Spynie Palace Castle I: The Castle Ruins

On the May Bank Holiday (1st May), I went to Spynie Palace Castle with two local Goths and the lady behind ::Superstitchious::, who was there for a rather thorough photo-shoot of herself modelling a new gown design for her shop.  You can see the results of that photoshoot ::here::. While the others were working on the photo-shoot, I took the opportunity to explore the castle and learn a bit of history, and generally get rather excited about visiting such a fantastic ruin. As all my long-term readers will know, I love castles. This post is about the castle, I will do another one about the photoshoot, especially as I got photographed too. 

Spynie Palace Castle from the approaching driveway.

The first thing I will point out about the castle is its situation. It's on the edge of a hill, just past its crest - and not a particularly high hill - with a steep valley visible on the left of the image above (that curve just gets steeper!). That descent leads to a boggy wooded valley with streams snaking across it and lush ground-cover vegetation, and many hundreds of years ago was actually part of a firth, opening out into the greater Moray Firth near Elgin. The castle guarded a port, with parts of it not quite visible in this image that actually backed straight onto watery bits! However, since then land has both been artificially reclaimed, and the coastline has risen slightly. The whole of Northern Europe was weighed down during the last ice-age by the immense pressure of all those glaciers, and since then, northern places have slowly risen back up! Eventually the valley dried up entirely and is now woods and farmland and does not even remotely resemble an inlet, except for the boggy ground, and the river is now a stream. I am so used to places down in Southern England where the fens are getting wetter, the cliffs are washing out to sea (and ending up as sandbanks in continental Europe), and flood risks seem to be increasing, that for somewhere to dry up - especially in a climate as soggy as the Scottish one - is quite remarkable! 

Windows in windows

I can't resist an interesting window (my trips to ::Rait Castle:: and ::Wester Barevan Churchyard:: are testament to that!), and I especially can't resist one in a wall that tells a story like this. The hall it backed onto was repurposed and resized several times. The rectangular apertures of early windows frame both the smaller Gothic window on the left and the tiny rectangular window on the right. Walls like this - where repairs and alteration are even more evident in colour, as different sandstones were used - tell a story, they're a monument to architectural changes - changes in status, purpose, taste and style. Rectangular windows are Baronial, but this was a Bishop's palace, and Gothic arches are ecclesiastical... 

A ruined wall with window-holes, tower in the background.

As is clear to see, the castle is in a state of ruin - the tower is still standing, but the rest of it just a collection of ruined walls, window apertures and earthworks. It was apparently rather magnificent in its time, but the waterway dried up, the castle lost its purpose, and eventually it fell into disrepair and then disarray. A roof was put back on the tower to try and halt the process of disintegration, but apparently it caused more problems than it solved and was removed. In some countries, apparently ruined castles get rebuilt, and the (very helpful) information guide was telling me that some tourists complain that the castle hasn't been rebuilt - but I can see the reasoning behind leaving it as a carefully preserved ruin rather than rebuilding. 

I have a window obsession.

Photos through windows will always be one of my favourite types of architectural photograph. In this case, I was using the bright spring sky to make the form of the window the focus, with the second thing of interest being the ruined stone wall through which it cuts, and the patch of haze - I think more a camera artefact that any actual dusty or misty air - I need to clean my lens! I think this window has ended up looking Gothic in both the terms of it being a pointed arch window (see the first black and white image) and it having an eerie, almost supernatural quality to it in this picture. I think this is one of my favourite photographs from the trip. 

Ruined wall re-imagined as craggy cliff

The picture came about as I saw the tree behind the wall, and was given the idea of the wall as a craggy cliff, now that it is rubbly and jagged, with stones jutting out at dramatic angles. I liked that part of the wall was dressed and neat, and that part was rough and irregular, and waited for the light to catch it just right. I just wish the sky had been a little bit more dramatic, but this isn't the end of the universe. 

This blog may contain excessive levels of fenestration.

