Our travels this day took us to Brig O’ Doon, the Burn’s Memorial and Gardens, then south on the road we drove the day before to Culzean (pronounced Cul-lane) Castle, north again to Hill House, and Loch Lomand before we arrived in Oban for the night.

We left Doonfoot and the Sherwood B & B at 9:45, under overcast skies and drizzling rain, and drove the short distance to Brig O’ Doon (which means bridge over the River Doon).

It was a short walk up the street to the Burns Memorial and Gardens.                                 I love these ivy covered buildings. After a lovely wander around the gardens we drove a few miles back down the road so we could see Culzean Castle, home of the Kennedy clan for over 300 years.Culzean had an awesome gated entrance and long winding pathway to the castle.  The castle  was  built  in  stages  between 1777  and  1792  and  until  recently  an   illustration  of  Culzean  Castle  was  on  the  reverse  of  the  Bank  of  Scotland  issued  five-pound  note. Gorgeous gardens.  The main castle above and a secondary residence located across the green below.  Unfortunately no photos were allowed inside but the castle, the setting, and grounds provided lots of photo opportunities anyway. 
The gardens were fabulous to walk through, despite the  gray  day. We did a tour of Hill House which was designed in 1902 by renowned Scottish architect Charles Renny Mackintosh for Walter Blackie (a publisher of children’s books).  Again no photos allowed inside, but the place was a real art-deco masterpiece. As we continued northward we drove along the shores of Loch Lomand.  Even if one can’t sing – which I can’t – one really has to launch into a few bars of the famous song.

The loch was just a flat grey expanse with the cloud cover, but further up the road we passed a body of water that had some gorgeous reflections. The west side of the Loch, where we were, edges the Trossachs National Forest.

We arrived in Oban at 7 pm and settled into the Chalhoss B & B.  Tom and Christine raise Gordon Setters, but all the dogs were kept in runs outside so no doggy fix that day.

On the other side of the River Cree which flows into Wigtown Bay there is the Martyr’s Monument.  At this location two women, Margaret McLachlan and Margaret Wilson were martyred for their refusal to renounce their Presbyterian faith and swear the “Abjuration Oath” established by Charles II to bring back Catholicism to Scotland by the imposition of rule by bishops.

The group of people who became known as the Wigtown Martyrs were three men, who were hanged and the two Margarets, one elderly and the other a teenager, who were drowned.  In an effort to make the women sign the Abjuration Oath they were tied to stakes in the Wigtown Bay at low tide on May 11, 1685 and slowly became submerged as the tide came it.  D    Drumtrodden Cup and Ring Marked rocks, near Port William We passed this lovely entrance garden as we walked to Glenluce Abbey, which was our last stop of the day. Not very many of the walls of the large Abbey complex remain, but since the place was initially built between 1191-92, one shouldn’t be too surprised.  That any of it is still standing is pretty amazing.The abbey was constructed by Roland, Lord of Galloway as a daughter house to Dundrennan Abbey, which we had visited on our way to Kirkcudbright. From Glenluce we drove the coast road north to the Sherwood Bed and Breakfast at Doonfoot, which is just south of Ayr.  Kirsten, at the B & B had a lovely big black Lab named Sally so I even got a dog fix.

I came across another travel blog recently that had an image of the day’s journey included.  With all of our going back and forth on this trip in Scotland, I thought that was a great idea, so I have gone back to the previously posted blogs (Days 1 – 4) and inserted a map of each day’s travels and will have a map in the future blogs of this series.

The overcast skies and light rain continued.  We drove around the southwestern coast of Scotland from Kirkcudbright to Doonfoot, on the outskirts of Ayr.

Before we left Kirkcudbright we toured MacLellan’s Castle; built by Sir Thomas MacLellan, provost of Kirkcudbright, in the 1570’s. At 11:30 we were on the road to the ruins of Cardoness Castle.  The castle was built by the MacCulloch’s in the late 1400’s.It was a wet trek up the hill to the castle.  Since these buildings were clan strongholds as well as family homes they can usually be found on a high point of ground in the area, or at a strategic meeting of roads, borders, or rivers.

