Showing posts with label UK-Scotland-Edinburgh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UK-Scotland-Edinburgh. Show all posts

Tuesday, 14 February 2023

Statues Without Plinths

A Collection of Plinthless Statues, Starting in the Caribbean and Moving East to the Shore of the China Sea

Introduction

There was a time when effigies of ‘the great and the good’ stood on plinths so pigeons could perch on their heads and the rest of us could look up to them. The ultimate was Admiral Nelson whose plinth – or column - is 52m high. The figure itself is over 5m, but for the sculptor (Edward Hodges Bailey) it must be galling to have worked so hard on something that very few people ever see properly.

Nelson's column, Trafalgar Square, London in November sunshine

I don’t know where or when the fashion started but I think I first saw statues of normal sized people standing on the pavement (or, in this case, sidewalk) in Tacoma, Washington (the western US state, not the eastern city) in 1998. The next summer, in the south of France, we found them in several towns; whichever side it started the idea had already jumped the Atlantic. Over the last twenty years it has spread to most corners of the Earth.

I like these statues. Most (but not all) are light hearted, and I appreciate being able to look a statue in the eye. So here is a selection of writers and musicians, ordinary people and eccentrics, cats, dogs and more. My (arbitrary) rules for inclusion accepts a pedestal up to knee height, but the figure must to be roughly life size. I also feel free to bend my rules whenever I want.

Cuba

No doubt I took some photos in Tacoma in 1998, but prints are so much easier to loose than digital photos, so I will start in the Caribbean, in Cuba to be precise.

Havana
(visited March 2020)

When not physically looking up at a sculpture, there is no pressure to metaphorically look up to the person portrayed, you just have to enjoy their company.

El Caballero de Paris outside San Francisco de Asís

El Caballero de Paris (real name José María López Lledín) stands outside the former Church and Convent of St Francis of Assisi. Brought to Havana from Spain by his parents aged 11, he had mental problems in later life and lived on the street while believing he was a French aristocrat. Despite his loose grasp of reality, his charm and education made him a well-known and popular figure. He died in 1985 aged 85. Such statues, appreciate being touched and Lynne earned good luck, as many had done before, by stroking his beard.

Ireland

Dublin
(visited 25 June 2014 - Joyce and Famine Memorial)
24 June 2014 - Oscar Wilde)

The Prick with the Stick (more formally, James Joyce) is arguably the foremost writer in a city of writers, though he spent most of his adult life on the continent of Europe. I am overlooking his plinth as it is (just) below knee high.

Lynne and James Joyce, Earl Street, Dublin

His statue is one of four with rhyming nicknames. The Queer with the Lear is Oscar Wilde who sits on a slab of quartz (not a plinth) in Merrion Square Park opposite the house of his father, an eminent Dublin surgeon.

Lynne and Oscar, Merrion Square Park, Dublin

We missed The Tart with the Cart (Molly Malone) as she had been temporarily removed to allow for the construction of a tramway, and The Floozie in the Jacuzzi (Anna Livia Plurabelle, James Joyce’s personification of the River Liffey) due to my poor research.

The Famine Memorial stands beside the River Liffey. Most of the statues in this post are light-hearted, but not this one. The group of ragged people and their equally thin dog stand on the quay, almost staggering to the point of embarkation. Dublin has plenty of public art, much of it very good, but this is at another level. You can almost feel these people's misery as they embark on a journey they may well not survive. For some it will be the gateway to a new and better life, but as they stand here, on the very edge of Ireland, they have few dreams and little hope.

The Famine Memorial, Dublin

And here is a photo from behind - I felt the sculptor wants us to see them this way, too. They stand facing the sea with their backs to their old lives knowing there can be no return as the cringing dog realises that he will be left behind.

The Famine Memorial, Dublin

Galway
(visited Jul 2016)

Meanwhile, over on the west coast, the city of Galway also has an Oscar Wilde. He shares a seat with his Estonian contemporary and near namesake Eduard Vilde. They never met and as far as I have been able to ascertain, their lives had little else in common. The sculpture was a gift from the people of Estonia when they joined the EU in 2004.

