July 5 - 6, 2015 - Glasgow and area & homeward bound

Latha math All,

Sunday we were off to explore in Glasgow after for me a rather upsetting morning which had a happy ending. Saturday evening we decided to have a night cap in the hotel's bar. Unknowingly, I had left my purse in the bar when we went back up to our room. As I was getting ready to leave for breakfast on Sunday morning I couldn't find my purse, panic set in. I stopped by reception on the way to breakfast to see whether anybody had turned it in, and to my relief some one had. I don't know whether it was another guest or one of the bar staff but it was there and nothing had been touched. I was one lucky and very relieved person.

Our task the night before was to pick the place to explore, so as it was a lovely day we picked the Royal Botanical Gardens and arranged to meet up there. The gardens were created in 1817 and were intended to supply the University of Glasgow.  William Hooker, the regius professor of botany at the university contributed to the gardens development before his appointment to the directorship at Kew Gardens in London. The gardens were originally used for concerts and other events and in 1891 the gardens were incorporated into the Parks and Gardens of Glasgow. There are numerous glass houses some large and some more like small green houses were more exotic plants were on display or being cultured for the larger houses. The picture upper left is of one of the beautiful orchids. We had a wonderful stroll around the gardens and down along the river. Terry and I then checked out a craft sale that was on in the gardens but did not see much of interest. We all relaxed in the cafe, enjoying tea or coffee before heading off.

Next we strolled along Byers Road, the main street, window shopping with some of us stopping to purchase things. The kids (Ellen and Nikos) were hungry so they stopped for crepes, while I purchased a nice Tayberry vinegar made with berries from Fife at a small distillery, Demijohn that makes vinegars and liquors from plants and ingredients from the UK. While at the store we had a nice chat with a local lady who recognised our Canadian accents and asked where we were from. The kids then took us to a quirky lane way Ashton Lane, which is home to numerous restaurants and beer gardens. We stopped for some refreshment in a lovely little beer garden and relaxed enjoying the sun. Refreshed, we continued our walk into the university area taking in the lovely architecture.
The picture on the right is of a Church of Scotland building and is one of many such buildings in the area. The University of Glasgow is the 4th oldest university in the English-speaking world, being founded in 1451 and would definitely be worth a visit to the grounds on a future date. Our last stop was for refreshment and a bite to eat. A pub where we enjoyed ciders and beers along with a couple of sharing platters for all. The heavens opened so we timed this break perfectly. We spent time recalling old times and learning more about Nikos and getting his take on the current situation in Greece with the EU referendum. Refreshed we headed back to our cars taking advantage of the break in the rain.

We have enjoyed our break in Glasgow and the opportunity to catch up with Ken, Terry, Ellen and meet Nikos.

Monday we were up and out early for the trip home. Our plan was to stop at New Lanark, a World Heritage Site on the way home. New Lanark is a village built on the River Clyde; it was founded in 1786 by David Dale who built cotton mills and housing for the workers. Early in the 19th century Dale sold the mills for £60,000 to a partnership that included his son-in-law Robert Owen. Owen was a social reformer whose ideas and their implementation of them brought schooling for the children, health care, better and cheaper foods for the workers, better working conditions and housing for the time. In Owen's time some 2500 people lived in the village. The mills operated until 1968 then fell into disrepair. The village was restored and in 2006 became a World Heritage site were over 400,000 people visit each year. The picture on the left is of the housing provided for the
workers and the right is of the falls and old mill that burnt down.

We now headed back to Liverpool taking the roads less travelled. What would have taken 3 ½ hours to drive by motorway was a 7 hour drive. We saw some lovely scenery but very few villages while in Scotland. Once back in England, the village are numerous and we stopped for a late lunch/early supper outside Penrith at The Beehive Pub. The food was excellent and the portions generous accompanied by very friendly staff.

We hope you have enjoyed this blog of our Glasgow break.

