The coast road north from Edinburgh to Saint Andrews and Tayside is for part of its route a series of links between small medieval fishing villages of similar appearance: St Monance, Pittenweem, Anstruther and, the most north-easterly, Crail. James VI called these royal burghs the...
The River Tummel ruins in and out of the narrow strip of the loch of the same name before uniting with the River Garry just south of the Pass of Killiecrankie. Until 1950 the river then continued its flow through the town of Pitlochry to...
Though the first association with ‘Gleneagles’ is likely to be the golf course and hotel, there is in fact a glen of that name running through the Ochil Hills a little to the south. Moreover, the name has nothing to do with birds, deriving from the Gaelic eaglais,...
Castle Island is not the largest on Loch Leven (St Serf’s is) but it is certainly the most famous, a distinction arising out of the island’s connection with Mary Queen of Scots. During the years 1567-8, she was imprisoned here, the unwilling guest of Lady...
The association of Glamis with Shakespeare’s Macbeth is historically vague; the present structure dates mainly from the last quarter of the 17th century, by which time the Englishman who wrote the greatest Scottish play was long dead. However, a building of some sort was on...