Lynne with Oscar Wilde and Eduard Vilde, Galway
The original (minus Lynne) is in Tartu the 'intellectual capital' of Estonia

United Kingdom

I have a 2013 post entitled Commemorating Comedians in Caerphilly, Morecambe and Ulverston - which I whole-heartedly recommend (well I would, wouldn't I). It consists of statues of four comedians and their background stories. One of them has a plinth, the others would be appropriate here but I don't wish to repeat myself, so please click on the link.

Edinburgh
(Visited July 2021)

Greyfriars Bobbyis by far the oldest work in this post. He has stood patiently, with an ever-shinier nose, atop a substantial plinth since 1873. Only it isn’t really a plinth, it’s a double drinking fountain, people at the top, dogs at the base. As Bobby is a small dog, he needs a plinth or passers-by would trip over him.

Greyfriars Bobby, Edinburgh

Greyfriars Bobby was a Skye Terrier. After his owner died in 1858 the dog kept a vigil at his graveside in the nearby Greyfriars Kirk cemetery, until his own death 14 years later. This demonstrates the heart-warming loyalty of man’s best friend - or perhaps the pathetic neediness of dogs; a self-respecting cat would have raised its tail and stalked away

Burwash, East Sussex
(Visited Sept 2021)

For most of his adult life Rudyard Kipling lived in house called Batemans (currently owned by the National trust and open to the public) just outside the village of Burwash. He now sits in perpetuity on a bench beside the main road through the village.

Lynne and Rudyard Kipling, Burwash

Kipling had the instincts and attitudes of any man of his class born in the latter half of the 19th century. As an unabashed imperialist and the Poet of Empire, he should be out of fashion, but isn’t. He cannot be blamed for the circumstances of his birth, but he should be celebrated for the humanity which shines out of so many of his works. People may argue about his qualities as a poet, but he was undoubtedly one the greatest versifiers in the English language.

Portugal

Loulé
(Visited Oct 2022 and many times previously)

We have been frequent visitors to the Algarve, and for many years Loulé market was our first stop, directly from the airport. In 2006 and 2007 we found the market closed. When it reopened the familiar handsome neo-Classical/Moorish façade fronted a bright, clean and airy new market. Everything was back as it was, only its soul was missing. Revisiting Loulé in 2023 for the first time for several years we found a market trader from the old days, sitting on the steps outside, wondering what had happened to it all.

Bewildered market trader, Loulé

North Macedonia

Stepping lightly from one side of Europe to the other we arrive in a land that was once part of Yugoslavia.

Skopje
(visited May 2015)

Nikola Gruevski (Prime Minister 2006-16) initiated the‘Skopje 2014’ project and ‘Antiquization’. These were exercises in nation-building, promoting a Macedonian identity with unbroken continuity since antiquity and involved, among other things, the building of many large, nationalist statues and memorials. There were two problems. The Macedonia of antiquity, the land of Alexander the Great, was Greek and modern North Macedonians are mostly descended from the Slavic tribes who settled here some 900 year later. Secondly, he spent a great deal of money the city did not have. He resigned after riots in 2016, was subsequently charged with corruption and sentenced to two years in prison. He fled to Hungary and claimed political asylum.

Gruevski’s statues have enormous plinths, but Skopje also has several plinthless statues. A necessary antidote to Gruevski’s bombastic monstrosities, they exemplify a pleasanter and more approachable side of the Macedonian character. The Musicians can be found near ‘Warrior on a Horse’ (under an agreement with the Greeks it is not called ‘Alexander the Great’)

The Musicians, near Macedonia Square, Skopje

While The Divers are on one of the piers of Skopje’s 6th century Stone Bridge. Not great sculpture, perhaps, but it makes you smile, and that is good enough for me.

The Bathers, Stone Bridge, Skopje

Lithuania

Vilnius
(Visited July 2011)

I am always surprised how far east the Baltic States are. Vilnius is actually east of Skopje, but never looks it on a rectangular 2-D map.

