by John Keeble
I walked through the stage of my day, the High Street of historic Linton near Cambridge, and saw in my mind the Civil War soldiers bloody, the coaching horses sweaty, the First World War veterans proud or dead, and the scores of thousands of ghosts of two millennia’s workers and artists, officials and writers, celebrated scientists and notorious drunks. It was a journey of a different kind: no leaving on a jet plane, no trip to the present delights of the modern world. It was a journey into the past, into who I am as part of this effervescent mass we like to characterise as vital individuals as we put aside the transient nature of our walk-on earthly roles.
The stage was the new Linton Heritage Trail – a walk through the historic part of the village where buildings have survived momentous events dating back to the 14th century and, beneath many of them, hundreds of years before then. It is an expression of the village’s pride in its long and distinguished past, put together by the Historical Society, the village historian Garth Collard and two parish councillors, Mike Gee and fellow Mensan Enid Bald.
‘It is a wonderful walk, accessible to all,’ Enid promised me. ‘Just what an idle beggar like you needs on a cold day.’ She was right.
The walk started at the river bridge – the crossing was a major reason why the village developed in Roman and Saxon times – and passed all the pubs as it introduced 48 mouth-wateringly fascinating buildings and their stories. There was plenty of help with the route: a booklet with its fold-out illustrated map (£2) provided a building-by-building briefing: Richmond, where the Cavaliers mustered in 1648 before marching to battle; Swann Cottages, an inn around 1616; Dodger’s Lane where miscreants ‘dodged’ to avoid going to church; Chandler’s house dating from the 15th century; Millicent House, once home to the manorial lords; the kissing gate and enchanting St Mary’s Church first documented in 1163; 16th Century Guildhall whose tenants have included the Nobel Prize scientist John Kendrew… and my favourite, for its past occupants: Queen’s House, where Graham Greene lived and a few decades later psychic Matthew Manning charted his ghostly experiences in his book, The Link.
It was a good walk, though others might want to drink coffee en route at the Dog & Duck which looks and feels like all its history since the 16th century despite a recent refurbishment after flooding a few years ago… or maybe lunch at today’s Crown Inn. All in all, an historically enjoyable time. Though, spending the day with the ghosts dating back to Romans and Saxons, it did rather knock my feeling of being the sole centre of the universe.
First published in VISA 95 (Feb 2011)
Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UK. Show all posts
Thursday, 1 January 2015
Wednesday, 31 December 2014
A Tale of Three Cities III: Belfast
by Neil Matthews
We had chosen Renshaws Hotel in University Street, as it was relatively cheap and close to Queen’s University Belfast, the venue for the education conference we were attending. (As it was the Easter holidays, student accommodation was available, but this did not appeal, due to the lack of double beds and for other reasons obvious to anyone who has stayed in student accommodation.) Unfortunately, the cardkeys which are a staple of modern hotels were not working. We had to ask a member of staff to let us into our room whenever we returned in the evenings.
Although the hotel would probably be classified as basic in these days of Western luxury, its location is its strength. You can spend a lazy morning reading the paper in Starbucks on Botanic Avenue, or a few doors down in Clements Café, which serves possibly the largest hot chocolate in the UK. Local restaurants specialising in Chinese, Thai, Asian fusion and Italian are close at hand, and the city centre is only 15 minutes walk away.
Sunday in the Park with Gerry?
In advance of the conference, we went for a morning stroll in the Botanic Gardens. Although clearly not at their best in April, the Gardens provided a haven of peace in a busy city. A few pensioners walked their dogs, but I saw no students or paramilitaries behind any bushes, thus ruining the chances of recounting an experience of Sunday in the Park with Gerry (or Ian or anyone else). However, colleagues who took an organised excursion to view some of the political murals from the times of the Troubles swore that they got a glimpse of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.
The same day, an organised bus trip took us to the province’s one World Heritage Site, the Giant’s Causeway. The Causeway is justly famous for its 40,000 stone columns, many of extraordinarily precise hexagonal formation. If you are a geologist, you believe the theory that the Causeway was born 60 million years ago by the cooling of molten lava off the coast. If you are a mythologist, you prefer the story of Irish giant Finn MacCool creating a pathway across the sea so that he could fight a Scottish rival. If you are lucky, you will have time to explore and admire the Causeway on a reasonably clear day.
