to Forret of Fyngask seven years later, who sold it to Allan Lamont, who in turn sold it to John Cunningham of Barnes.

The isle has long been a focal point for local fisherman and their families. It had long been a tradition for the wives and children of the fisherman of the village of Cellardyke to be taken to the isle for a picnic each year.

On the night of January 31st 1918, the Battle of May took place, although it was more of a catastrophic blunder by the navy. A sequence of accidental collisions between Royal Navy warships occurred over little more than an hour which saw two submarines sunk with heavy loss of life, another four damaged along with a light cruiser.

The Navy maintained a control centre on the island to detect U-boats and enemy surface vessels trying to enter the Forth from shortly before the Second World War until 1946.

Since 1956 the isle has been dedicated as a National Nature Reserve and managed by the Nature Conservancy Council, now Scottish Natural Heritage, although until 1989 it was actually owned by the Northern Lighthouse Board.

The isle also features a rather impressive lighthouse, which started life as a simple beacon. The first permanently manned one in Scotland and considered at the time to be one of the best in existence. It used around 400 tons of coal per year, and required three men to look after it. A proper lighthouse was built on the island in 1816 by Robert Stevenson. It is an ornate gothic tower on a castellated stone building designed to resemble a castle, 24 metres high and with accommodation for three light keepers and their families. The new lighthouse started operating on 1 September 1816.

Fidra

Fidra is an uninhabited island in the Firth of Forth, 4 kilometres north-west of North Berwick, on the east coast of Scotland.

Like the nearby Bass Rock, it has a substantial seabird population, and is now an RSPB reserve. Remotely operated cameras on the island send live pictures to the watching visitors at the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick.

Upon the island are ruins of an old chapel which was dedicated in 1165 to St. Nicholas. In the 12th century, the island formed part of the barony of Dirleton, which was granted to John de Vaux by King David I. The de Vaux family built a stronghold, known as Tarbet Castle, on the island, but in 1220, William de Vaux gifted Fidra to the monks of Dryburgh Abbey, in the Borders. His successor built Dirleton Castle, on the mainland, as a replacement dwelling.

Robert Louis Stevenson often visited the beaches at the area known today as Yellowcraigs and it is said that he based his map of Treasure Island on the shape of Fidra. (This claim is also made about the island of Unst in Shetland.) He also mentioned Fidra in his novel Catriona.

Alloa Inch, Craigleith, The Lamb and Tullibody Inch

There are four other islands that make up the set, and whilst the beauty of each is undeniable, they don’t have as much going on in their history as the others. So take a look at a couple of wonderful pictures of them instead.

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The story of the Luckenbooth begins on the Royal Mile, the famous street that runs from the Castle all the way down to the palace of Holyrood. This street became the only acceptable trade route to and from the castle and as such became a very important thoroughfare.

By the 16th century many parts of this route became dedicated markets and featured some of the cities first permanent shops. Many of which housed trades people who made and sold their small selection of wares, and amongst the most popular were the jewellers. These shops were known as locked booths, and from this derived the term ‘Luckenbooth’ used to describe one of their most popular designs. It featured the ‘heart and crown of Scotland’ and was romantically linked to the tragic Mary, Queen of Scots, as it was the brooch she had given to Lord Darnley.

The tradition that rose up around the brooch was that a young man would give his lady the brooch on their wedding day. Once their first child the brooch would then be passed on to the newest member to protect it from ‘evil spirits’. As such it had very similar connotations to the Irish ‘Claddagh’ ring, especially with the similar heart shaped theme.

The style of the Luckenbooth brooch became very popular throughout the UK. By the 18th century the trade in silver to the New World included the little brooch and many ended up being traded with Native Americans, Particularly the Iroquois of the Six Nations. As a result of this the Luckenbooth became a popular decorative symbol in their traditional costumes.

Not a symbol of Edinburgh that you would see if you were not looking for it, the City Coat of Arms present version is a modified version of the arms registered by the Lord Lyon in 1732. This previous version had been used for centuries, but had not been officially recognised.