After achieving independence from the USSR in 1990 Lithuania had a wealth of statues it no longer wanted, so Lenin and friends were retired to a park near the Belarus border. New statues were raised to various medieval heroes and, in a car park beside an anonymous apartment block in a residential area near the city centre, to Frank Zappa. The bust was erected in 1995 after funds were raised by civil servant Saulius Paukstys. A man blessed with an individual world view and a keen sense of irony, Paukstys commissioned the sculptor of many of the Soviet heroes, to produce the bust. Zappa has no connection with Lithuania, has never visited and before the bust was largely unknown, but the project caught people’s imagination as a wryly ironic gesture in a country that had seen enough of political monuments. (Rough Guide)

Frank Zappa,Vilnius
I know he has a plinth (or column?) but, like Greyfriars Bobby, he would be a trip hazard without it

Armenia

Yerevan
(Visited July 2003)

Mesrop Mashtots (Մեսրոպ Մաշտոց) (362 – 440CE) sits outside the Matenadaran (Մատենադարան) at the top of Mashtots Avenue, one of Yerevan’s main throughfares. The positioning is appropriate, the Matenadaran is a museum and research institute specialising in ancient Armenian manuscripts, and Mashtots is the man credited with inventing the Armenian alphabet (examples above). The (rather weathered) 36 letter alphabet is engraved on the stela to his right.

Mesrop Mashtots, Yerevan

The Fat Cat. I am breaking my own rules here, the plinth is small enough, but the figure is many times life size, but if you are going to portray a Fat Cat it has to be a very large and very fat cat. I hope this is a political statement, but I don't know if fat cat has the same meaning in either the sculptor's native Colombia, or Armenia.

Fat Cat, Yerevan

Georgia

Tbilisi
(visited August 2014)

The Tamada.

Modern Georgia includes the ancient land of Colchis, where Jason and the Argonauts rowed to steal the Golden Fleece.

The myth of the Golden Fleece has historical origins. Many of the streams flowing down from the high Caucasus bear gold, and it was traditional extracted by damming the flow with fleeces so the shiny metal adhered to the sticky untreated wool. This practice may date back to the 3rd millennium BCE, and archaeologists have found huge quantities of golden grave goods, many of which can be seen in the National Museum in Tbilisi. Among them is a seated figure, less than two centimetres tall, holding a drinking horn.

Tamada and us, Tbilisi

The supra (feast) is an essential part of Georgian culture and every supra need a tamada, (toastmaster) who proposes toasts for others to elaborate upon and so keep the wine flowing. Cast in bronze, many times the size of the original, the little fellow has become Tbilisi’s permanent honorary toastmaster. Every visitor to the city poses with him, those small enough sitting on his lap.

China

With a long eastward leap we reach the final country of this post, and two very different cities.

Pingyao
(visited Sept 2014)

600km southwest of Beijing, Pingyao is an old, walled Qing/Ming city, an artfully pickled oasis among the usual Chinese urban sprawl. We visited during the mid-autumn holiday when the town was packed and the Chinese tourist machine was turned up to eleven.

During our perambulation on the city wall we met the night watchmen…

The Night-watchmen, Pingyao city walls

…and the city governor holding a writing brush and about to get down to work. Nothing is taken too seriously here.

The city governor gets down to work, Pingyao

Hangzhou
(visited Nov 2016)

200 km southwest of Shanghai, Hangzhou is the centre of a metropolitan region of over 10m inhabitants. It is the home to Alibaba, one of the world's largest retailers and e-commerce companies and the fifth-largest artificial intelligence company. If Pingyao is China’s past, Hangzhou is its future. Street statues here are not primarily to amuse, though they may make older people smile.

Workers, Hangzhou

For many they are images of a past they do not remember.

Street market, Hangzhou

I have more, but this as probably as much (or more) than most would want at one sitting, so I shall stop. I do like these statues, I like to see who or what the locals wish to commemorate, or how they view their past. Most are not intended to be taken too seriously while one is very serious indeed, but all add to the interest of the towns or cities they call home. And can I have a bonus point for for a post which references Greyfriars Bobby, Frank Zappa and Alexander the Great?