Nor far from Cardoness we stopped at another castle, this one on a spit of land protuding in Wigtown Bay near the opening of the Solway Firth.  Carsluith Castle was built about 1560 for  Richard Brown. Situated all over Scotland, in fields, on hillsides, and near the coast you will find burial cairns or standing stones or rock circles.  The first one we visited was the Cairn Holy which were burial chambers  from between 6,000 to 4,000 years ago. Further into the field we could see another set of cairn stones, but it was too wet to trek through the grass to see it up close. (Continued in Part 2)

From Caerlaverock Castle we followed the road northwest along the east side of River Nith, crossed the river and skirted under the major city of Dumfries,  then continued southward back toward the Solway Firth.   Orchardton Tower is located about 4 km (15 miles) east of Kirkcudbright.

The tower is thought to have been built by Sir John Maxwell about 1456. Our last stop of the day was Dundrennan Abbey, founded by Cistercian Monks in 1142.  These ancient abbeys were huge. Many of them have been added to over the years, or re-built after a fire or some attack that destroyed it and then enlarged each time.  It constantly amazed me that all of these stone blocks were quarried, sized and shaped, and placed by hand.  No modern tools.  No lift equipment.  Just hard work and brute strength and many, many, many labourers.

We arrived at our B&B in Kirkcudbright at 6 o’clock.  After we settled in and had some dinner we went for a walk around town.  The light was lovely and it was a beautiful evening; and I loved all the colours.  We met a lady on the street and I asked her how the name of the town was pronounced.  In normal Scottish fashion they leave out or run over most of the letters.  It is Ke-coo-bree.  I would never have figured that out.

After we left Gretna Green on the English-Scottish border we took a small road near the coast of Solway Firth and made a few stops on our way to the night’s lodging in Kirkcudbright.

First stop was to see the Ruthwell Cross, however the church itself was locked.We purchased two annual passes when we got to Scotland.  One for all the places cared for by Historic Scotland and the other for those under the auspices of the National Trust for Scotland. With these we could walk into almost every historic location we wanted to see.  One or the other of these agencies cares for almost all of them.  They were a great money-saving and time-saving investment and well worth the cost.

(As you can tell by the white dots on the images below; it was raining.)

Just a bit west from Ruthwell Church, on the coast where the River Nith enters Solway Firth is Caerlaverock Castle (pronounced Cal a vé rick), one of most unique and smallest castles that we visited on our trip.  Caerlaverock Castle was built by Sir John Maxwell in 1220! It was one of the first stone castles built in Scotland. Continuing down the road we next visited Orchardton Tower.

Scotland is a small country.  In Canada our communities are usually 30 km (18 miles) or more apart.  In Scotland the average is about 4 or 6 km (2+ miles).  And several different intersections will have a signpost pointing to the same community at the same distance away.  You cannot, however, just zip quickly down the road and arrive in a few minutes.  The roads are winding and narrow and often have sheep wandering on them.

Gretna Green is famous as the 18th century English elopement town.  (Gretna was not the only border town that offered wedding services.  Almost any Scottish town near the border had its fair share of quick wedding services.)  If you wanted to marry without your parents consent you beetled it up to the little community on the border between England and Scotland and got married, “over the anvil.”  The place is a real ‘tourist trap’ but not completely hokie.  We had fun there.  They still do lots of weddings every year and have several different places on the grounds for the ceremony and several different photo op settings as well. They have a some nicely set up museum rooms of furnishings and artifacts from the early days of the shop.  It really was an active blacksmith shop.  Scottish  law  allowed  anyone  to  perform  a wedding ceremony  as  the  important,  and  binding,  part  was  the  declaration  of the  couple  rather  than  the  rites  of  a minister.  Most  ‘anvil  weddings’  were  performed  by  weavers,  horse  saddlers,  and  fishermen.  Often  the only   role  of  a blacksmith  was  to  make the  rings.  Regardless  who  the  officiant  was,  the  blacksmith  or  anvil  wedding was  the  ceremony  of  choice  for  any  English  couple  who  could  not  get official  signed  documents  from  their  parents  (as  required  by  law),  or  who  did  not  want  to  wait  for  the  weeks  needed  to  post  the  banns  in  church. In the marriage commissioner’s office you can legally get married ‘over an anvil.’