Sian Leibh,

Sandy & Fred

July 3 - 4, 2015 - Glasgow and Area - Scotland

Latha math All ,

We were up and off early heading to Glasgow for a long weekend to meet up with Terry and Ken Thompson who were visiting their daughter Ellen and her boyfriend Nikos. We had booked a hotel that is in East Kilbride as we wanted to explore before heading into Glasgow. Our first stop was Culzean Castle located on the Ayrshire Coast. It is the former home of the Marquess of Ailsa head of the Kennedy Clan.

The castle was constructed in the L-shape plan as ordered by the 10th Earl of Cassilis. The architect, Robert Adam, rebuilt a more basic structure into the castle that we see today. The castle was built in stages between 1777 and 1792. There is a grand circular stair case which can be seen on my Facebook Wall or Fred's Flickr site (www.flickr.com/photos/fredparkins). The views across the sea from the drum tower's circular saloon to the Isle of Arran were gorgeous.

In 1945 the Kennedy family gave the castle and grounds over to the National Trust for Scotland to avoid paying inheritance tax but with a stipulation that the top apartment be given to General Dwight D Eisenhower in recognition for his role as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in WWII. Eisenhower stayed here a total of 4 times the first in 1946 and once as President of the United States of America. We explored only a small portion of the property; the immediate grounds to the castle and the castle itself. There was much more to see such as the grounds, parkland, walled gardens and ponds as well there are sea caves to explore beneath the castle. The castle has also been featured on the Scottish 5 pound note since 1987. Another of the castle's claim to fame is that it is haunted by 7 ghost's which include a piper and servant girl. Exploring completed we headed off to our hotel taking the back roads enabling us to enjoy the countryside.

On one of the lanes we drove along we came across a pasture that had this cow (pictured to the right) with the pinkest nose I have ever seen on such a large cow.
Once at the hotel which took a bit of time thanks to the nav-chick taking us to a family fun park, they had difficulty finding our reservation. After a while it did get sorted out. Our accommodation special was bed, breakfast and a 3 dinner on the night of arrival. The meal we had was one of the best we have had in a hotel.

Saturday we were up early for breakfast, then after check-out we headed into Glasgow to meet up with Ken & Terry. We had made arrangements to meet at the Burrell Collection an art collection in Pollok Country Park located on the south side of the city. Sir William Burrell (1861-1958) took over the family shipping business at the age of 14 and was a very successful shipping magnate and art collector.

There are over 8000 objects in his collection. The picture on the left is of the re-creation of the drawing room from Hutton Castle complete with the objects that were in the room. The collection which contains medieval art, weapons, tapestries, stained glass, Islamic, Chinese and Ancient Egypt items was given over to Glasgow in 1944 along with 250,000 pounds with the stipulation that the collection be housed outside the city to avoid the pollution problems of the time. This, however, was not realised until 1983 with the building of the gallery in Pollok Park. The gallery, however, can only house a small portion of the collection. We were interested to find out that Terry is a distant relation to William Burrell, so her family tree contains some people of importance. While there we also met some people who were visiting from Hamilton, Ontario. As it was cool I was wearing my jacket with its Canadian flag which acted as a conversation starter once again.

Though overcast it was still dry so we decided to head off to Luss to take in the highland games of a local clan. The village of Luss is located just north of Loch Lomond and it is too bad that it was so misty as it is a lovely scenic area with some fantastic drives when the weather is clear. We parked in the village and made the short walk to the games. Ken was a bit cheeky and got us all in for the price of a family and 2 seniors. The sign with the prices did not specify the age for children under the family package, so Ken took a broad interpretation to get his daughter Ellen and Nikos in as his children. The games were not what I had expected, it was really more like a family sports day, with races for the children, tossing of items for the men and dance. We saw the men tossing a bush over a high jump measure as seen on the right.

The heavens finally opened so we exited and headed a short way to Balloch for a late lunch. From here we went our separate ways as Fred and I had to check into our hotel in Glasgow. We arranged to meet up later for supper at a local pub "The Bon Accord" which is a short 10 minute walk from the hotel. The Bon Accord is a well known Whisky Pub and I tried a lovely single malt whiskey while we were waiting for the gang to arrive. We had a light supper as we were all still quite full from our lunch. Around 9:00 pm a live band, who took forever to set up, came on to play so we stayed for their first number to see if they were any good. They were not bad but as we are sitting very close to them it was far too loud so we left much to the band leaders dismay after the first song. We said our good nights and we were given the task of planning our next days activities.