Possibly also of Interest

Statues Without Plinths (2023)
Socialist Realism: In Praise of Bad Art (2022)
The Boxes of Carvoeiro (2016)

Sculptors and Dates of Installation (when known)

Liverpool
Duke of Wellington by George Anderson Lawson, 1865
Havana
El Caballero de Paris by José Ramón Villa Soberón, 2001
Dublin
James Joyce by Marjorie Fitzgibbon, 1990.
Oscar Wilde by Danny Osborne, 1997
Famine Memorial by Rowan Gillespie, 1997
Galway Wilde and Vilde by Tiiu Kirsipuu, 2004
Edinburgh
Greyfriars Bobby by William Brodie, 1873
Burwash
Rudyard Kipling by Victoria Atkinson, 2018
Loulé
Market Trader by Teresa Paulino and Pedro Felix
Vilnius
Frank Zappa by Konstantinas Bagdonas, 1995
Yerevan Mesrop Mastots by Ghukas Chubaryan, 1968
Fat Cat by Fernando Botero
Tbilisi
Tamada by Zurab Tsereteli, 2013

Wednesday, 7 July 2021

Edinburgh (2), Royal Yacht, Royal Mile and the Forth Bridges: Scotland '21 Part 2

Plus an Empty Shopping Mall, a Contender for the World's Ugliest Parliament Building and a Trio of Bridges

The (former) Royal Yacht Britannia

By Car from Edinburgh to Leith


Scotland
Edinburgh
Next morning, with a full Scottish breakfast inside us (identical to a ‘full English’ plus haggis) we waited for the rush hour to subside before extracting the car from the car park and heading for Leith. ‘You drove to Leith?’ said Norma and Wilson (our hosts on the next stage of this journey) their voices pitched somewhere between incredulity and horror. ‘The bus is so much easier.’ Of course, they are right - when you know the city - but I am wary of bus rides in unfamiliar locations. Metros and trams have named stops, you know where you are and when you have arrived, but a bus ride is a journey into the unknown; you have no idea of your location and are reliant on the kindness of strangers (who don’t always agree) to know when to get off. Our sat nav, however, would takes us straight to our chosen parking spot.

We drove from our hotel near the castle to Leith, home of the Royal Yacht Britannia (Thanks to mapsofworld.com)

The word ‘straight’ in that last sentence was wishful thinking. It took us round in a misshapen circle north of the castle, including half a mile along what appeared to be a bus/taxi route. If so, I got away with it. I hoped it might be searching for the right level in this hilly city to find the high road to Leith, but once out of the loop we bumped along small urban roads through seemingly endless outer Edinburgh districts I had never heard of. In due course, though, we arrived safely at the Ocean Terminal Shopping Centre; it was besieged by road works and its colour coded car parks required guesswork.

The Ocean Terminal, Leith

The shopping mall is not my natural habitat. They have all the charms of an airport departure lounge, with the disadvantage that you come out in the same place you went in. But I liked the Ocean Terminal – we had it to ourselves.

The Ocean Terminal, Leith

We had some time to kill, and after yesterday’s soaking I took the opportunity to buy a waterproof, a lucky cagoule, as it turned out - I had no cause to remove it from its pouch during the rest of our trip. Then we drank one of Costa’s oversized cappuccinos.

Onto the Former Royal Yacht

As the sign on the stairs (above) suggested, the Ocean Terminal is an unusual shopping mall; it has a former royal yacht attached. Clutching our timed ticket in our sweaty hands we approached the entrance at the appropriate time and were allotted to a guided tour.

The Former Royal Yacht Britannia beside the Ocean Terminal, Leith

126m long and nigh on 6,000 tonnes with not a sail in sight, Britannia is hardly a regular sort of yacht. Built in Clydebank, Britannia was commissioned in 1954 and pensioned off in 1997 when Leith won the competition to keep it permanently as a tourist attraction.

We started in the bridge and worked our away along and down. Britannia had a crew of 120 ‘yachtsmen’ and 21 officers. I am unsure how they all fitted in, or what they all found to do. The most senior officer was usually an Admiral, and on the bridge, where others stood, he had a seat.