This is an alcove in what was - I think - a hall or a chapel. I sadly didn't have enough money to buy a guide book, and my search on the internet for a legible floor-plan of the castle hasn't really worked out. There's a nicely visible corbel up in the top left corner, which would have supported a sturdy roof beam. I imagine this part of the castle would have been quite splendid in its heyday. I also like how this image shows the contrast between smooth facing stones, and the more uneven stones on the interior of a wall. 

A very tall wall

This is a picture I took to emphasise the verticality. I'm a rural sort of person, and the castle tower is still a legitimately tall building to me! It would probably be quite tall if transported to the city of Inverness, if in comparison to other buildings there - even their tower-blocks are 7 ordinary floors in height, and the hospital 7 extra-height floors with an 8th level of rooms on the roof for services, and this castle is 6 floors above the basement, and then the remains of a roof-space which is another storey, making it quite a tall building even for the modern Highlands. Obviously, quite short if you live in a city with skyscrapers, or even just lots of buildings taller than 10 storeys. (I think I would find actually being in somewhere like New York or Shanghai with lots of tall buildings quite strange! I found myself quite daunted by the taller buildings of Glasgow...)

Interior of tower, with light through window reflecting off floor. 

The interior of the tower has been partially restored. I think the patches of white stuff are the remains of lime plastering, and look quite stark against the darker stone. When I've been in castles that are still inhabited, the interiors are often plastered, as are the interiors of many old churches, and the idea that everything was bare stone in the past is something of a misunderstanding - yes, not all spaces were plastered, and yes, a lot of historical remains are no longer plastered, but a lot were. It is like how many old English churches are lime-washed white inside, but many centuries ago, before the Reformation and subsequent move towards Protestantism, they were just as brightly painted as many European churches, and many columns and stone elements that weren't plastered were also painted. 

For a change it's a staircase, and not a window!

The picture above is looking back up the stairs that descend into some sort of underground cellar (or possibly dungeon!) beneath the castle. It is a round room, with a domed roof, which I tried desperately to photographs, but I didn't have a tripod or stand, the floor was too uneven to rest the camera upon, and the light-levels necessitated a long exposure... I have a picture that's the least blurry of my efforts, but I'm not sure it warrants being here, nevertheless, the construction method was hypnotically concentric and fascinating, so I have included it as a thumbnail to the side. Anyway, this was the light reflecting off the stone walls, and I thought it really rather interesting. There were lights in the subterranean room, hence why the floor is visible, but it was still quite dingy - but at least it was out of the wind! 

Alley to the dried valley.

This alley goes down to a gate, which originally opened out towards where inlet was - I imagine there were once wooden piers or docking areas beyond it, but they are long, long gone. I wish I had taken a photograph that did a better job of demonstrating the three-dimensionality of the other walls and spaces around the alley, but I didn't quite manage. I really wish I could better convey the complexity of the castle spaces, and how the remains still show where rooms and levels once were. 

Tree above the wall 

Another photograph that shows how ruined the castle has become, and which shows corbels where beams sat and where alcoves and apertures once were. I find it really interesting to look at old buildings and look at how the remains infer what else used to be there. I try and visualise where the floors once were, what sort of doors they once had, whether the windows were glazed, and if so were they just lead-lights, or maybe stained glass? I wonder how tall walls originally were, and what the roof was like - looking for slots and corbels for where beams once rested, wondering about what I can figure out from the spacing, and what's left of any gable ends. 

I will finish on another window. Windows are liminal things, between in the indoors and the outdoors, and I find them very interesting. It's a poetic sentiment about perspective that drives my frequent photography of window apertures - thoughts on our viewing things, and the nature of space that I guess are probably a little too much like the architectural-theoretical discourses I read, and which I feel a little overly-abstracted in my thinking, and do wonder if it comes over as pretentious. Perhaps it's enough to just say I like windows! 

