Holiday Scotland

  On a cold and frosty morning, 13th of November 1715 the supporters of the exiled Stuart king, known as Jacobites and led by the lacklustre Earl of Mar faced the regimented ranks of the Government Redcoats led by the Duke of Argyll across the frozen morass of Sheriffmuir near Stirling. Over the next few [...]

  The mountains of the Highlands may still be snow-covered, and it doesn’t entirely feel that spring has sprung; but with lambs in the fields and leaves returning to the trees, the colours of Scotland are changing again as the seasonal clogs turn once more through their eternal motion. Through the winter the only green [...]

Once upon a time (as all good stories begin) a small island of the wet and windswept northwest coast of Europe ruled the world; well, maybe not the whole world, but a fair chunk of it: and on that island a grimy city pumped the lifeblood of that empire: when Britannia ‘ruled the waves’ it [...]

  On the 6th of April 1320 the nobility of Scotland gathered in the Abbey of Arbroath on the windswept east coast, and penned a letter to the Pope in Avignon that would come to symbolise Scottish independence, its indefatigability and the liberties and freedoms of her people. The Declaration of Arbroath came against the [...]

  “Transis ample Tai, per rura, per oppida, per Perth, Regnum sustentant illius urbis opes” This year as part of the celebrations commemorating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee several British towns were submitted to the Crown as part of a competition to bestow city status and a winner chosen for each part of Great Britain: Chelmsford [...]

  Late in the evening of the 21st of August 1689 the drone of Clan Donald’s pipes could be heard lamenting across the craggy hills overlooking theTay, as slowly they and other exhausted Highlanders trudged north from the Cathedral City of Dunkeld. Below them was a town ablaze, with smoke rising into the night sky. [...]

  By the middle of the 19th century Glasgow had become one of the largest industrial cities in Europe and its population had swollen to nearly 500,000; but beyond the sandstone palaces of the Merchant City it was a filth ridden slum. In places like the Gorbals people were often forced to sleep 14 to [...]