Her Majesty's Yacht, Britannia

Naval ratings volunteered for a two-year tour of duty as a Yachtsmen and after one year’s satisfactory service could opt for Britannia as a permanent posting. Maybe the Admiral was also a volunteer, a man equipped with the appropriate social graces but whose career was running out of steam. After all, the Admiralty would not want one of their best naval minds (if there is such a thing) cruising around on a yacht all year. On the other hand, he (they were all men) could not be a complete duffer, parking the monarch on a sandbank would be a poor advertisement for the Royal Navy.

The Accommodation

The admiral had a pleasant room where he could munch his breakfast toast or meet his senior staff.

Admiral's Breakfast room/office, HMY Britannia

His accommodation was hardly spacious…

Admiral's accommodation, HMY Britannai

…but it is roomier than that of the yachtsmen.

Yachtsman's accommodation, HMY Britannia

Even the queen’s bedroom resembles a mid-range 1970s hotel room.

Queen's bedroom, HMY Britannia

The Duke of Edinburgh had a slightly less attractive room adjoining – the aristocracy have traditionally preferred separate bedrooms (do they still?) - and could look with envy on his wife’s spacious office across the corridor.

Queen's Office, HMY Britannia

Would You Like a Drink?

The royal lounge was pleasant if a bit dated even for 1997, but if the queen required a gin and tonic, a lifted finger would set a flunky in motion.

Royal lounge, HMY Britannia

The officers had a comfortable wardroom (if they could prise that old masked man away from the bar)…

I think I've found my natural position, Wardroom HMY Britannia

…decorated with an enormous silver salt cellar in the shape of a ship (over-designed or what?), a gift from the last Russian Tsar….

Silver salt cellar, the Wardroom, HMY Britannia

…and the autograph of Lord Nelson, signed Viscount Nelson, Count of Bronte. Bronte was a Sicilian title bestowed on him in 1799 for services rendered to that kingdom in the course of the Napoleonic wars.

Nelson's autograph, Wardroom, HMY Britannia

The wardroom and its comfortable dining room can be hired for private functions.

Officer's dining, HMY Britannia

The chief petty officers had a full bar, too.

Chief Petty Officers' Bar

The Royal Navy has always floated best on a sea of alcohol and for the yachtsman beer (but only beer) was readily available. The tradition, started in 1740, of sailors receiving a daily tot of ‘grog’ (rum with sugar, lime juice and water) ended in 1970, but a grog barrel is still on display..

Grog barrel, HMY Britannia

When the queen was required to entertain, the State Dining Room was impressive. You can hire that, too if you like, and the Band of the Royal Marines to amuse your guests.

The state dining room, HMY Britannia

The Equipment

Deep in the bowels of the yacht is the engine room. By 1997, the two Pametrada steam turbines built in Wallsend by the Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company were functioning museum pieces.

The Engine Room, HMY Britannia

Britannia was built before the days of satellite navigation, indeed before the days of satellites and the ship’s binnacle is on display with the ship’s bell.

Binnacle and bell, HMY Britannia

When GPS was installed, it was, we were told, hidden in the gold finials atop the masts.

Gilded finial hiding GPS equipment

And what sits inside the container seen below is still a state secret – or maybe I have just forgotten.

It is definitely one of them, HMY Britannia

So ends this look at what has been described as a floating palace. But it is not a palace. Palaces are displays of ostentatious wealth designed to cow rivals and awe the peasantry. European monarchs no longer act that way – at least the ones that have survived, and maybe that is why they survived. Britannia was comfortable for royal travellers – in the slightly stiff and formal way of British royalty – but it was never palatial. Perhaps it should have been decommissioned well before 1997, but sentiment intervened. The days of such yachts have surely passed.

After coffee and a sandwich in M&S we found our way back to central Edinburgh. The journey seemed simpler – it is only a little over 3 miles, anyway - but there does not appear to be a dedicated Edinburgh to Leith road, just a succession of residential and commercial 2-lane urban thoroughfares.

The Royal Mile

The Royal Mile is a name given to the part-pedestrianised street that descends eastwards from the castle to Holyrood Palace. Despite the sign at the castle end there is no street called ‘The Royal Mile’, the top section is Castlehill, which becomes Lawnmarket, then High Street and finally Cannongate, one leading into the next. It is, though, almost exactly a mile long.