We were unlucky. The biting cold turned the rain into sleet and even briefly snow. Our time was also limited by a visit to the Old Bushmills Distillery, which claims to be the world’s oldest licensed distillery and will celebrate its 400th anniversary in 2008. Whiskey drinkers may be fascinated; I was not. Struggling back up the pathway, cold and wet, to our coach, I felt some sympathy with Dr Samuel Johnson’s summary of the Causeway as “worth seeing, but not worth going to see”. But don’t be put off: it is worth going to see. You need more than the hour we had, though.
So is Belfast City Hall, for different reasons. 2006 was the centenary of its opening. Queen Victoria conferred city status on Belfast in 1888 and a new City Hall was built, on the site of the old White Linen Hall, to reflect Belfast’s enhanced prestige. The result is an ode to classical Renaissance architecture, using three Italian marbles and rich reds and creams to create beautiful staircases and a rotunda. The Whispering Gallery – so called because a whisper against its walls is audible on the other side - is apparently very alike to that in St Paul’s Cathedral in London. The 51 members of Belfast City Council sit on either side of the Council Chamber, with a table for journalists between the two sides - directly in the crossfire, as it were. The reception, banqueting and Great Halls are a pleasing combination of vaulted oak; stained glass windows showing coats of arms and various themes such as the Famine Window to remember all those who died from famine-related diseases; and even (replica) chandeliers with a nautical theme.
For all the grandeur of the building, its inhabitants remain cheerily informal. When asked whether photography was permitted, a security guard said: “It’s compulsory!” In less than an hour, we met both the deputy Mayor and Lord Mayor, who were happy to exchange a brief word or two. As the Lord Mayor did so, a door opened behind him. Out of the office behind the door stumbled an unshaven young man, with a vacant expression, a rolling gait and a tie at half mast. If he had met this gentleman, Oscar Wilde - who went to school in Belfast - might have amended one of his aphorisms to “only dull people are brilliant before noon.”
Schizoid building
The next couple of days were spent in Queen’s University itself at the conference. The perhaps unintended highlight was the fact of a keynote speech on New Labour and higher education being immediately followed by a speech (on organisational management methods) entitled “How to lose friends and turn people against you”. The University itself reflects modern Belfast with an architectural version of schizophrenia. The main buildings, completed in 1843, are classic Victorian redbrick. In an echo of early reaction to Belfast City Hall’s Whispering Gallery, the architect was accused at the time of plagiarising the design for the University’s main tower from Magdalen College Oxford. The more modern additions – concrete monstrosities of tower blocks - do not exactly fit with the character of their surroundings.
Once the conference ended, we strolled towards the waterfront for a view of some of the more quirky attractions. The Big Fish on Lagan Lookout, a sculpture by John Kindness, depicts a different aspect of the city’s history on each scale. Its glassy eye looks disdainfully away from the Clock Tower in Victoria Street, which leans in Pisa wannabe fashion to the right. The angle of lean, as with the man in the Mayor’s office, was amiable rather than alarming.
Nearby is the Belfast Waterfront Hall, a performing arts and concert venue which was hosting the World Irish Dancing Championships that week. Inside, hordes of young dancers kept their arms resolutely by their sides as they flapped their legs frantically, like the secret love children of the Minister for Silly Walks.
Samson and Goliath
There was much talk, and some evidence, of major property redevelopments in the city, such as an entertainment centre planned on the theme of the Titanic – which was built in Belfast. It may seem odd for the city to be looking to make money out of a famous disaster, but as one local is said to have told a sceptical tourist: “The ship was all right when it left Belfast.” In the meantime, Samson and Goliath – the two giant cranes used by Harland and Wolff in the city’s shipbuilding heyday – continue to loom over the city.
It remains to be seen whether Belfast can harness its past to reinvent a prosperous future. However, a recent report on tourism trends indicates that visitors to Northern Ireland are staying longer and spending more than before. So the peace dividend has not yet disappeared. Perhaps, for Belfast, the worst of times are over and the best is about to come. Let’s hope so.
