Medieval

Holy Island

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South of Berwick, just off the coast, is Holy Island, a tidal island with an interesting history. It can only be accessed when the tide is low enough to expose the causeway. So if you want to visit, it has to either be during this low tide time, or an overnight stay. Today, the low time ended about 1.35 pm, which meant at 1 pm everything started closing. As most places don’t open until 10 am, it’s not a long visiting period. Fortunately, I stayed overnight.

There are two main attractions on Holy Island. The Prior and (seen in the background here) and the castle that is not a castle.

There is also a good view of the castle that is a castle, but that’s on other other side of the water so we’ll ignore it.

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Berwick-upon-Tweed: defences

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Berwick has walls and ramparts and gates and bits of castle. It’s all a bit complicated, but I’ll see if I can make sense of it.

The White Wall, with steps that originally ran up to the castle. (I think the front bit is a later addition for atillery.) Most of the castle remains were removed c.1850 to build the train station.

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On the border

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This is Berwick-upon-Tweed. It’s the northernmost town in England. At other times, it’s been in Scotland. Four hundred years of border conflict. And where there’s been centuries of border conflict , there are . . .

. . . border castles! Norham Castle, about 10 km/6 miles from Berwick.

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Dramatic hillside castle anyone?

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If you’re going to Dunnottar Castle by bus, you have a choice of ways to get there. There’s a bus stop on the main road just around from the entrance road or you can get off in the nearby town of Stonehaven and take the forty-minute walk around the cliffs. OK I’m joking.

Of course you’ll do the walk around the cliffs. It has the best views.

And random Greek temples on the hillside.

Now this is the best view. It is worth the climbing the hill and walking around the cliffs just to see this. Really.

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Orkney Day 2: A Quiet Day In (really)

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I declared Sunday a day of rest, and spent the morning sleeping. In the afternoon I intended to just look around at the (mostly closed) shops and maybe wander down to the wet and windy harbour. Nice quiet, easy day. Yep.


I also wanted to go back to the cathedral.

I’d read elsewhere that there was a dead earl buried in the cathedral wall, so I had a look in the cathedral’s leaflet of highlights and there was no mention of any dead earls buried in the wall but I found some other things I’d missed so I went back to look at them.


So the row of different coloured stones at the bottom there is where the dead earl is buried.

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A Morning on Unst

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Muness Castle (it’s actually a tower house but it is fortified, possibly to protect him form the locals). Construction started in 1598 for a guy who was half-brother to Robert Stewart, Earl of Orkney, whose son had Scalloway Castle built. (I mention them because they’ll probably come up again.)


The bottom level has a wine cellar, storage rooms & kitchen. The first floor has the great hall (shown here). Although less tony then, and more plastered or timber. The private rooms/chambers are in the turrets, and there was another floor above.

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A Visit to Lots of Times All At Once

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Today we’re visiting a place that calls itself one of the most important prehistoric sites in Shetland. Right there, on the first line of the guidebook. But first a little deour.


Past a cow.

To look at a croft, a small tenant farm. There are two rooms on the left, and a barn and byre on the right. Grass roof.

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A Day Trip in which we visit Eboracum

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This was the Roman city of Eboracum from about 70 CE to 400 CE. Ahead on the left of the river was a large fortress, built for the 9th legion, covering about 50 acres. On the right side was the town. Today we call it York.

There are a lot of photos. It was one of those see how you can do in a day trips. A lot, as it turned out. More than I expected. So it’s just a couple of photos from each place I went to and some random buldings along the way. But none of the interesting corners and details photos. I might do some individual posts later. (Quietly ignoring that I am just going to get more days like this, and not enough time to do posts. But if you’re interested in something, I can share some more photos.)


The Multangular Tower. The lower smaller bricks are Roman. The top part is Medieval. It was part of the fortress wall, built in the early 4th century and replacing an older tower.

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