As with any Coat of Arms there is a fair amount of symbolism within the arms. The castle within the centre shield represents Edinburgh castle, it’s most prominent landmark. The anchor above this, or the crest, represents the Lord Provost’s position as the Admiral of the Firth of Forth. The sinister supporter, a doe, is a link to the city’s patron saint St Giles who, as the story goes, spent much of his life in solitude in the forests of Provence with only a doe for company. The dexter supporter, a “woman richly attired with her hair hanging over her shoulders” represents the fact that Edinburgh Castle was historically known as the “Castle of the Maidens” probably due to it being used to protect princesses and noblewomen in times of war.

Coat of Arms on a window in the City Chambers

The motto Nisi Dominus Frustra means “Except the Lord in Vain”, a shortened version of a verse from Psalm 127: “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”

There was some controversy surrounding the arms as in Scotland it is a statutory requirement to register register armorial bearing with the Lord Lyon, who is responsible for regulating the system of Scottish Heraldry, in a process known as “matriculation”. An action was begun against Edinburgh council in 1732, for failing to matriculate it’s Burgh arms. But the council received the following legal opinion ”that the town would not be bound in law to matriculat”. Unfortunately no record exists of any subsequent action, suggesting that the case was dropped.

The Lyon issued a general statement in 1771 that “all persons whether Nobility, Gentry, Towns or Bodies Corporate, bearing arms any manner or way which are recorded in terms of the Act…to give in or send to the Lyon Office an account of such Arms and of the title whereby they claim to wear the same”. Edinburgh Councils reaction wa smuch the same as before and refused to comply on the grounds that Scotland’s royal burghs ”had possessed the privilege of using seals and armorial bearings from a remote period which far outdated the Acts of 1592 and 1672, from which the Lord Lyon derived his jurisdiction, and that since neither of these Acts specifically mentioned the Burghs, they did not apply to them”.

It was only 3 years later that a document was discovered among the papers of an Edinburgh lawyer - a Certificate of Matriculation of “the Ensigns Armorial or Coat of Arms of the good town of Edinburgh” signed by the Lyon and dated 21 April 1732. It seems the Edinburgh City Coat of Arms had been matriculated years before!

The Heart of Midlothian is a heart shaped mosaic formed in coloured granite setts, built into the pavement near the West Door of St Giles on the High Street section of the Royal Mile.

Together with brass markers bearing building dates, it records the position of the 15th-century Old Tolbooth, demolished in 1817, which was the administrative centre of the town, prison and one of several sites of public execution. This is believed to be were the modern tradition of spitting on the Heart came from. The spot lay directly outside the prison entrance, and people would spit on the heart to show their disdain for the former institution. Others believe the tradition may have been started even earlier, with former occupants of the prison spitting on the Heart upon their release. These days it is done for good luck.

The mosaic is named after the historic county of Midlothian of which Edinburgh is the county town. This is not to be confused with the council area of the same name which covers a smaller area and does not include the capital. The crest of the Edinburgh football team Hearts of Midlothian is based upon this Heart.

The stag with a cross between it’s antlers is a common site around the palace of Holyrood, found at the bottom of the Royal Mile. The tale of this intriguing symbol is believed to date back to the time of David I.

The son of King Malcolm Canmore and St Margaret, David was a keen hunter and there was nothing he liked better than to hunt stags in the forests of Drumsheugh. One day in the year 1128, he prepared to go hunting but he was approached by a priest who reminded him that it was the 14th September; Holy Rood Day. The term ‘Rood’ was at the time used as a term for the Holy Cross, and that day was considered to be a sacred one indeed, not a day for sport. King David ignored the rebuke and gathered together the hunters to saddle the horses ready for the hunt.

As the party rode through the forest King David found himself separated from his companions when out of nowhere a large white stag burst through the forest and knocked the King from his horse. The stag lowered it’s mighty antlers and seemed ready to gore the King, whose lips were moving in silent prayer, and was sure his time had come. In a moment of bravery the King seized the stag by the antlers and grappled with the fierce beast. But to his amazement the antlers twisted and reformed in his hands to form the shape of a Cross, and the stag bounded away out of sight. Shaken by the experience the King returned home to Edinburgh castle and the comfort and safety of his court.

That night as King David lay asleep in his bed, he dreamed that a voice spoke to him, commanding him to have an abbey built on the spot he had wrestled with the magnificent stag. The next morning spurred on by what he believed to be a Holy vision he ordered the construction of Holyrood Abbey.His orders were carried out and a fine abbey was built to house a community of Augustinian Canons who flourished there fro many years.

The ruins of Holyrood Abbey can still be visited to this day

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