First published in VISA issue 71 (Feb 2007).
We had chosen Renshaws Hotel in University Street, as it was relatively cheap and close to Queen’s University Belfast, the venue for the education conference we were attending. (As it was the Easter holidays, student accommodation was available, but this did not appeal, due to the lack of double beds and for other reasons obvious to anyone who has stayed in student accommodation.) Unfortunately, the cardkeys which are a staple of modern hotels were not working. We had to ask a member of staff to let us into our room whenever we returned in the evenings.
Although the hotel would probably be classified as basic in these days of Western luxury, its location is its strength. You can spend a lazy morning reading the paper in Starbucks on Botanic Avenue, or a few doors down in Clements Café, which serves possibly the largest hot chocolate in the UK. Local restaurants specialising in Chinese, Thai, Asian fusion and Italian are close at hand, and the city centre is only 15 minutes walk away.
Sunday in the Park with Gerry?
In advance of the conference, we went for a morning stroll in the Botanic Gardens. Although clearly not at their best in April, the Gardens provided a haven of peace in a busy city. A few pensioners walked their dogs, but I saw no students or paramilitaries behind any bushes, thus ruining the chances of recounting an experience of Sunday in the Park with Gerry (or Ian or anyone else). However, colleagues who took an organised excursion to view some of the political murals from the times of the Troubles swore that they got a glimpse of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.
We were unlucky. The biting cold turned the rain into sleet and even briefly snow. Our time was also limited by a visit to the Old Bushmills Distillery, which claims to be the world’s oldest licensed distillery and will celebrate its 400th anniversary in 2008. Whiskey drinkers may be fascinated; I was not. Struggling back up the pathway, cold and wet, to our coach, I felt some sympathy with Dr Samuel Johnson’s summary of the Causeway as “worth seeing, but not worth going to see”. But don’t be put off: it is worth going to see. You need more than the hour we had, though.
So is Belfast City Hall, for different reasons. 2006 was the centenary of its opening. Queen Victoria conferred city status on Belfast in 1888 and a new City Hall was built, on the site of the old White Linen Hall, to reflect Belfast’s enhanced prestige. The result is an ode to classical Renaissance architecture, using three Italian marbles and rich reds and creams to create beautiful staircases and a rotunda. The Whispering Gallery – so called because a whisper against its walls is audible on the other side - is apparently very alike to that in St Paul’s Cathedral in London. The 51 members of Belfast City Council sit on either side of the Council Chamber, with a table for journalists between the two sides - directly in the crossfire, as it were. The reception, banqueting and Great Halls are a pleasing combination of vaulted oak; stained glass windows showing coats of arms and various themes such as the Famine Window to remember all those who died from famine-related diseases; and even (replica) chandeliers with a nautical theme.
For all the grandeur of the building, its inhabitants remain cheerily informal. When asked whether photography was permitted, a security guard said: “It’s compulsory!” In less than an hour, we met both the deputy Mayor and Lord Mayor, who were happy to exchange a brief word or two. As the Lord Mayor did so, a door opened behind him. Out of the office behind the door stumbled an unshaven young man, with a vacant expression, a rolling gait and a tie at half mast. If he had met this gentleman, Oscar Wilde - who went to school in Belfast - might have amended one of his aphorisms to “only dull people are brilliant before noon.”
Schizoid building
The next couple of days were spent in Queen’s University itself at the conference. The perhaps unintended highlight was the fact of a keynote speech on New Labour and higher education being immediately followed by a speech (on organisational management methods) entitled “How to lose friends and turn people against you”. The University itself reflects modern Belfast with an architectural version of schizophrenia. The main buildings, completed in 1843, are classic Victorian redbrick. In an echo of early reaction to Belfast City Hall’s Whispering Gallery, the architect was accused at the time of plagiarising the design for the University’s main tower from Magdalen College Oxford. The more modern additions – concrete monstrosities of tower blocks - do not exactly fit with the character of their surroundings.
Nearby is the Belfast Waterfront Hall, a performing arts and concert venue which was hosting the World Irish Dancing Championships that week. Inside, hordes of young dancers kept their arms resolutely by their sides as they flapped their legs frantically, like the secret love children of the Minister for Silly Walks.