Photographic Collaboration With Raven: Haverfordwest Castle

In April, Raven and I went to Wales. It was more a family visit than a holiday, and I was mostly doing work (coursework, too) but we also went on a day-trip to Haverfordwest (yes, that name is all one word). We went by train and were supposed to meet up with one of Raven's friends, but they ended up having to cancel, so we got the afternoon to wander around the town.

Train selfie with Raven.  Photo and editing by me.
Raven is reluctant selfie person!

Haverfordwest has a very prominent castle. It was pretty much the first thing I saw walking from the station, and I am, as you probably all know, quite obsessed with castles, so I really wanted to visit the castle. The weather was coming in, however, so we couldn't stay too long. 

Church with storm clouds. Photo by me, editing by Raven.

On the way up to the castle, I spotted the storm clouds above this church, and borrowed Raven's mobile to take a photograph. The photograph is my work, the editing is all Raven's work. He really brought out the impending doom in those clouds - shortly after this there was a terrible downpour. We were at the castle at the time and got thoroughly soaked!

Clouds and windows. Photograph by me, editing by Raven and I.

Another photograph of the castle ruins. This is one by me, with editing by Raven and I. Raven did the contrast and colour adjustments on the architecture, and I did the editing on the sky. I would imagine that the castle was once quite impressive, with grand Gothic windows, and quite a large building indeed. I had fun editing the sky on this one - it is deliberately a bit fantastical, although those are real clouds. 

Clouds above the ruins. Photo probably by Raven, editing by Raven.

This another atmospheric photograph of the castle. Neither Raven nor I can remember which of us took this photo, as we both tried to photograph this view. The flag flickering was the Welsh flag. Personally, I believe it was Raven who took this photograph. Raven certainly did all of the editing on this one. 

Raven in an alcove. Photograph by me, editing by Raven.

This is the portrait I took of Raven in another one of the alcoves. The original composition I tried was with him at the end of a row of several alcoves, but he was too tiny on the camera phone photographs. It took several attempts to get him in focus, too, as it is hard to use a touch screen when it is raining! Raven's always dressed in black, but he's a lot less elaborate than me in his tastes. Raven thinks this looks like what an album cover photo would look like if he  ever released one. 

Me in an alcove. Photo by Raven, editing by Raven and tweaked by me.

This is the photograph Raven took of me hiding from the weather in an alcove. Most of the editing is Raven's, but I tweaked the contrasts on my outfit a bit. I didn't have space in my luggage to bring chunky Lolita shoes, so I am wearing Gothic pikes with a Gothic Lolita outfit here! Walking around a castle in pointy shoes with stiletto heels was not comfortable, and not easy for someone with a co-ordination issue! I wish I had brought some flat Lolita shoes with me. 

Stairs. Photograph and editing both by Raven.

This last photograph is all Raven's work. I didn't go down the stairs because it had a used condom at the top, and all sorts of litter down at the bottom. I don't think Raven went to the bottom of the stairs either. As beautiful as the ruins are, it is clear they are not well looked after - so much litter, some if it quite grim, such as several used condoms, broken glass and plenty of cans and suchlike indicating people had been drinking heavily up there. There was also dog mess. It is a shame because it is an amazing ruin, a jewel crowning the town. Visiting it in such dramatic weather should have been sublime (in the more archaic version of the term), but it was marred by having to constantly watch my step, and not just because of wearing heels. There is a museum on site, and I am surprised there are no wardens or stewards to prevent people from abusing the ruins. 

Altogether, it was still a pleasant visit, even if the rain soaked us (we scurried away to a gallery and cafe to dry out and warm up) and the ruins were besmirched by those who don't respect them. The skies were beautiful and dramatic, and the castle itself is a stunning ruin. 

Urquhart Castle

I have visited Urquhart Castle several times. One February a few years ago Raven and I went there on Valentine's Day - for an engagement photo-shoot for another couple, where Raven was photographer! This time however, Raven and I were there for an afternoon out together, and I took my camera. The weather was windy, with heavy rain coming in - just perfect for atmospheric photographs!