We were tickled to see this family tree that was sent to Gretna Green by someone from our area of BC. With all the digital photographs of trips, weddings, and gatherings I have taken since 2007 I have become quite good at some Photoshop techniques.  I decided that I would try blend a photo of each of us into one so we could be ‘married’ the Gretna Green way.

I had John take a photo of me with my hand on the anvil, then I took one of him standing on the other side with his hand just above the anvil.  Then I  did some Photoshop magic and Voila! From Gretna Green we went to see the Ruthwell Cross, and an abbey, and a castle, and a tower, before finishing our day in Kirkcudbright. (Continued in Part 2)Warning:  This blog series will have LOTS of photos of castles and ruins.  Scotland is brimming with about a thousand of them and we saw one or more ancient building every single day.  I loved every minute of if!  The next most prominent item will be gardens.  Lots and lots and lots of gardens.

We checked out of our hotel in Kincardine and drove to Stirling to see if we could tour Argyll’s Lodging, which we were unable to do the day before as it was closed for a private function. We arrived to find it was still closed, this time with no explanation. We wandered down the street to see the Old Town Jail, only to discover it was no longer open to the public and had been converted into offices.By the time we had toured Stirling Castle the day before, visiting hours were over at the Church of the Holy Rude.  This day, however, we were able to go inside.

Next door to the church is Cowane’s Hospital; established in the mid-1600’s by a merchant guild for its poor members. The town of Abington is located about an hour slightly southeast of Stirling.  Located at Abington is Blantyre Station and the David Livingston Center.  Blantyre Works was a cotton mill and families lived in tenement buildings on the property.   The whole family lived in this one room.  David was the second of seven children and was employed at the age of ten in the cotton mill of Henry Monteith & Co.  He and his brother John worked twelve-hour days as piecers, tying broken cotton threads on the spinning machines.  At  ten  years of  age  he  was  actually  old  to  just  be  starting  to  work  in the  mill.   Children  usually started  at 5 or 6.He was a student at the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School in 1838–40, with his courses covering medical practice, midwifery, and botany.  He qualified as a doctor in 1840 and also took training as a missionary.  He hoped to go to China with the London Missionary Society, but the First Opium War had broken out in September 1839 and it was suggested he go to the West Indies instead.  As he was finishing his medical training he met a member of the London Missionary Society who had been to South Africa.  He was excited by the prospects to work for the gospel there and as an active  abolitionist, Livingstone sincerely felt that the slave trade could be halted if ‘legitimate’ trade was offered.  While on his various missionary assignments Livingstone believed that the gospel could best be spread to the people of the interior of Africa if there were adequate maps of the river systems.  He became obsessed with finding the mouth of the Nile.

The Livingstone Center had carvings and plaques telling the story of his missionary travels and life up to his death in Africa in 1873. There were many pictures, drawings and articles on display that vividly demonstrated the horrors of the slave trade.   His loyal attendants Chuma and Susi removed his heart and buried it under a tree near the spot where he died. The rest of his remains were carried, together with his journal, over 1,000 miles (1,600 km) by Chuma and Susi to the coastal town of Bagamoyo, where they were returned by ship to Britain for burial. In London, his body lay in repose at No.1 Savile Row, then the headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society, prior to interment at Westminster Abbey.

We spent the night in Abington and the next day continued south to the Borders and Gretna Green.

We wanted to tour Argyle’s Lodging after we saw Stirling Castle but it was closed for a private function. We walked down the hill and across the street to the Church of the Holy Rude Cemetery. The cemetery is very large and has some impressive statuary.  There is no such thing as a wide street in Scotland; which makes sense since so many of the buildings and streets are several hundred years old and were made long before the advent of the automobile and the rapid travel we are used to today.We were spending the night in nearby Kincardine so we decided to return to Stirling the next day and tour Argyll’s Lodging before heading out of town.