Sian leibh,
Sandy & Fred

June 24, 2015 - Harewood House, Leeds

Greetings All,

We took advantage of the good weather to use a Two for One coupon we had received from our visit to Chatsworth House. Chatsworth House is one in a group of ten Treasure Houses of England, and this day we were visiting another from the group, Harewood House which is near Leeds, Yorkshire. This is the seat of the Earl and Countess of Harewood and is set within the beautiful Yorkshire countryside. As this is a day trip for us being as it is just outside of Leeds, we headed out by 10:00 am. We stopped and had a pub lunch at The Harewood Arms which is also a small hotel. Fred had his favourite, a proper steak and ale pie and I had a Greek Salad. The meal was accompanied with the area's local brews, cider for me and best bitter for Fred. Tummies full we set off on our exploration of Harewood House.
                            
The picture above to the right is of the North Front of the house. The House was designed by architects John Carr and Robert Adam and was built between 1759 and 1771 for the wealthy plantation owner Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood. The Lascelles family claim to have arrived in England with William the Conqueror during the Norman conquest of England, with the family then settling in Yorkshire around 1315. The house remained untouched until the 1840's when Sir Charles Barry was employed by Henry Lascelles, 3rd Earl of Harewood to increase the size of the house for his family.

Henry was father to 13 children, a productive chap and poor mom but then large family were a sign of the times back then. The picture on the left is of a servant's bell. The handle pulls down and lets the servant's who were in the basement know which room required their assistance. The house itself is not as ornate as some of the other Treasure Houses or National Trust properties we have visited but the plaster work was very beautiful and detailed.

The picture on the right is of one or the more ornate rooms now known as the portrait room.

Harewood House was also home to HRH Princess Mary, the eldest daughter of George V. She married Henry Lascelles, Viscount Lascelles in 1922, living nearby at Goldsborough Hall until 1929 when they moved into Harewood House on the death of Henry's father.

Princess Mary wanted to have an active roll during WWI and set out to ensure that every sailor and soldier would receive a personalised gift at Christmas in 1914. The 1914 Christmas Boxes pictured below on the left are examples on display of the boxes that were given to every sailor and soldier. The Princess raised £100,000 pounds, a considerable amount of money in 1914 in order to produce the boxes.

We explored the servants quarters and kitchens which were in the basement of the house. The kitchen was huge and very well equipped. From here we explored the gardens which were of the traditional Italianate Formal Terrace type with various fountains and shrubbery. We then headed into the Bird Garden. Many of the species in the garden are listed as endangered. You may see more picture again on my Facebook wall or Fred's flickr account www.flickr.com/photos/fredparkins


Our last stop of the day was All Saints Church, Harewood which is now a redundant church on the grounds of Harewood House. A church has been on this site since the late 1100's, however, the current building was built in 1410 by Elizabeth and Sybil De Aldburgh, daughters and joint heiresses of Sir William De Aldburgh of Harewood Castle. The church was built of Yorkshire Millstone. As stated it was not the first church to be built here, as evidenced by a fragment of a carving from the 10th century that was found and a Norman Font  which still stands inside the church. The church was refurbished in 1863 with the ceilings, pews and stained glass windows being replaced to the then fashionable medieval Gothic design. The church houses one of the largest collections of alabaster stone tombs. The are six pairs of effigies, dating from 1419 - 1510, commemorating the owners of Harewood and nearby Gawthorpe estate. They are some of the greatest examples of alabaster carving in England.

Once highly coloured you can now just see the beautiful alabaster
of which the tombs were carved. The picture on the right is of the tomb of Sir Richard Redman (died 1426) and his wife Elizabeth Aldburgh (died 1434).

We took the back road home to Liverpool to enjoy the Yorkshire countryside and avoid the motorways.

Ta Ra for now,

Sandy & Fred