Islands

Continuing on from Arran, we also visited the Isle of Skye, and the largest island in the Outer Hebrides the Isle of Lewis and the Isle of Harris (both are actually the same island. Confusing.) What I really enjoyed about these islands was their remoteness, and the ruggedness of the landscape. The hills are more mountain scale rising up from the sea, and green pastures are scattered with rocks and heather. I found it amazing that despite the remoteness, ruggedness of the landscape, and the biting wind, every inch of the landscape has been inhabited for thousands and thousands of years.

Dunvegan Castle. This castle belongs to Clan MacLeod, and the current Laird still lives here. The gardens are fantastic, mostly planted in the last 200 years, there's a formal walled and circular gardens, woodland area and lawns banking down to the sea.

Dun Baeg Broch. There are loads of brochs scattered around the UK, this one is near Stuan on the west coast of Skye. Brochs are iron age fortified dwellings that were multi-storey, cylindrical structures. Their internal design is debated, but there was probably timber floors at each storey, livestock kept downstairs and people living communally on upper floors.

Hillside opposite Uig. This hillside quite clearly shows the crofting system of land division. I'm not too sure of the history of crofting, but I think the form of tenure was put in place after or during the clearances, as a way of controlling the livelihoods of small land owners or tenants - people were given the choice of moving to a croft (usually large enough to be self sufficient but not to make any kind of profit off) or leaving. The vertical stripping of the crofts means that each crofter had a fair share of good and bad land, and access to the sea and seaweed.

The Fairy Glen. Its the isle in miniature, with baby hills, stunted trees and little brooks. It's a lovely place where sheep look like giants, and hill walking is a breeze.

Remains of a stone wall in the Fairy Glen

We took the ferry from Uig to Tarbert on the Isle of Harris.

Luskentyre on the west coast, the sand is bright white and the water is so clear.

Inland mountains of north Harris

The Dun Carloway broch on Lewis, it's one of the more complete ones.

Stone stairs in the walls of the broch

Old blackhouse footings on linear crofts

The blackhouse village at Gearrannan. These were the traditional style of house on the islands, some still being used in the 1960's. The construction is solid, and well insulated with earth between the walls, and layers of turf and thatch on the roof.

Callanish standing stones, which I think are the biggest in the UK outside of Stonehenge???

Lewis chessmen (the queen) flanking the entry to the woodland centre at Stornoway

And the king

Willow sculpture in the grounds of Stornoway Castle

Next post will be back to the mainland.

Travels

I have been very lazy about writing this blog over the past few months, I did complete a dissertation and do quite a lot of travelling instead though. Having made it to Melbourne to start a new job tomorrow, I thought I’d share a few of the wonderful places I’ve been to recently. 

In June we made a weekend trip to the Isle of Arran, off the west coast of Scotland. We were amazed at how easy it was to get to – two trains, a boat and three and a half hours later we were across the other side of the country on a lovely island! Arran is sometimes called Scotland in miniature, it has mountains, rolling moors and farmlands, some amazing coastline, history and culture going back thousands of years, warm pubs, good food and lots of golf courses.

On the boat to Arran, we got one of the rare, beautiful summery weekends for our trip

View of Goatfell (the pointy bit), the largest mountain on Arran at 874m. We were happy to look at it rather than climb up.

Walking around the bay, ducks guarding the bridge. Also, there were masses of rhododendrons blossoming everywhere which were introduced and are now quite a significant, though pretty, weed species across Scotland.

The cliffs just north of Blackwaterfoot on the western side of the isle. Lots of stone towers (tors?) were made on the beach.

Wild iris

A ruined farm house on Machrie Moor. The hillside in the distance is the on the other side of the Firth of Clyde.

Sheep and stone circles on Machrie Moor. There was a particular gang of 5 larger lambs who were super curious and a bit daring in coming up close while we were walking through. They were also the ones jumping onto the higher stones.

Standing stones on the moor. There are about 5 groups of standing stones, these are the remains of the tallest circle about 4-5m high. We set out on the walk to the stones in the evening, this photo was taken a bit before 10pm, the week before the summer solstice.

The circles were made of different stone types, the smaller ones seemed to be granite, and the tall ones were red sandstone. Incidentally, there are lots of buildings around scotland that use this stone...

The walk up to Glen Ashdale Falls near Whiting bay. Lots of Arran is devoted to forestry, and most of the plantations are spruce that are slowly getting replaced with native tree species as the plantations mature and get harvested. This tree is part of the native forest on a steep bank down to the river.

Where plantation meets the native forest.

Glen Ashdale Falls. This was our first encounter with midges, small biting flies that leave lumps like mosquitoes. Luckily they liked Owen more than me and only really are a problem when you stop moving - like standing still to admire a water fall.

At the distillery near Lochranza, eating a picnic with local cheese and smoked salmon pate - very yummy. Apparently there used to be huge numbers of illegal stills set up all over Scotland, especially in the islands. There was a black market system set up to ferry whisky over to the mainland when most of those stills were shut down.

Brodick Castle. Most of the castle was built from the 17th C onwards, though there is a stairway and dungeon that go back several centuries earlier.

The gardens of the castle are really lovely and have great views over the firth. Most of the garden is arranged as a Victorian pleasure and specimen garden, has a formal and woodland section and a huge rhododendron collection.

Walking back to Brodick past the heritage museum where a pipe band was playing. All the pipe bands I've seen have the drummer wearing the skin of a big cat - I don't know why.

To complete the Scotland in miniature experience, we played mini golf while waiting for the ferry to take us back to the mainland.

That's installment one of travels around Scotland, lots more pictures to come!

To London

Summer seems to be conference season. Last weekend I was down in London attending Food in Public Space, a conference by Birkbeck College University of London; there's a symposium in Edinburgh this week and another conference here at the end of the month, all about landscape and urbanism. Its going to be a busy but interesting few weeks, and quite well timed as all relate to my summer research.

I had time to do some sight seeing in London, I made choice to walk around the city rather than take the tube to start to get to know the layout of the city. I was surprised at how easy it was, and how compact the central area is. Some pictures from my wanderings:

A church near the Borough Market

Thunder eggs embedded in the finish on the church walls

Big Ben

These windows almost started a series of all the funky windows in London.....

Westminster Abbey behind some of the buildings attached to the parliament

WestminsterAbbey

The Borough Market was a bit of a style market rather than a food market, it did have some token veg stalls but most stalls were quite specialised artisan products - very yummy and very generous with tasters, but not somewhere the weekly shop could happen. I did have 5 different kinds of cake for lunch though.

Piccadilly circus

The Thames

The eye

The Victoria and Albert Museum is one of my favourite museums, it was started to allow everyone to enjoy art through a vast collection of copies and is now a massive craft and design museum.

Sculpture hall in the V and A

Inside courtyard of the V and A - it was a really warm, sunny day and the lawn was full of people enjoying the sunshine

The William Morris room where I had afternoon tea.

Netsuke (kinda like a Japanese toggle). These little objects are so intricately carved and so beautiful, functional too!

Staircase in the V and A

A spiral book case made from tensioned steel by Ron Arad

Funky couch

 In other news, the book from the 2010/11 MSc. The City and MSc. Architecture and Urban Design is being launched tomorrow, its called Gamma/Jaamaa Urban Fragments: Casablanca/Edinburgh and should be available through Amazon really soon.