The start of the Royal Mile outside the castle

There is a lot to see, apart from the tartan and whisky shops, and my selection is, at best, idiosyncratic.

Boswell’s Court

Now the well-established Witchery Restaurant where you can dine in ‘baroque surroundings’ and/or stay in ‘lavishly decorated suites’. The close was named after a Dr Boswell who lived here in the late 18th Century. His nephew James Boswell (1740-95) was the biographer of Dr Samuel Johnson who is reputed to have dined here with him.

Boswell's Court, Royal Mile

The Hub (Tolbooth Kirk)

Further down beside the roundabout where Castlehill meets (non-pedestrianised) Lawnmarket is the dark soaring tower of a building formerly known as the Tolbooth Kirk. Built 1842-5, it looks like a church and has been used as a church, but was designed as a meeting hall for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. In full gothic revival style, it is the work of J Gillespie Graham and my old friend Augustus Pugin (see Bolton Priory, Yorkshire, Cotton Church, Staffordshire and Killarney Cathedral in Ireland).

The Hub or Tolbooth Church, Edinburgh

The Church of Scotland relocated its assembly in 1929 and for fifty years the still unconsecrated building was used exclusively for worship. In moth balls from 1979-99 it was then repurposed as a performance space and offices for the Edinburgh International Festival and renamed ‘The Hub’.

Deacon Brodie

William Brodie, born 1741, was a cabinet maker and locksmith and, from 1781, Deacon of Wrights and Masons, making him a respectable and affluent tradesman and a member of the town council. Wisely, he hid his gambling habit and five children by two mistresses (each unaware of the other) from genteel society. To fund this life-style, he employed his considerable knowledge of the locks of upper-class Edinburgh to facilitate a second career as a housebreaker.

Disturbed during a burglary in 1788 and fearing his accomplices would talk, he fled to London and then the Netherlands. He was arrested in Amsterdam, returned to Edinburgh, tried and executed outside the Tolbooth in front of a crowd of 40,000. His long-demolished house was near the pub which now bears his name.

The Deacon Brodie, Lawnmarket

Robert Louis Stevenson’s play Deacon Brodie, or The Double Life, was unsuccessful, but he returned to the theme later, publishing the better-known Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1886.

Kirk, Tolbooth and Mercat Cross

A burgh (an autonomous municipal corporation) traditionally had three essential features, a Kirk, a Tolbooth and a Mercat (Market) Cross.

St Giles’ Cathedral in High Street will do nicely as the kirk. Built in the 14th century and restored and extended over the years, it held cathedral status in the 17th century. Since 1689 the Church of Scotland has been Presbyterian and as such has no bishops and, therefore, no cathedrals so it is now an ‘honorary’ cathedral.

St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh (with the Duke of Buccleuch, left)

We missed the Mercat Cross but it is just off High Street beside St Giles.

The Tolbooth was a council meeting chamber, a court house and jail. 90 tolbooths survive in Scotland, some fulfilling parts of their original functions, but not Edinburgh’s. The medieval tolbooth, next to St Giles, was demolished in 1817 and the site is marked by a Heart of Midlothian decoration in the cobbles, but we missed that, too. The statue of the 5th Duke of Buccleuch (generally regarded as rather larger than his contribution to Edinburgh) would have been standing inside the tolbooth had it been erected 90 years earlier.

Street Performance – That Funny Dan

Further along, High Street narrows and becomes pedestrian again. Here we encountered a street performer, a Canadian juggler with an approach to his act and audience which made us chuckle appreciatively (Oh, I do like a chuckle!). Helped onto a board balanced on a cylinder by two co-opted audience members…

That Funny Dan sets up

…he proved himself a moderate acrobat, a competent juggler (a hope the axe and knives were not as sharp as they looked) and an accomplished comedian.

That Funny Dan...juggles and balances!

