The town of Duns, about a mile from the castle, has been the regent county town of Berwickshire since the town of Berwick ceased to be in Scotland. The little market town, which took its name from the ‘dun’(hill) on which it is built and...
When it came into the hands of the Earl of Argyll through marriage in the 15th century, this castle was known as Castle Gloom. The hill beside is still Gloomhill, and the burns which run down on either side are the Burn of Sorrow and...
In both First and Second World Wars, Scapa Flow was a busy naval base, and in both wars its defences were penetrated with serious consequences: in 1917 HMS Vanguard was torpedoed, and in 1939 it was the turn of HMS Royal Oak; both sinking’s resulted in heavy loss of...
‘Wi’ isquebae, we’ll face the devil. Burn’s line is touchily ambiguous (strange how the expression evolved as Dutch and not Scotch courage). The name whisky derives from uisge-beatha, meaning in Gaelic the water of life. When it was first drunk is not clear, but there is a record...
Cutting through the long tongue on the west coast which comprises Knapdale and Kintyre, the Crinan Canal links the Sound of Jura with Loch Fyne. It enabled ships to reach the Western Isles considerably sooner, and with less threat from the weather, than before: the...
Built on the last squares of the alluvial plane which spread from the River Forth at Alloa, south of here, to the start of the Ochil Hills, splendidly apparent before us, Alva is a compact hillfoot town in the Devon Valley. Alva Burn feeds the...
All of Iona’s religious buildings were erected during the Reformation. Nearly all of the ancient Celtic crosses were destroyed then too, though a few remain and are on view near St Mary’s Cathedral. It was in the last century, when the island was bought by...
The early Scottish castles, Norman in design consisted of a mound called a ‘motte’, was basically earth turned out of the moat (itself an essential feature) on which was erected a timber keep annexed in an enclosure called a bailey. The mound and ditch of Duffus...
Loch Moidart runs into the sea via two channels, north and south, and in the latter a rocky mound projects from a sand spit into the loch, becoming and island at high tide. It supports Castle Tioram, or Tirrim, (‘the dry castle’) but those who...
Ullapool is a large village with pretensions to the status of a small town. Certainly, although having a resident population of just over a thousand, it can claim to be the capital of a very extensive area of the north, there being no larger town...