ICONIC IMAGES OF SCOTLAND (Part Two)

 

Highland Dancer, Portland Highland Games

     Castles, grand golf courses, quaint villages, Highland sheep and coos, and Her Royal Majesty are not the only iconic images of Scotland.  In Part Two I’ll explore a second set of pictures that represent Scotland, Scots, and the culture.  These are images as diverse as remnants of Scotland’s ancient and barbaric past, religious icons, the relics of a farming past, lighting up the seaways, and modern song and dance.  

Beginning at the beginning--the Scotland before there was a Scotland--Anne and I are fascinated with the ancient sites we find preserved by Scotland’s two cultural trusts: Historic Scotland and the National Trust for Scotland.  On the main island in the Orkney chain, several miles north of the Scottish mainland, we visited Skara Brae

Skara Brae Ancient Village, Orkney Islands

--the remains of a village abandoned almost 5000 years ago.  What’s left of the dwellings and their stone furnishings tells us how early Scottish agrarian settlers lived. The village was abandoned in about 3100 BC due to a combination of factors--life-style changes and climate change (getting colder).  On the island we also visited a stone circle, the Ring of Brodgar,

Ring of Brodgar

which still has 36 stones of the original 60.  This circle, one of many we’ve visited in Scotland, is the largest at 104 meter in diameter (you could play American football in the middle of it) and was built about 2500-2000 BC.  Along with the nearby Stennes Stones

Stennes Stones

(remnants of a smaller but taller circle) these stones served religious, ritualistic, astronomical, or all three purposes for the people who came after the Skara Brae dwellers.  On the west side of the island is another stone village, the Broch of Gurness

Anne at the Broch of Gurness Ancient Village

--this one was in use much later and was abandoned sometime before 200 BC. All over Scotland (indeed all over the British Isles) are ancient stones, usually standing stones, stone circles, or burial tombs such as Cairn Holy Chambered Cairn

Cairn Holy Chambered Burial Cairn

in Scotland’s south county of Dumfries.  More modern (in relative terms) are stone structures like the 16th Century Packhorse Bridge at Carrbridge

 in the Cairngorm National Park.  

More modern structures, mostly stone, are also iconic images of Scotland.  Churches and cathedrals, such as St Andrews Cathedral, are the most common pictures, but to us even more representative of Scotland and its people are the village or parish churches. Small villages the size of Comrie, Crieff, and Muthill, within six miles of one another each with one or more lovely churches. 

Comrie White Church and the River Earn

Parish Church in the Fog, Crieff, Perthshire

Muthill Church

 Others such as the parish church at Lake of Menteith 

(the only lake in Scotland--all the others are lochs) are picturesquely sited.  Even the town or city church can be photogenic if you find the right angle.  

St Mangus Church in Orkney’s largest city, Kirkwall, is an example.  

Another picture of Scotland which comes to mind is the isolated croft or bothy set into the Highland countryside.  

St Fillans Bothy on the edge of the Highlands

The north of Scotland is one of the most depopulated places in Europe--miles and miles of heath or moorland, rocks and scrub bush with nary a soul in sight.  

Two views of a Highland croft on the edge of Sma'Glen and Glen Almond, Perthshire.

Perhaps an empty or ruined barn or farm (croft) will be the only sign of habitation.  Lovely and dramatically desolate. 

Also desolate, but far more majestic, are the lighthouses of Scotland.  These are iconic images because of one of the most influential of all lighthouse architects, Robert Stevenson, grandfather of famed Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island, Kidnapped).  Still standing as operating sentinels today, the lighthouses at Buchan Ness (1827) near Aberdeen, 

the Mull of Galloway Lighthouse (1830) in the far southwest, 

and Corsewell Lighthouse (1818) at the top of the Mull of Galloway,

represent a Scottish influence felt around the seas.

Next for this description of iconic Scottish images is the lasting impression on the mind (and ears) made by the noted instrument of war, the Highland bagpipes, 

Craig the Piper plays outside Edinburgh Castle in the nation's capital.

and on the eyes the dancing they inspire.  Whether you love the bagpipes or hate them (I don’t think there is an in between), the image of the piper dressed in full regalia or 

Dancers at the Blackford Highland Games, Perthshire.

Highland dancers dressed in colorful tartans is perhaps the purest image of Scotland.

Next: Part Three, the last of Scotland’s trademark scenes.  Can you guess what they might be?