Samson and Goliath
There was much talk, and some evidence, of major property redevelopments in the city, such as an entertainment centre planned on the theme of the Titanic – which was built in Belfast. It may seem odd for the city to be looking to make money out of a famous disaster, but as one local is said to have told a sceptical tourist: “The ship was all right when it left Belfast.” In the meantime, Samson and Goliath – the two giant cranes used by Harland and Wolff in the city’s shipbuilding heyday – continue to loom over the city.
It remains to be seen whether Belfast can harness its past to reinvent a prosperous future. However, a recent report on tourism trends indicates that visitors to Northern Ireland are staying longer and spending more than before. So the peace dividend has not yet disappeared. Perhaps, for Belfast, the worst of times are over and the best is about to come. Let’s hope so.
First published in VISA issue 71 (Feb 2007).
A Tale of Three Cities II: Cardiff
by Neil Matthews
How do you get two whales in a Mini? Down the M4, of course. As the owner of a Mini, I derived a perverse pleasure from bringing this particularly old quip to life by visiting Cardiff for a weekend in February 2006. The journey was swift and smooth, although it was scarcely a pleasure to be charged £4.90 just to get into Wales.
Cardiff itself soon beckoned. This was the first time I had ever stayed in a hotel based on a trading estate. The Future Inn, on Hemingway Road, has only just been built and is therefore suitably high rise and shiny. Road signs since the Severn Bridge had used English and Welsh, but the voice of the hotel lift stuck resolutely to English only. The most futuristic element of the hotel was probably the easy Internet and webmail access in the rooms. On the other hand, some elements of traditional service were present: biscuits in the rooms - always a good sign - and, less positively, the extraordinary difficulty in obtaining a pot of tea with breakfast.
The future - or at least the vision of the future - for the city lies in Cardiff Bay, a previously down at heel area which has benefited from substantial redevelopment in recent years. The bay itself, all steel and silver with a plethora of smart bars and restaurants, made for an attractive spectacle in the cold winter sunshine. The windows of the nearby Millennium Centre, a performing arts venue (not to be confused with the Millennium Stadium), are shaped to create a bilingual message. The English version, shorter than the Welsh, reads: “In these stones, horizons sing.” Presumably this refers to the fictitious horizons of the many theatrical and musical productions which the Centre hosts. On that basis, and feeling charitable because of the sunshine, I decided not to send in the words to Private Eye’s Pseuds Corner, and to overlook the hideous purple stone cladding around the edges of the Centre.
Cardiff’s national and international profile is on the up, for various reasons. The aforementioned Millennium Stadium has hosted FA Cup Finals and promotion playoffs for the English football leagues while Wembley Stadium was first demolished and then rebuilt. It is also the home venue for the Welsh rugby union team, which won its first Grand Slam for over 25 years in 2005; and Sophia Gardens is set to host its first cricket Test match in 2009. On the media side of things, BBC Wales has been responsible for some of Britain’s best known TV productions in recent years, notably the revitalised Doctor Who as re-imagined by Swansea boy Russell T Davies. A small free exhibition of some of the sets and costumes from the show, which is filmed primarily in Cardiff, made for a diverting hour or so. Children aged between 5 and 15 swarmed round to gawp at Slitheen, Daleks and so on. A missing E caused the sign at the main entrance to proclaim, in Freudian fashion, that Doctor Who is “Mad in Wales”.
However, when we ventured into the centre of Cardiff itself rather than the bay, a different picture emerged. Many British town and city centres now look more and more similar, with the chain stores conquering all before them. I wonder whether other cities also have café restaurants with quite as much 1970s brown as the one in which we ate our Saturday lunch. Even Peter Mandelson would have found it hard to confuse mushy peas for guacamole here. The city centre is also home to an inordinate number of shoe shops. If you seek knee length pink fluffy boots for ladies, then this is the place to come. There was a surprising number of stretch limos cruising the streets, and several gangs of women dressed somewhat optimistically, considering that this was Britain in February. Taken together, perhaps these pieces of evidence point to an exciting future for Cardiff as the hen party capital of Europe. Charlotte Church may have much for which to answer.