It must be a precarious living (literally and metaphorically) and maybe he hopes it will lead to a career which allows him to work indoors - or perhaps he is financing a PhD at Edinburgh University. His audience was appreciative and I trust they paid well. He accepted cash gratefully, but it was the second time this week we encountered a fixed price contactless terminal, in this case attached to his phone. One tap £5, and my card provider informs he is currently using the name ‘That Funny Dan’. We wish him well.

John Knox House

Just before High Street turns itself into Cannongate is a building known as ‘John Knox House’, now home to the Scottish Storytelling Centre. The house was built in 1495 and John Knox (1514-72) lived in this area in the 1560s, but despite its name, there is no hard evidence Knox ever lived there.

John Knox House, High Street, Edinburgh

In England, the Reformation was all about Henry VIII and his desire for an heir. We lose sight of the great intellectual movement that swept across northern Europe after Martin Luther set the ball rolling in 1517. Like Luther, Knox was originally a Catholic priest, like Luther he saw the corruption in the contemporary Catholic church and his Protestantism grew from intellectual foundations. He was, maybe, a difficult and dogmatic man, but he is regarded as the father of the Scottish Reformation and the Scottish Presbyterian Church.

Cannongate and Holyrood

In the final stretch, we walked past the Cannongate Tolbooth without realising it. Around 1143 David I, authorised Holyrood Abbey to found a burgh between the Abbey and Edinburgh. The burgh of Canongate was controlled by the Abbey until the Scottish Reformation and although it is only a short walk from the castle, it was not fully incorporated into Edinburgh, until 1856.

The devolved Scottish Parliament was created in 1999 and required a new Parliament building. Situated at the end of Cannongate and usually known as ‘Holyrood’, it  was opened by the Queen in 2004. Reading about the design concept, it sounds impressive, looking at it, it is plain ugly.

Scottish Parliament, corner of Horse Wynd and Cannongate

The public entrance, above, is in Horse Wynd round the corner from Cannongate, but the building sprawls and there are outbreaks on Cannongate itself; it is not easy to see how the architecture here relates to other parts of the building.

Part of the Scottish Parliament, Cannongate

A grand concept, viewed piecemeal becomes a dog’s breakfast and this may challenge the Lithuanian Parliament in Vilnius for World’s Ugliest Parliament Building.

Across Horse Wynd is Holyrood Palace, Scotland’s principal royal residence since the 16th century. The Queen spends a week here at the beginning of the summer to carry out official engagements before moving north to her summer residence at Balmoral. The ruins of Holyrood Abbey are in the parkland behind the palace.

Holyrood Palace

As we had walked down the Royal Mile, the sky had steadily cleared and temperature risen. We sat in the sunshine on a bench outside the Palace and considered our route back

Grassmarket

We walked part way back up the Royal Mile, took a left down to Cowgate and followed Cowgate to the Grassmarket. Yesterday in the drizzle, the place looked miserable …

The Grassmarket, Edinburgh

… but today the outdoor seating had filled up with customers basking in the sunshine and the urge to join them became overwhelming.

Innis & Gunn IPA in the Grassmarket

In low ground near the foot of castle rock, Grassmarket was first mentioned in 1363 and by the 15th century was Edinburgh's main livestock market. There was never any grass in this boggy hollow the name deriving either from grazing strewn in pens or from a corruption/anglicisation of Grice Mercat (pig market).

From the 17th century The Grassmarket was Edinburgh’s place of execution and over 100 Covenanters were hanged here between 1661 and 1688.

Among other executions was that of Margaret (Maggie) Dickson. After her husband was press-ganged into the Royal Navy she obtained work at an inn in the Borders where she had an illegitimate child. Accused of drowning the baby she was tried and sentenced to death. After being hanged in the Grassmarket in August 1724 a doctor declared her dead. Her family prevented medical students from taking the corpse for dissection and carried her body away on a cart. Stopping at an inn for a wake, they heard noises from the coffin and found her still alive. Her punishment had been carried out, her "resurrection" was seen as divine intervention, and she was allowed to go free. She remarried her original husband (as her 'death' had parted them) and lived another 40 years. "Half-hangit Maggie" become a local curiosity, and still is as she now owns the established that was supplying our beer. More than one sentence in the above paragraph may not be factually true.

We were drinking at Maggie Dickson's

The market was always a place of taverns, hostelries and cheap lodgings. The Irish Potato Famine (1845-52) brought an influx of immigrants and many gravitated toward the Grassmarket. Before long vast numbers of people were living in over-crowded and insanitary conditions.

The Grassmarket became a slum and remained so until the 1970s. Gradually improvements allowed the area to lose its association with poverty and homelessness. The Salvation Army closed their two hostels – what they make of the backpacker hostels they became is another matter - and since 2000 there has been serious gentrification.

One of the Salvation Army's former hostels, Grassmarket

Some of Grassmarket’s problems have been solved, others displaced. In Edinburgh it is not difficult to find groups of older men sitting around drinking themselves into a stupor in mid-afternoon. Scotland’s other drug problems are well documented, if less visible to the casual visitor.

Euro Semi-Finals

In the evening we again resorted to the hotel bar which was as packed for the England v Denmark semi-final as Covid would allow. I thought it might be interesting to watch England in a Scottish bar, but judging by their reactions, the clientele here was largely English. England were lucky to win, we expect to be in Lanark for Sunday’s final.

08/07/2021

South Queensferry - Leaving Edinburgh by Bridge

Sth Queensferry
At Edinburgh the Firth of Forth is almost 10km wide so those wishing to journey north traditionally headed for a point 12km to the east where the firth, briefly, narrows. In the 11th century, Queen Margaret, consort of Malcolm III, established a ferry here to transport travellers the 2km to the opposite bank. The settlements at either end became known as South and North Queensferry. On Thursday morning we stopped at the South Queensferry viewpoint - still just within the Edinburgh Council District - to inspect the more modern Forth crossings before making the crossing ourselves.

The Forth Bridge

When technology advanced enough to bridge the Firth of Forth, the builders unsurprisingly chose the same narrow point. Construction of the Forth Bridge began in 1882 and it was opened in 1890 by the future Edward VII, The bridge has carried the Edinburgh–Aberdeen railway line across the Forth ever since.

When built it had the longest single cantilever span in the world (521m) and has since been surpassed only by the Quebec Bridge in Canada, completed in 1919.

The Forth Bridge

Designed by Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker, it regularly attracts the increasingly meaningless adjective ‘iconic’ and 'painting the Forth Bridge' has entered the language as a metaphor for an a never ending task. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, I find it an odd structure that transcends its essentially ugliness to became strangely beautiful.

The Forth Road Bridge

For rail users the problem was solved but everyone else was still using Queen Margaret’s Ferry. In the 1950s the ferries were making 40,000 crossings annually, carrying 1.5 million passengers and 800,000 vehicles, The need for a road bridge was obvious.

Work started in 1958 and the bridge was opened by the Queen in 1964. 2.5Km in length with a maximum span of 1006m it was at the time the longest suspension bridge in Europe.

The Forth Road Bridge

The bridge, though was a victim of its own success. Designed to carry 30,000 vehicles a day it was, by the early 2000s often working at double capacity. In 2004 corrosion was found in the cables – a problem that had earlier been found in American bridges of the same design.

The case for a second road bridge became compelling. In the last ten years the bridge has undergone some expensive refurbishments and a series of partial closures. Since reopening in 2018, it has been designated a Public Transport Corridor, with access restricted buses and taxis.

The Queensferry Crossing

Construction of the second road bridge, known as the Queensferry Crossing, started in 2011 and it was opened by the Queen in 2017, 53 years to the day after she opened the Forth Road Bridge. It carries the M90 motorway across the water starting very near the earlier road bridge but taking a more north-westerly route across the water, making it difficult to photograph from the South Queensferry viewpoint. It can be seen behind the Forth Road Bridge on the picture above.

A three towered cable-stayed bridge, it provides an interesting contrast with the earlier cantilever and suspension bridges. The Romans reputedly lashed 900 boats together to create a floating bridge here – it is a shame (though hardly surprising) that nobody ever tried an arched bridge to complete the set.

We left the viewpoint, found our way to the M90 and the Queensferry Crossing and on to Perth and thence further north on the largely two-lane A9.

The Queensferry Crossing