I know I am rather overdue with these pictures. We went to Urquhart Castle in early April, and it is now late July. Between now and then I have been incredibly busy (hence the blog hiatus) and I am only going to get busier over the next few months. Blogging is only a hobby for me, and I have quite a few offline commitments that have to take priority. There are quite a few photographs here, and I hope those who have been waiting enjoy them. 

Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness. Photograph by HouseCat

Urquhart Castle is on the banks of Loch Ness - supposed home of the famous cryptid - and beneath the mountains. Geographically, it is in a stunning location, a place of incredible natural beauty. Strategically, it guarded the loch and the pass beneath the mountains.  In its glory days it would have been a vast compound - more of a walled town or village than a fortified house. It is in ruins because it was deliberately destroyed by its owners, Hanoverians who, after being beseiged by Jacobites once, decided it was better to blow up their own castle than let such a strategic point fall into Jacobite occupation. If I owned a castle, I don't think I could ever contemplate anything as drastic as blowing part of it up, regardless of strategic necessity!.  They began by blowing up only the gatehouse, but this was the beginning of structural decline for the castle, as even when peace came, it was never repaired, but instead was quarried for stone (as was common for ruined castles in times past - it happened to Rait Castle, Wallingford Castle, etc. etc.) 

Craghy ruins. Photograph by the HouseCat.

Of course, ruins become picturesque as nature begins to reclaim them - especially the ruins of structures once grand and beautiful themselves. I, a true Romantic, am drawn to windswept crags and ruined castles (apparently, I am in the good company of Neil Gaiman in these tastes!), and even when swarmed with tourists, Urquhart Castle loses none of its majesty and presence. The ruins stand upon great earthworks - sculpted out of hard ground - and this unnatural landscape, once practical and now alien, gives an eerie quality to the place. The remains of buildings perch on arteficial ridges, above deep defensive ditches gouged out of the earth. I did read about whether the moat held water while I was there, but can no longer remember; if it did, the castle would have seem even more isolated, turned into its own island fortress like Eileann Donan Castle, or Le Mont-Saint-Michel.

Ruined wall with arrow slit. Photograph by HouseCat

The castle walls are now partly reclaimed by the landscape, seeming to almost be a geological feature in places, a crag or cliff with grass growing out of it and rough escarpments of boulders. There is enough remaining masonry for it to be built by the hand of man, but it is slowly blending into the Earth with time. ::Historic Scotland:: are doing a brilliant job of maintaining and preserving it as best as is humanly possible, but it is stone exposed to the scourging winds, rain, snow and frost of the Scottish climate - the elements and the centuries will take their toll; it is inevitable. 

A brooding sky. Photo by the HouseCat

That harsh Scottish weather that I mentioned made its presence felt the day of our visit. It started out bright, slightly over-cast but mostly sunny. There were fast-moving clouds on the horizon and a keen wind. As our visit progressed, the wind got harsher and colder, and the rain blew in with darkening clouds, leaden and grey. I did not get any good photographs of this (but Raven did), but the rain coming down the Loch was a sight to behold; a curtain of what seemed like almost opaque mist rapidly drawing towards us, lit by the afternoon sun, and shaded by thick clouds in bruise colours.

Best photograph of the rain I got. Photo by HouseCat

Before the rain came in, I took 111 photograph of Urquhart Castle - and a surprising number turned out relatively well. It was hard to pick favourites for this blog - I have the same problem I had with my photographs of Edinburgh Castle! There is something about exposed Scottish castles on bleak days that really compels me to try and capture a visual record - but no photograph I take really expresses what I feel when I am there and whatever flourishing words and purple prose I use to describe it also falls short. All I can say is to visit for yourself if you get the chance, preferably on a day where the weather is at least drizzling (this is Scotland, such days are frequent) and there are fewer tourists about (probably because it is raining). 