The legacy of conquerors and visitors from another age is visible at Cardiff Castle. The castle was first established by the Romans in the 1st century AD and passed through the hands of various aristocratic families, and most famously the 1st Marquess of Bute in the 18th century. By then, the castle house had fallen into disrepair and the castle fortifications were decaying. The 1st Marquess employed an architect to begin a sympathetic restoration. His grandson, the 2nd Marquess, opened the Bute West Dock in Cardiff, bringing in a period of industrial expansion and prosperity.
The most conspicuous effects of the Bute family on the Castle as it stands today, however, are attributable to the 3rd Marquess, an eccentric with a passion for building and restoration. He employed William Burges as architect over 15 years to turn the Castle into a neo-Gothic fantasy. Not all the rooms were open at the time of our visit, but those which were open could not be accused of being understated. The Winter Smoking Room in the Clock Tower uses zodiac signs, stained windows of Norse gods and carved friezes to illustrate a theme of “Time”. The walls of the Nursery Room depict Aladdin, Ali Baba, Jack and the Beanstalk and many others. The wooden window screens and ceiling of the Arab Room are complemented with carvings of eight parrots of various types. Whether the 3rd Marquess had more money than taste is, perhaps, open to debate. However, the Castle must have been an inspiring home for the College of Music and Drama, which resided there from 1949-1974.
The briefness of our visit did not give time to see much else of Cardiff. But, returning home by a less direct route than the M4, we were able to pay a brief visit to Tintern Abbey. The ruins of the abbey lie between the A466 and the River Wye. Tintern Abbey was founded by Cistercian monks in 1131 AD and, by 1301, around 400 monks lived in the complex. After 1536, when the Abbey was part of the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, the building began to decay.
Around 1760 the site was cleaned up and visitors to the Wye Valley began to be entranced with the beauty of the site and surroundings. The most famous visitor was William Wordsworth in 1798. His poem Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey put Tintern firmly on the tourist map.
Even a freezing morning and scaffolding on part of the ruins could not detract from the simple magic of the location. As long as some ruins remain, and as long as Wordsworth is still read, Tintern will be a magnet for visitors from round the world.
First published in VISA issue 68 (August 2006).
How do you get two whales in a Mini? Down the M4, of course. As the owner of a Mini, I derived a perverse pleasure from bringing this particularly old quip to life by visiting Cardiff for a weekend in February 2006. The journey was swift and smooth, although it was scarcely a pleasure to be charged £4.90 just to get into Wales.
Cardiff itself soon beckoned. This was the first time I had ever stayed in a hotel based on a trading estate. The Future Inn, on Hemingway Road, has only just been built and is therefore suitably high rise and shiny. Road signs since the Severn Bridge had used English and Welsh, but the voice of the hotel lift stuck resolutely to English only. The most futuristic element of the hotel was probably the easy Internet and webmail access in the rooms. On the other hand, some elements of traditional service were present: biscuits in the rooms - always a good sign - and, less positively, the extraordinary difficulty in obtaining a pot of tea with breakfast.
 |
| Millennium Centre |
The future - or at least the vision of the future - for the city lies in Cardiff Bay, a previously down at heel area which has benefited from substantial redevelopment in recent years. The bay itself, all steel and silver with a plethora of smart bars and restaurants, made for an attractive spectacle in the cold winter sunshine. The windows of the nearby Millennium Centre, a performing arts venue (not to be confused with the Millennium Stadium), are shaped to create a bilingual message. The English version, shorter than the Welsh, reads: “In these stones, horizons sing.” Presumably this refers to the fictitious horizons of the many theatrical and musical productions which the Centre hosts. On that basis, and feeling charitable because of the sunshine, I decided not to send in the words to Private Eye’s Pseuds Corner, and to overlook the hideous purple stone cladding around the edges of the Centre.
