West Linton

Where there’s an East Linton, there surely has to be a West Linton, and there is!  I was in East Linton recently, and the other day I had lunch in West Linton, again with Linda.  It’s a very charming old village with a wiggly narrow main street, so you have to take care driving through it as you can’t always see round the bends – wiggles rather than fully fledged bends!   This is a photo  of a photo of the centre of the village in the 19th century,

 

 

while this is how it looks today - Not a big difference, apart from the cars!

 

A favourite eating place is The Old Bakehouse, that has gone through several incarnations since it closed as the village bakery and shop more than 60 years ago.  When I was a kid it was a tearoom, where  my parents, sister and I used to end up sometimes, after a Saturday afternoon “walk in the country”.   High tea was a speciality – something that most tearooms did in those days – consisting generally of a choice of fish and chips, gammon and pineapple and chips – everything with chips – ham and egg and chips……. accompanied by a plate of bread and butter, followed by scones and jam and dainty cakes, all washed down with copious amounts of tea.   High teas went out of fashion when restaurants serving meals in the evenings came into fashion, something that just started when I was in my early twenties  However some tearooms are bringing back the old traditional High tea, though they are nowhere near as generous with the accompaniments these days!!!    I must get some photos inside the Old Bakehouse, which hasn’t changed much over the years, thankfully.  The old bread ovens are still in situ with some of the tools of the trade decorating walls and hanging from the ceiling.  The rough walls are painted terracotta now where I am certain they were white in my young day, but the wooden tables and chairs,  even their layout, are the same.

After our lunch we took a stroll through the village, looking into the bookshop with its shelves of new and second hand tomes, and the fireplace shop  - you can see it in the photo of the centre of the village.  It looks straight down the main street on one of those wiggly bends I was talking about - that sells woodburning stoves, or the gas or electric ones that look like real woodburners.  My gas stove in the living room came from here.   As well as stoves they sell lots of nicky nacky things for the home, and  as they had a Sale on I bought a rabbit door stop made of old leather for my doors onto the balcony.  I think he’s rather cute!  

You can see this clock tower in the photo up above  It was built above the old Cross Well, and the figure you can see is Lady Gifford, wife of Laird James Gifford, a 17th century stonemason.  This figure is a copy of the well worn original which is now in safekeeping out of the elements.  Another piece of sculpture by Gifford is the marriage stone that is said to have once been above his fireplace, but is now for some reason built into the gable of a cottage on the main street.

 

At the foot of the village is St Andrews Church, dating back to the 18th century, with the village war memorial standing outside its walls.  Behind me and in the next pic is the war memorial and the old Tollhouse, now a tearoom.

 

Going to the right of this picture I crossed the lower Green, to the river Lyne, walked over the bridge and along the opposite bank

 

 

to reach the ford at the top end of the Green.  In medieval days Lyne Water is said to have flowed along the route the main street now takes, so I suppose houses grew up alongside it, but eventually the river’s course was moved  here and the road took its place, hence a meandering road instead of a meandering river.  I took the drier route over the wooden footbridge, and took this picture looking upstream. Pretty!  Back in amongst the houses I realise what a mixture of buildings there are along the little lanes and in the squares.

  Cottages have had roofs raised and bits added on, to make several residences with outside stairs to the upper floors, as in this little corner.  Love the gate!  There used to be a beautiful art nouveau front door into the house immediately on the left inside the gate, but I suspect the owners have moved house and taken their door with them  as it has been replaced with a very ordinary glass paned door.  West Linton would be a very nice place to live in, but I think I’d have to have one of the old weavers’ cottages!  This one even has a cat flap!  Perfect!

 

Following the little lanes I finally came to the upper Green which I never knew existed.  I like the cottage here, but I’d remove the wooden porch and build a stone one instead!  Apparently there was once a brewery and also a tannery along here by the Green.  A bit smelly I wouldn’t wonder!  Not now though.  The medieval village has given the place its unique character and appearance and over the centuries it has developed and changed, but you can still see the essence of the place.  I love it!

Talk again soon.

One thing leads to another

Catherine contacted me recently.  She had found my blog while searching online for a camera club locally.  I replied to her email telling her about the Tweeddale Photographic group – oh, Stuart, if only you could have called it the Camera Club or something shorter!!  From now on it will be the TPG.  We exchanged a few emails.  Catherine hadn’t been in the area long and was having a housewarming party on Saturday – yesterday – would I like to go along?  Which was how I found myself blethering with some of her friends in her amazing kitchen – one whole wall a glass door open to the garden, where the bbq was alight and cooking burgers, kebabs and things under the tender administrations of her partner Fraser!