Raven stepping out of the shadows. Photo by HouseCat

Despite being a ruin, it is not a place of desolation; the landscape is too mountainous, too forrested. Even with the wind whipping at my jacket and trying to snag my hair out of my (velvet) bandana, it seemed like when the walls and roofs had been intact it would have been good shelter against even the worst of the Scottish weather - which includes flash floods and winds in excess of 100mph in lower areas and in excess of 150mph up on the mountains. The gable end of a hotel near here was blown down in a recent storm, but I doubt any such thing would happen to the walls of the castle; if it had not been for deliberate destruction of various sorts, I think the castle could easily be standing whole to this day, and what remains will probably remain for centuries more. 

Base of a round tower and a shard of wall, overlooking the waters of Loch Ness

I did stare down into the depths of Loch Ness, hoping for a glimpse of the fabled monster, but I saw nothing. Logic tells me that any plesiosaurs or similar creatures that may have lived within the loch aeons ago will be long dead, with no contemporary descendents swimming in the murky dark, but the poetic aspects of me want to believe that somewhere in the seemingly unfathomable depths, the creature or creatures lurk, feeding on the fish that swim alongside, and avoiding humans with their loud engines and bright lights. I bought my 3 year old neice a souvenir monster hat - it's too big for her head so she wears its sideways with the tail draped across one shoulder, and the head dipped down to the other. I bought her several books too - including 'Nessie Needs New Glasses' by A. K. Paterson, as it includes an introduction to Scottish places. I keep promising her that one day she and her mother will come visit me in Scotland and we can all go to ::Nessieland:: and wander around Loch Ness looking for 'Niseag' as she is called in Gaelic. 

Steep stone spiral staircase. Photo by HouseCat

One thing I will warn potential visitors about is that the stairwells are for the most part medieval - this means they are narrow and cramped, with steep stone. I don't know if they ever originally had hand-rails (there must have been medieval people who thought hand-rails were a good idea! It's just practical!) but currently they have rope for a hand-rail (as pictured). Flat shoes, and patience for others on the stairwells are a necessity. I have spacial awareness and co-ordination difficulties due to neurological issues, so I had to walk slowly as I find going down stairs difficult at the best of times (I have to literally watch where I put my feet, and to take my time), and the tuts and glares I got from people behind me were not exactly polite.

Another stairwell photo. Photograph by HouseCat

If you are ever visiting the British Isles, I seriously recommend coming to Scotland if you like castles. While England, Wales, Northern and Southern Ireland all have beautiful castles, of all the places I have visited and all the castles I have visited (including those I visited before I began blogging) Scotland has the most castles in dramatic locations - by lochs and up craggy mountains being relatively common places to find castles.

Inside part of the keep. Photograph by HouseCat

One of my favourite things about Urquhart Castle is that despite being a ruin, there is enough of the structure that is still safe and stable for people to be actually able to go inside, and they have partially restored it in a way that greatly facilitates this. It was nice to be a little bit out of the wind, and it is interesting to be in these spaces with reconstructed wooden ceilings/floors and such. It is certainly not restored to how it was; the castle is very much in a state of ruin. It is, however, restored enough to make a lot more of the castle safely accessible than it would be otherwise, and to get a sense of how the remaining parts of the castle worked as buildings, rather than as a tumble of protruding stones. 

Great edifice. Rear of the keep. Photograph by HouseCat

As those who read my blog well know, I am rather fond of castles, especially ruined ones. Urquhart is no exception to that, and its location makes it one of my favourites. I love the natural world and the beauty of wild scenery even more than I love historical architecture (and that really is saying something!) so to visit a castle in such an amazing location really is a treat for me. I really got quite carried away taking photographs while I was there, and if (no, when) I next visit, there will surely be plenty more. It is somewhere that does not seem exhaustable for interesting angles, and as the light changes, the interplay of shadows changes; the shadows walls cast on each other, the shadows in the textures of the stones, the sense of space and the way I try and capture that in a mere flat image - it fluctuates literally with the weather. 