Cardiff’s national and international profile is on the up, for various reasons. The aforementioned Millennium Stadium has hosted FA Cup Finals and promotion playoffs for the English football leagues while Wembley Stadium was first demolished and then rebuilt. It is also the home venue for the Welsh rugby union team, which won its first Grand Slam for over 25 years in 2005; and Sophia Gardens is set to host its first cricket Test match in 2009. On the media side of things, BBC Wales has been responsible for some of Britain’s best known TV productions in recent years, notably the revitalised Doctor Who as re-imagined by Swansea boy Russell T Davies. A small free exhibition of some of the sets and costumes from the show, which is filmed primarily in Cardiff, made for a diverting hour or so. Children aged between 5 and 15 swarmed round to gawp at Slitheen, Daleks and so on. A missing E caused the sign at the main entrance to proclaim, in Freudian fashion, that Doctor Who is “Mad in Wales”.
However, when we ventured into the centre of Cardiff itself rather than the bay, a different picture emerged. Many British town and city centres now look more and more similar, with the chain stores conquering all before them. I wonder whether other cities also have café restaurants with quite as much 1970s brown as the one in which we ate our Saturday lunch. Even Peter Mandelson would have found it hard to confuse mushy peas for guacamole here. The city centre is also home to an inordinate number of shoe shops. If you seek knee length pink fluffy boots for ladies, then this is the place to come. There was a surprising number of stretch limos cruising the streets, and several gangs of women dressed somewhat optimistically, considering that this was Britain in February. Taken together, perhaps these pieces of evidence point to an exciting future for Cardiff as the hen party capital of Europe. Charlotte Church may have much for which to answer.
The legacy of conquerors and visitors from another age is visible at Cardiff Castle. The castle was first established by the Romans in the 1st century AD and passed through the hands of various aristocratic families, and most famously the 1st Marquess of Bute in the 18th century. By then, the castle house had fallen into disrepair and the castle fortifications were decaying. The 1st Marquess employed an architect to begin a sympathetic restoration. His grandson, the 2nd Marquess, opened the Bute West Dock in Cardiff, bringing in a period of industrial expansion and prosperity.
The most conspicuous effects of the Bute family on the Castle as it stands today, however, are attributable to the 3rd Marquess, an eccentric with a passion for building and restoration. He employed William Burges as architect over 15 years to turn the Castle into a neo-Gothic fantasy. Not all the rooms were open at the time of our visit, but those which were open could not be accused of being understated. The Winter Smoking Room in the Clock Tower uses zodiac signs, stained windows of Norse gods and carved friezes to illustrate a theme of “Time”. The walls of the Nursery Room depict Aladdin, Ali Baba, Jack and the Beanstalk and many others. The wooden window screens and ceiling of the Arab Room are complemented with carvings of eight parrots of various types. Whether the 3rd Marquess had more money than taste is, perhaps, open to debate. However, the Castle must have been an inspiring home for the College of Music and Drama, which resided there from 1949-1974.
The briefness of our visit did not give time to see much else of Cardiff. But, returning home by a less direct route than the M4, we were able to pay a brief visit to Tintern Abbey. The ruins of the abbey lie between the A466 and the River Wye. Tintern Abbey was founded by Cistercian monks in 1131 AD and, by 1301, around 400 monks lived in the complex. After 1536, when the Abbey was part of the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, the building began to decay.
Around 1760 the site was cleaned up and visitors to the Wye Valley began to be entranced with the beauty of the site and surroundings. The most famous visitor was William Wordsworth in 1798. His poem Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey put Tintern firmly on the tourist map.
Even a freezing morning and scaffolding on part of the ruins could not detract from the simple magic of the location. As long as some ruins remain, and as long as Wordsworth is still read, Tintern will be a magnet for visitors from round the world.
First published in VISA issue 68 (August 2006).
A Tale of Three Cities I: Edinburgh
by Neil Matthews
It had all started when Helen had found out that a meeting of a national committee of her professional body was taking place, for a change, in Edinburgh. The meeting was on a Friday. Helen had never been to Scotland and I hadn’t set foot in Edinburgh for twenty years. So we decided to use the Saturday to get a glimpse of the city. One day could only afford a glimpse. So we hit on the idea of visiting as many sights as possible for free.
Time constraints led us to focus on locations in and around the Royal Mile. It was a cold and wet day, which only seemed to heighten the imposing effect of the grey stone from which Edinburgh had been hewn. The city seems to be making a statement: whatever comes and goes, no matter what, it is there to stay and endure.