Now how on earth did Anthea and I get round to the subject of scrapbooking?  I know she mentioned it first,  saying that she was a scrapbooker, and I replied saying I was too but digitally.   (Yes, we were talking about blogging first of all! )  Anthea does the whole messy thing, with paper and glue, scissors, pattern punches, stamps, bits of ribbon, lace, buttons…… me?  Well I can’t afford to get into a bigger muddle than I already am at home though the scrapbooking thing certainly appealed to me, so when I discovered digital scrapbooking that seemed the perfect way forward for me!   I didn’t need loads of paper, glue, scissors, pattern punches, stamps, bits of ribbon, lace, buttons….. it was all there on the internet, like this kit below.  You can arrange any or all of the items into a layout – LO – adding photos – or not, as you please.  I used this one recently for a birthday card for Eunice in New Zealand.  Slowly I got started and found various websites that sold kits of papers and embellishments quite cheaply, and some were even free!  

Most of the websites had online communities, who posted their pages online for approval and helpful suggestions from other members.  I joined one and started posting. Since then, I have joined another smaller one and  have made friends all over the world.  So basically this entry is for Anthea -  and to show off some of the LOs I have done over the years!  You can find Anthea’s website  here.  She’s into card making too.

This is one of my earliest LOs, using the most elementary of graphic software, which I still use with great pleasure.  Chris, Ian and I sang together in the early 70s, and at one regular gig this is how we were introduced!

 

Being a big cat fan, I like to do LOs of the cats I know.  These three actually belong to Chris in the above photo, and his wife Mary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is one of my family history series.  The photo is of four generations of my family.  The old fella in the centre, my great great great grandfather, was born in 1784 and lived till he was 92.  My grandfather is one of the two little boys – the older one.  I am lucky to have pictures of most of the direct ancestors back to the great great greats!  Here’s  another LO.  Great great grandfather Inglis is disrespectfully known as Spike within the family due to a resemblance, we think, to the late great Spike Milligan.

 

 

 

This is my LO of his family, Grace his widow, and six of his eight children.  One went to Australia, one to NZ, and another to India. Three stayed at home, including great grandfather.  The youngest daughter died at 18 years of age. 

 I put all the ancestral LOs into a family tree and had it printed out and framed for my wall!   I’m quite proud of it!

 

 

 

Then I have done some LOs of friends’s children, including little Conor from Galway and his sister Jessica.

and Ella their cousin.

 

 

 

 

 

I like this one – well,  I like all my LOs - of a  plum blossom photo! 

In my opinion the simpler the page the better it shows off the photo.  I have tried the cluttered effect but I keep coming back to the simple LO – strange, as in life I am a very cluttered person!

A last one for now, made for my American friend Peggy, who sent me the photo and some words about what it means to her.

I wish I had time to do a lot more scrapping LOs.  I certainly have enough photos to choose from to embellish!

Talk again soon.

Kailzie Gardens

I mentioned Lady Buchan /Hepburn in my last entry, so today I will show you some of her garden at Kailzie – don’t pronounce the Z.  It’s Kailie.  I had arranged to meet my sister and her partner for lunch at the stables restaurant there.  It was a glorious day – wall to wall sunshine and blue sky – though still a little on the cool side.  We had a nice meal in what was probably once the coach and carriage house, adjoining the stables of the big house, before I took myself on a tour of the gardens.  We had gone initially to Kailzie to take a look at cctv footage of ospreys nesting in the area, but after we had paid our entrance fee, we were told the connection wasn’t working.  We were a bit cross that the centre’s staff had taken our money before telling us the news, but at least I managed to get some shots of the bird feeding station at the rear, and a pair of chaffinches.

Unfortunately Kailzie house itself was demolished in the 1960s as it was in a very bad state of repair, and cheaper to knock down than restore.  

 

Nowadays it would have had a preservation listing but that was way back then, so the house has gone, leaving an open space where it once stood.   Coming up the drive you would have crossed the stone bridge and the house would then have been on your left  It must have had the most wonderful view of Tweeddale and the hills to its north.  Here’s how it once  looked as you approached via the bridge!  You can see the stone bridge parapet in the photo.  I last showed you this picture in March last year – here’s a link back to when the snowdrops were out.   This time there were daffodils to see, all along the walks and through the woodland garden – so many varieties.

