Tag Archives: scottish

Royal Botanical Gardens – Edinburgh

Excerpt from the book Travels through History : Northern Ireland and Scotland  Belfast and the Causeway Coast has been rated best region in the world to visit in 2018 by Lonely Planet. In September 2017, Scotland was voted the most beautiful country in the world by a respected travel company, Rough Guides. ========== The original Edinburgh Botanical Garden wasContinue reading “Royal Botanical Gardens – Edinburgh”

Landscape photographer of the year 2017: the UK’s best scenery – in pictures

In this selection of winning and shortlisted images from this year’s competition, amateur and professional photographers worked to a brief of showcasing Britain’s eclectic landscapes

Dun Carloway Broch – 3

A path leads up the hillside, giving views of the broch and the surrounding countryside. The side facing you is built above steep rock, and most of it remains as originally designed. As you round the broch to the entrance, on the north side, you are presented with a different picture. From here you canContinue reading “Dun Carloway Broch – 3”

History in the hills: on the trail of Scotland’s prehistoric rock carvings

George Currie knows Scotland’s rock art. The former pop star has found nearly a quarter of the 3,000 pieces. Sam Wollaston joins him for some rock and stroll

An ‘Arctic’ safari in the Scottish Highlands

Winter in the Cairngorms national park can turn positively Arctic – perfect for Kari Herbert to give her young daughter a taste of the polar conditions, and creatures, she enjoyed as a child in Greenland

A Hebridean cliffhanger: in search of St Kilda

From its golden sands and its towering cliffs, nothing prepares you for the drama of the Outer Hebrides. Madeleine Bunting pays tribute to the islanders’ indomitable spirit of endurance

Elemental Islay: big skies, powerful history … and whisky galore!

Whisky aficionado Charles MacLean has been to every Scottish island, but it’s Islay that draws him back, with its wildness, warmth – and eight distilleries

UK – Smiling Scots, worried Welsh and lazy Londoners: survey maps regional personality types

New research by Cambridge scientists analyses the way different personalities cluster across Great Britain

British Traditions – Dyke Leaping

This is an extract from my book 40 Humourous British Traditions The only fatality was in 1671 when Henry de Belancourt starved to death at the King’s Lynn sea-dyke leaping. He was determined to win and so decided to vault across using a small willow tree. In the final round a successful leap would haveContinue reading “British Traditions – Dyke Leaping”