Happily, the outward dourness belies some fascinating visitor attractions. In Lady Stair’s House, Lawnmarket, sits the Writers’ Museum. Although temporary exhibitions remember other writers, the Museum is primarily an insight into the lives of Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. For a small property, the Museum packs in a lot of portraits, manuscripts and personal exhibits such as Burns’ writing desk and Scott’s chessboard.
The life of Stevenson - a sickly boy from a middle class Edinburgh family, who died in Samoa aged 44 - is probably impossible to make dull anyway. From Travels with a Donkey to Kidnapped, Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Stevenson’s work amuses, enthralls and intrigues readers of all ages even now. Much of his work focused on Scottish character and history - something he had in common with Scott, another son of Edinburgh. Scott was also sickly as a child and polio left him with a lame leg, but this did not prevent him becoming one of the best known and most revered figures of his time. His work as a lawyer did not prevent him from producing an outstanding body of novels and poetry, and even masterminding arrangements for the visit of George IV to Edinburgh - the first royal visit in many years. Scott’s legacy to Scotland took many forms (for example, the novel Heart of Midlothian led to a dance hall of the same name, which in turn inspired some of its patrons to found the football club).
Burns was the odd man out, being born not in Edinburgh but in Alloway. He might have emigrated to Jamaica but for the unexpected success of Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect when it was published in 1786. Only after then did Burns decide to further his literary ambitions by visiting Edinburgh, an adventure which is recollected by the Museum’s audio reconstructions.
For those of an artistic bent, the five buildings which comprise the National Galleries of Scotland may provide many hours of pleasure and enlightenment. We only had time to visit the National Gallery itself, situated between the Old Town and the New Town on The Mound. Although it claims the largest and most comprehensive collection of Scottish paintings in the world, the Gallery is also home to a number of Impressionist and post-Impressionist works by Gauguin, Monet, Cézanne and others. Bernini, Canaletto, Canova and many other masters are also represented. The rich reds and greens of the traditional décor, including period furniture, are easy on the eye and do not detract from the art.
For a focus on Edinburgh, look no further than the Museum of Edinburgh itself at 142 Canongate. Huntly House, a restored 16th century mansion, hosts various collections and artefacts relating to the city, such as the National Covenant which Scotland’s Presbyterian leaders signed in 1638. There is a section devoted to Field Marshal Earl Haig, but sadly this was closed at the time of our visit. The collections of Edinburgh silver and glass are particularly fine.
The Museum of Childhood, at 42 High Street, will take you from centuries of history to an almost inevitable nostalgia if you are of a certain age - and may even intrigue the children of today. It was opened in 1955, so is coming into middle age itself. There are exhibits of how children were dressed, how they played and how they were educated in generations past. For me, the interesting point was the overt educational content of most of the board games on display. It was a mite alarming, on the other hand, to read on one board of the player finding “something nasty in the hedge” as he attempted to visit his granny. If dolls and dolls’ houses, train sets and teddy bears are your cup of tea, you will love this museum. Or, as Miss Jean Brodie remarked in another context: “For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.”
We almost broke our pledge to avoid spending when we entered St Giles’ Cathedral. The central pillars date from around 1120 and the church was burnt by an English army in 1385 before being rebuilt over the subsequent 530 years. As a result, it is a mish-mash of styles and content, but charming all the same. The cost of taking photographs is £1, but the little old lady to whom we enquired advised us to walk around before parting with our pound. We might prefer to buy a (cheaper) postcard, she said.
Our final free visit was an external gawp at the new Scottish Parliament. The building has an impossible task - namely to fit in with the rest of this very distinctive city, but also to assert its own identity. As with most impossible tasks, this one has failed. The curious mixture of grey stone and bent bamboo sticks round the doors and windows lends the Parliament a temporary air which was surely not intended. Given the controversy over the excessive amounts spent on its construction, it reminded me of a remark attributed to Dolly Parton when asked why she didn’t retire: “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.”
Having spent precisely no money at all on seeing any of the sites mentioned, it was only fair that we should pay a brief visit to Harvey Nichols. Crowds of enthusiastic shoppers swarmed around us as we gazed disbelievingly at a pumpkin. This unimpressive object and its ludicrous £4 price tag seemed totally out of kilter with all that had gone before. Scots presumably know a bargain when they see one; on our way out, we did not pass any new proud owners of overpriced pumpkins.