The castle at Stirling, not far from Glasgow was the final stronghold of the English back in 1314 when the first king of all Scotland, Robert the Bruce, and his armies managed to oust the English invaders from their lands.

After the death of King Alexander III in 1286, and the death of his granddaughter and heir Margaret, Maid of Norway in 1290, there were 14 rivals for succession to the Scottish throne. To avoid a civil war the Scottish magnates asked Edward I of England to arbitrate.  This Edward was willing to do, but in return he extracted legal recognition that the realm of Scotland was to be held as a feudal dependency to the throne of England.  This, obviously, was a contested and distasteful concession among many of the Scot’s lords;  William Wallace, John Comyn and Robert Bruce among them.

Edward named John Balliol, the man with the strongest claim to the throne as king in 1292.  Over the next few years Edward I systematically undermined the authority of the appointed King John and the independence of Scotland.  He would remove Scottish lords from their lands and place English favourites in their stead.   King John finally had enough and, making an alliance with France, he rebelled.  However, in 1296 Edward invaded Scotland, deposed King John, and claimed Scotland for the English throne.

William Wallace, hero of Braveheart,  was defeated at the Battle of Falkirk and subsequently executed after he staged an uprising in 1298.  John Comyn and Robert Bruce both had claims to the throne and were constant rivals.  Bruce tried to form an alliance with Comyn so they could join forces and defeat the English but the discussion ended in harsh words, tempers flared, and Bruce stabbed Comyn.

With the death of John Comyn, Robert Bruce, 5th Lord of Annandale, became king; although he was king of a realm ruled by English overlords.  He was defeated in several skirmishes before finally winning a battle.  And the more battles he won, the more Scottish Lords and their armies joined with him.  Finally only Stirling Castle was left to redeem.

Edward I son had succeeded him to the throne and Edward II marched on Stirling with a massed army of more than 25,000 foot soldiers and 2,000 mounted knights. Bruce, at best could gather 6,000 men and, maybe, 500 cavalry.  But, due to Bruce’s advantage because of his selection of the battleground, his strategic use of the men and arms available to him, the unexpected defection of some Scottish who had previously served the English and thus  brought Bruce crucial information, and the passionate and brave men of Scotland, the battle at Bannockburn was a resounding victory for Robert, the Bruce.  He united all the Scottish clans under one king and reigned with honor and wisdom for 23 years until his death from leprosy.

His statue stands outside the walls of Stirling Castle.   My mother’s middle name was Bruce and she often told us that her family was related to the great king. We have never tried to verify that fact but it is a nice story anyway.  The  Bruce  name  is  highly  regarded  in  Scotland,  so  it  is also  likely  that  Mom’s  parents  just  gave  her  the  patriotic  middle name.

The  walls  have  been  hit  by  quite  a few  musket or cannon  balls.These beautiful tapestries tell the story of the Hunt of the Unicorn.  There are seven tapestries in the series and a group of 18 weavers took 14 years to complete these reproductions of the originals that used to hang in the hall.  The project was commissioned by Historic Scotland as part of their efforts to restore Stirling Castle to the era of King James V reign in 1540.  We did not see the completed series as the last tapestry was not finished until 2015. The castle sits atop a high rocky crag with the only entrance at the end of a steep winding hill through the town.  Subsequently, the view from all three sides is incredible. As we left the castle we passed a truck and a group of men unloading a Formula One Race Car just outside the gate.  This made John’s day as he is an avid F1 fan and he had an opportunity to check it out. From the castle we walked down the street to Argyle House, which was closed so we went across the street to the church and cemetery.

On our second to last day of touring around London before we flew to Edinburgh to begin our month-long trip around Scotland before our son’s wedding on the 22 of July was spent just wandering around near St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Canadian Embassy.  It was an overcast, semi-rainy day so we were a bit lazy. There was an outdoor music festival going on just across the square from the Canadian Embassy.

And, as well, there was a display of Made-For-TV and Film vehicles. Here is a hint about what we did on our last day of sightseeing  in London: