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
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| Scotland |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Admiral's Breakfast room/office, HMY Britannia |
His accommodation was hardly spacious…
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| Admiral's accommodation, HMY Britannai |
…but it is roomier than that of the yachtsmen.
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| Yachtsman's accommodation, HMY Britannia |
Even the queen’s bedroom resembles a
mid-range 1970s hotel room.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Royal lounge, HMY Britannia |
The officers had a comfortable wardroom (if they could prise that old masked man away from the bar)…
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| 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….
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| 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.
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| Nelson's autograph, Wardroom, HMY Britannia |
The wardroom and its comfortable dining room can be hired for private functions.
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| Officer's dining, HMY Britannia |
The chief petty officers had a full bar, too.
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| 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..
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Binnacle and bell, HMY Britannia |
When GPS was installed, it was, we were told, hidden in the gold finials atop the masts.
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| Gilded finial hiding GPS equipment |
And what sits inside the container seen below is still a state secret – or maybe I have just forgotten.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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).
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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…
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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 …
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| The Queensferry Crossing |