This view deserved to be in full colour. Photograph by HouseCat

Scotland has beautiful geography, and so much history. I love living here, and I do not regret having moved to here from where I was in England. I am much happier here amongst mountains and ruined castles, and I think only Ireland compares for rugged natural beauty, and Wales for castles (Ireland has some nice castles too, but in having visited more Welsh ones, I am probably biased). England is not boring, but I am definitely a 'mountains' sort of person - like Neil Gaiman, I seek the windswept craggy places and their solitude. Most of the hills around Loch Ness are more rounded, but there are certainly craggy ones near there too. One day, I hope to visit Urquhart Castle when it has freshly snowed, nice and early so that snow is mostly undisturbed... that would be perfect. 

Beauly Priory With Friends

This being my blog, it has a lot of pictures of me on it, and not really many pictures of anybody else unless I was at a gathering. I intend to change that this summer, recruiting friends from within the Goth subculture and friendly  to it, to be models for mini photo-shoots. I am not a professional photographer, this is only a hobby, and I do not profess to be much good.

The two models for this photo-shoot are my friend Ducky, and Catastrophe Plague (artist name, obviously) who is a good friend of Ducky's and whom I have only just recently met. These photographs are not highly styled fashion photographs, they are instead taken to capture images of my friends and fellow members of the Highland Goth and Alternative scene just being themselves. I guess it would be a bit pretentious to call this project social documentation, but I am proud of the local Goth and Alternative community, and wanted to capture some of it as a visual record of who we are and what we are.

Beauly Priory was chosen because Ducky is from Beauly, and knows the place well, and because it is a beautiful building that I had not thoroughly visited before. I had been there briefly a while ago, but there was plenty of restoration work being done at the time, and it was also not the best weather, so I took a few pictures with the camera on my smartphone but did not take any proper photographs. This time I was supposed to bring the nice Canon camera I use when I am taking "proper" photographs, but I couldn't find the charger the day before, or any batteries with full charge (it has been ages since I took it out) so the "point and click" camera had to do. 

Ducky standing in the front door. Photo by HouseCat

Beauly Priory is a wonderful Gothic building, which has long been out of use as an actual priory, is mostly in a state of ruin, and has since been used as a graveyard, with people interred actually within the building (hence the headstone behind Ducky) as well as around the building. The priory is undergoing a process of restoration, so a large portion was surrounded in scaffolding and temporary fencing. We left all of that area well alone, but the positions of the fences made it hard to walk around the priory without walking on grave-slabs. I find actually walking on them both disrespectful to those interred and likely to damage any inscriptions and carvings with repetetive passings.

Ducky ended up wearing my sunglasses. I had them in my raincoat pocket. Yes, Scottish weather is changeable enough that it is entirely possible to need sunglasses and a raincoat is quick succession. I'm often carrying sunglasses and a compact umbrella in my handbag at the same time, especially in "summer". We're prone to 'all four seasons in one day' weather. 

Ducky wearing my sunglasses. They were in my raincoat.

I took several photographs of both Ducky and Catastrophe Plague. They are not a couple, just good friends. I liked using the wall as a backdrop because there is just so much of it, and the textures of the stone, and the varying colours, look interesting. The patches of colour I presume indicate patches of construction as it was built in sections with stones from different places, or different batches of quarrying. The stones look recently repointed, probably part of the recent restoration work.

Both friends infront of the wall. Photo by the HouseCat.

Catastrophe's dress was a tad long, so if worn hanging from the straps, came down very low at the bust, so instead it was pulled up higher and the straps folded down over at the shoulders, which I think looked very witchy. An important thing about Goth fashion is that clothes do not have to be worn in the way intended; wear them however you feel like wearing them! 