I love these frilly ones with the split trumpets,

and the white doubles.

 

 

 

 

 

For the first time I have ever seen  it,  I think, the fountain was actually playing.  It was so very pretty. 

 

 

And in the walled gardens I spotted a statue I hadn’t seen before – just because I hadn’t been in that part of the garden before, I suppose. 

The laburnum walk wasn’t yet in flower.  I really look forward to another visit to Kailzie soon to see that!

 

I found this lone Himalayan blue poppy in the formally laid out walled garden, not far from the former hothouse – not so spectacular as the one at Glassmount, but in better condition!

 

 

 

Once again in the woodland area I walked back by the burn - the stream - with its little waterfall, and the rhododendrons almost in full bloom ,

and rustic bridge, almost hidden by overhanging branches – above right.   The bluebells were coming into flower  - below right 

 

and just as I reached this part of the path – left - the breeze blew down a shower of blossom petals to mingle with the pine cones, though I was too late to capture it on camera. 

This is one of the two fishing ponds at Kailzie with views beyond to the hills.  The other pond is much larger, and looking in the opposite direction you can see the lodge houses at the gateway to Kailzie.  Peebles is a couple of miles back along that road, which was where I was headed next – back home.  I daresay it won’t be long before I am back at Kailzie for some more photos, and then I have to pay a springtime visit to Dawyck Gardens too, for the rhododendrons!    That will be a treat!

Talk again soon.

East Lothian

Near Peebles we have West Linton, lin being an old word for a stream, and ton being settlement.  There must be dozens of Lintons around the country, but where there is a West Linton you surely expect to find an East Linton, and so you do – find one, that is – though it’s a bit of a journey away, over in East Lothian, the county east of Edinburgh. Its “lin” was the river Tyne – not the Tyne that flows to the sea at Newcastle but another one.  The village used to sit along the Great North Road, now the A1,  but has been bypassed for many a long year now.   Originally the village was a staging post, where long distance travellers would stop to dine or spend the night, and horses were rested or changed before continuing their journey.  One of the village inns is the Linton Inn which was where Linda and I had lunch one day recently. The river, like many others, was a source of power for many mills along its banks, and the building on the right of the above photo, standing at the bridge end looks like it was once one of them.  Now sadly minus wheel, it is a private house, its front door being on the first rather than ground floor, and reached by a flight of stone steps.  I love the little Mill Lane  winding past it.

 

The view of the river from the parapet of the bridge, on the mill side, is very pretty.  The mill being right on the water’s edge there was probably no need for a mill stream taking the water from the river to run the water wheel.   At times like this when the water was fairly low,and probably wouldn’t reach the water wheel, I wonder whether they would have an alternative method for running the mill.  Maybe the wheel was inside and there was a mill lade taking water inside.

Note. Having looked up mills in East Linton on the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, I can find no record of this being a mill.  Linton Mill was further along  that Mill Lane in front of the building on Bridgend.  That’s probably it in the  far distance!

However, there is another mill on the River Tyne that has survived for several centuries.   It is the picturesque  Preston Mill on the north bank of the Tyne, and it does have a mill lade bringing water down from the river to power the  mill wheel and then return it to the river.  There has been a mill here  since at least the 12th century apparently, though most of the present building only goes back to the 17th century .

It  was a meal mill, and now owned by the National Trust for Scotland it is open to the public during the summer months June till September.  It’s years since I was there but I seem to remember it still works!   The funny little conical building served as the drying kiln for the grain before it was ground in the rectangular building itself.

Nearby is the garden centre where  later we were able to sit in the sun drinking tea and devouring homebaked cake, while looking across the walled garden that forms the garden centre.

 

 

 

I was surprised to find out that the Smeaton estate was until 1934 in the possession of the Buchan-Hepburn family.  Our local beautiful Kailzie Gardens is owned by the present Lady Buchan Hepburn.  I was speaking to her only last week when I was visiting Kailzie.  (Name dropper, eh?)

Our next stop was at North Berwick having passed by this field of  new growth, at the back of the town in the shadow of Berwick Law.

 

Coming down into the town we stopped by the sea where once more I took photos of  the Bass Rock – like Berwick Law a plug from a prehistoric volcano.  I still can’t get over how good the zoom is on my camera.

 

 

 

You can see the lighthouse so clearly.  The rock is white because of the covering of gannets nesting on the island! 

At last it was time to head for home, so I’ll leave you with one last photo, an abandoned sandcastle on the beach left to the mercy of the next high tide! 

Talk again soon.