First published in VISA issue 66 (Apr 2006).
It had all started when Helen had found out that a meeting of a national committee of her professional body was taking place, for a change, in Edinburgh. The meeting was on a Friday. Helen had never been to Scotland and I hadn’t set foot in Edinburgh for twenty years. So we decided to use the Saturday to get a glimpse of the city. One day could only afford a glimpse. So we hit on the idea of visiting as many sights as possible for free.
Time constraints led us to focus on locations in and around the Royal Mile. It was a cold and wet day, which only seemed to heighten the imposing effect of the grey stone from which Edinburgh had been hewn. The city seems to be making a statement: whatever comes and goes, no matter what, it is there to stay and endure.
Happily, the outward dourness belies some fascinating visitor attractions. In Lady Stair’s House, Lawnmarket, sits the Writers’ Museum. Although temporary exhibitions remember other writers, the Museum is primarily an insight into the lives of Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. For a small property, the Museum packs in a lot of portraits, manuscripts and personal exhibits such as Burns’ writing desk and Scott’s chessboard.
The life of Stevenson - a sickly boy from a middle class Edinburgh family, who died in Samoa aged 44 - is probably impossible to make dull anyway. From Travels with a Donkey to Kidnapped, Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Stevenson’s work amuses, enthralls and intrigues readers of all ages even now. Much of his work focused on Scottish character and history - something he had in common with Scott, another son of Edinburgh. Scott was also sickly as a child and polio left him with a lame leg, but this did not prevent him becoming one of the best known and most revered figures of his time. His work as a lawyer did not prevent him from producing an outstanding body of novels and poetry, and even masterminding arrangements for the visit of George IV to Edinburgh - the first royal visit in many years. Scott’s legacy to Scotland took many forms (for example, the novel Heart of Midlothian led to a dance hall of the same name, which in turn inspired some of its patrons to found the football club).
Burns was the odd man out, being born not in Edinburgh but in Alloway. He might have emigrated to Jamaica but for the unexpected success of Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect when it was published in 1786. Only after then did Burns decide to further his literary ambitions by visiting Edinburgh, an adventure which is recollected by the Museum’s audio reconstructions.
For those of an artistic bent, the five buildings which comprise the National Galleries of Scotland may provide many hours of pleasure and enlightenment. We only had time to visit the National Gallery itself, situated between the Old Town and the New Town on The Mound. Although it claims the largest and most comprehensive collection of Scottish paintings in the world, the Gallery is also home to a number of Impressionist and post-Impressionist works by Gauguin, Monet, Cézanne and others. Bernini, Canaletto, Canova and many other masters are also represented. The rich reds and greens of the traditional décor, including period furniture, are easy on the eye and do not detract from the art.
For a focus on Edinburgh, look no further than the Museum of Edinburgh itself at 142 Canongate. Huntly House, a restored 16th century mansion, hosts various collections and artefacts relating to the city, such as the National Covenant which Scotland’s Presbyterian leaders signed in 1638. There is a section devoted to Field Marshal Earl Haig, but sadly this was closed at the time of our visit. The collections of Edinburgh silver and glass are particularly fine.
We almost broke our pledge to avoid spending when we entered St Giles’ Cathedral. The central pillars date from around 1120 and the church was burnt by an English army in 1385 before being rebuilt over the subsequent 530 years. As a result, it is a mish-mash of styles and content, but charming all the same. The cost of taking photographs is £1, but the little old lady to whom we enquired advised us to walk around before parting with our pound. We might prefer to buy a (cheaper) postcard, she said.
Our final free visit was an external gawp at the new Scottish Parliament. The building has an impossible task - namely to fit in with the rest of this very distinctive city, but also to assert its own identity. As with most impossible tasks, this one has failed. The curious mixture of grey stone and bent bamboo sticks round the doors and windows lends the Parliament a temporary air which was surely not intended. Given the controversy over the excessive amounts spent on its construction, it reminded me of a remark attributed to Dolly Parton when asked why she didn’t retire: “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.”
First published in VISA issue 66 (Apr 2006).
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