Looking sorrowful in the archway. Photograph by HouseCat

This alcove is actually very low down, and Catastrophe was barely sitting in it, more leaning against the ledge. I really like how the composition turned out, and the archway provided a frame for the image. This is one of my favourites from the session. I know this could have still been done better, but considering this is my first time deliberately doing a set of photographs where people are the subject, I am very happy with this particular photograph, and reasonably chuffed with the whole set.

Portrait of Catastrophe Plague

I took some close-ups of Catastrophe, in a portrait style. I think the walls of the Priory are just beautiful, and so used them for the backdrop as much as possible. Catastrophe is lucky to have very nice cheek-bones, so I tried to pick angles that would highlight that. I am really not very experienced at taking portraits at all, so would quite like any advice my readers have on taking better pictures. 

Hair adjusting pose. Photograph by the HouseCat.

Catastrophe was doing some hair adjustment, and I thought it would make for an interesting composition, so Catastrophe ended up hair-tweaking about four times for this. I am frustrated that the raised arm came out a bit too bright compared to the rest of the skin tones, but other than that, am quite happy. The dress makes me think 'Game of Thrones' meets 'Lord of The Rings'. especially with all the vertical seams and the layering - another reason to capitalise on the splendid medieval building! 

Yellow roses signify happiness, if I remember rightly.

Catastrophe has a great fondness of roses, so especially requested this one with the yellow roses by the perimeter wall. I think the perimeter wall is a Victorian or later addition. The stones are far more finely dressed (cut more neatly) and there is fancy Gothic Revival carving on some points. I am not happy with the contrast on the roses, but I am not sure how to fix it in a satisfactory manner, as I think the lightest petals are just too washed out. I altered the contrast on the rest of the image as it needed more contrast, with the flowers masked out, but I do not know how to improve them. 

Photograph of me by Ducky

And one photograph of me! I figured there ought to be some record of my having been there. I think I was the most colourful of the three of us, with my violet and black brocade jacket and turquoise hair.

I took several more photos of both Ducky and Catastrophe, but these ones were the best o the bunch. I took 95 photographs in total, and about a dozen of them were reasonable - I think that is a good ratio of useable photographs to dud ones! I will be taking more photographs of friends willing to model, so I hope my readers like the idea of this project. 

Inverness Churches, Dark Skies and Winter Weather

These were taken before the Christmas holidays, when I was on my lunch-break from work, having taken the bus into town. I have a later lunch than most, so it was mid afternoon when I went for my break, and the weather was rolling in to get dark early - earlier than the roughly 3:30 time the sunsets seem to start in the depth of winter here. Inverness is surrounded by hills and mountains that significantly raise the horizon, meaning that the sun has far less distance to go to set, plus, for American readers, we're a wee bit further North than Sitka in Alaska (for comparison's sake) and to European readers, we're similar to Yaroslavl in Russia and a bit south of Gothenburg in Sweden! Anyway, the general result of the cloud and latitude and season was to create some rather atmospheric lighting and I took the opportunity to take these photographs in the city. 

Photograph by me. 

This is the Free Church of Scotland on Bank Street, as seen across the graveyard of the neighbouring Old High Church. I think this is the first photograph I have taken of it from this angle. The clouds rolling in are pretty dramatic in this photograph, and I think it best captures the weather. 

Photograph by me

I took a few photographs of the church tower from very similar angles that day. I read in the papers recently (I think it was the Inverness Courier...)  that the congregation can no longer afford the insurance, and that it may have to close. I think that would be a vey sad fate for what is a very beautiful and very old building. I hope that their fundraising goes well. 

Here is the same building again, this time in colour, and from an almost identical angle. I think in colour the low sun is more visible, and the warm reds of the masonry. It's a lovely, lovely old church and has been a city landmark for centuries - I really do hope it manages to get funding both to remain open and keep the building in good repair. I am not Christian, but I do appreciate good architecture, and I do appreciate the role the various churches have in the community locally (I know that they run a lot of local charitable ventures, and are linked to the food-bank, etc.), so things like the possible closure of this church make me sad. 

Edinburgh City Part 5: The Hub and its Spire

This really is a fabulous building. I was walking up the hill to the castle and could not help but be stopped, transfixed in awe at it. I was already running behind schedule for the day (with my mission being photographing the castle thoroughly to produce a display for the school) but still had to stop and take pictures. 

I have a fondness for setting spires diagonally.

When I went on the ::history:: page of The Hub's ::website::, and read that it was a collaboration between James Gillespie Graham (who designed St, Mary's Catholic Cathedral, featured yesterday) and the famous Augustus Welby Pugin (Think 'Palace of Westminster') and I was both delighted and not entirely surprised. Everything about this building is wondrous, and the more recent conversion and restoration have been done most tastefully and include the work of a lot of modern crafters of great skill. 

A sense of verticality.
Photo taken after castle visit, hence duller sky.

It's dominating spire and wonderfully vertical architecture draws one to look upwards to he heavens and even on a cloudy, awful and drizzly day like the day I was there, it is beautiful. The page says the spire is the highest point in central Edinbugh, but after walking uphill into the castle and looking up at some of its towers, they certainly seem higher up, even if they are shorter towers. I am not a surveyor, though, and appearances can be deceiving. 

The sky was white with cloud, but weirdly bright.

The Hub is currently a venue associated with the Edinbugh International Festival (an arts festival) and includes a cafe. When I was there, the entrance was lit by flaming torches flickering in the wind (it certainly gets breezy on that hill, even if all the buildings make it look less exposed) and a piper was standing by the door. The next time I go to Edinburgh, it will certainly be somewhere I will have to visit the interior of, rather than just walk past.

At least the clouds were vaguely interesting here.

I'd like to visit this building again when the weather is more conducive to good photographs. The skies are dull and white here because they were dull and greying white with cloud on the day. It was also a rather windswept day. A calmer day with more varied and interesting clouds would be preferable. 

Edinburgh City Part 2: Hanover St. Bank

While Gothic and Gothic Revival styles are my favourite, I don't mind a bit of Neo-Classical architecture now and then. 

These photos happened because I had to sit around and wait on the Saturday. K. and her friend Clark had to get their student bus passes, and I wasn't feeling well, so didn't want to go indoors where it might be stuffy to wait with them. Edinburgh was a lot warmer than Inverness was when I left, and even having taken off my scarf and jacket I was over-heating, plus I did not realise just how crowded central Edinburgh would be on a Saturday afternoon - I am not used to big cities and masses of people, and do not cope well with crowds. I was feeling pressed in and getting faint with the stress and the heat, and had nearly fainted in a heap outside a fast food restaurant on Prince's Street! As such, while K. and Clark sorted there bus ticket, I parked myself under the grand facade of this bank. 

It's currently a bank and a branch of the TSB, but I do wonder what this building was built for. Its temple style make me wonder if it was a Neoclassical chapel of one of the Christian denominations that shied away from the Gothic style for their chapels, or whether it was always a bank and that the severe lines of the Ionic Order were a statement of security, stability and seriousness. Either way, while Neoclassical architecture is not my favourite style, I rather liked this building, and while I waited, took these photographs. 

As I was right up close to the building, sitting on a ledge and trying not move around too much, I have not got any photographs of the building as a whole, but the entire building seems to be of a design quite directly inspired by Classical temples, although the colonnade here is only a portico, rather than supporting a roof and arcade down the sides of the building. The next building down hill also had columns, hence the photographs taken looking down one set of columns to the next in different style. 

I know that usually my architectural photographs are in black and white, but with the stone of this building being such a pale grey anyway, I thought it would be better to take some colour pictures, that and I wanted to capture the fact that it was actually sunny in Scotland (just in case nobody believed me! :P ). The day after the weather went back to cloudy and dreary, so it was short lived, but it was actually sunny for a whole afternoon.