Clava Cairns Revisited

Another instalment of my 'Gothic Travels', which is something I want to focus on this year. Today's visit is to a 4,000 year old burial ground in the valley south of Culloden. I've been there before, and you can see the previous post (with really terrible photographs!) about when I went there for a Pagan gathering ::here::.

On February 4th, my partner Raven and I visited Clava Cairns near Culloden. We drove there, and parked up at the carpark on the site, which only had a couple of other vehicles. I was surprised that there was anyone else there at all on such a cold and frosty Monday afternoon; the carpark was iced over with compacted snow for the most part, and while it wasn't utterly freezing, it was cold enough not to melt the settled snow particularly fast, and even in what is a sheltered valley there was as a certain chill - perhaps the damp air from the river that runs under the viaduct further along. [The viaduct is pretty impressive, similar to the Glenfinian Viaduct made famous in Harry Potter, and it too has a railway crossing a valley, but this one is pink rather than grey; I will give it its own post]. 

Long shadows from a low sun beside the ring cairn; photograph by me.

I apologise for the lack of clarity and resolution in my photos - my camera broke last summer and I haven't been able to afford a replacement since then, so I'm just using the camera on my phone, which is average at best. Please click on photographs for expanded versions, especially the thumbnails.

Pile of rocks in the carpark. Photograph by myself.

There's what appears to be a small cairn in the carpark, just outside the boundary to the main complex of cairns. As it's not listed on the maps, and it's not in the enclave, I think it might just be a pile of rocks from levelling a flattish plot to make the carpark, or maybe an 19thC folly addition, or even stones removed in the 19thC excavations of the cairns; basically I don't know what it is at all.

Frozen meltwater in a depression. Photograph taken by myself.

Raven and I; cooperative selfie.

Clava Cairns is specifically 'Balnuaran of Clava', as there are other groups of cairns known as 'Clava Cairns'. There's also a ruined chapel and another cairn at the far end of road, which I have visited before in the past, but didn't visit that day. Nearby there are two other cairns in an overgrown field across the road from the enclave run by Historic Scotland, and also a standing stone in a field that sometimes has I think cows in it. Either way, the other two monuments and the standing stone are not open to the public as monuments, and while there is some freedom to walk in Scotland, these fields often have livestock, so going in them could cause a problem (Highland Cattle/Heilan' Coos are very cute but they are large animals with big horns! Be considerate of cattle and farmers if visiting.

The setting sun makes for a beautiful light over the cairns.

Reflected sunlight on ice.

Photograph by myself.

The enclave around the cairns is of old trees, planted between 1870 and 1871 by the land-owner at the time, who had the Romantic notion of the cairns being a 'Druidic temple' so wanted to plant it into a 'Druid Grove' - I think there are a few Neo-Pagans (Celtic, Druidic and otherwise) who are quite grateful for that, because it really does give the site a beautiful atmosphere of being encapsulated by nature, something simultaneously apart from the world and deeply within it. I'm certainly neither the first nor the best photographer to take advantage of the late afternoon light streaming between the branches and trunks of the trees, and I felt that the melt-water and ice from where the snow had been defrosting certainly did something to make that extra-special.

Sunlight streaming through the trees across where the snow has melted.

Near-to-carpark cairn. My photo.

The cairns are approximately 4,000 years old, and they were used as mausoleums of a sort. There are three large cairns and one small kerb cairn. Two of the large cairns have passage entrances aligned with the setting sun on the winter solstice, and the centre cairn is a ring cairn - a central sealed chamber with no entrance, a sort of stony donut. I've read that the stone circles around the cairns were set after the cairns ceased to be used for new burials. The ring cairn in the centre of the three is almost a wheel design, with the ring cairn as the hub and low stone walls as spokes out to the standing stones beyond. I think the standing stones are also on a celestial alignment.

A cleft stone - was it split by time and ice, or is it a pair?

Photograph taken by myself. 

Scarf to keep my ears warm.

Selfie by the larger cairn.

The far cairn is the smallest full cairn other than the kerb cairn. There used to be an infographic explaining the sunset alignment at the cairns, but I can't remember if it's still there, and if it was, it was buried under snow. I think the far corner cairn has a cup-mark in a stone within it, and was re-used as a columbarium around a thousand years after they were made, in approximately 1,000BCE. It was excavated in Victorian times, but it wasn't excavated with the modern techniques of archaeology, and a lot of data was missed, lost, or destroyed. I don't know if they disinterred any remains, and if so, what happened to the person who was buried there, but from what I gather, the cairn was the victim of overenthusiastic dilettante archaeology in the 1870s.

The far cairn, aligned with the sunset. Photo by myself.

In South East England, where I grew up, there was a theory relating the placement of barrows to either be prominent on the brows of hills, or to be near rivers, and while I think the builders of the cairns at Clava may have been culturally different, the cairns are hardly on a hilltop, but they are in a valley with the River Nairn flowing through - but I'm not an archaeologist (yet... I'm doing my second undergraduate degree part-time, studying joint History & Archaeology), and it is something I would have to read up on. There's been some interesting papers on the placement of chambered cairns on the Isles, but I don't know about the mainland. Definitely something I need to look into. 

Frosty ground. Photograph by Raven.

The Cairns are very popular in recent years due to the success of the show 'Outlander', as apparently there is some connection to the series. I haven't watched much of it, and the opening scene with early 20thC 'Druids' was filmed on a set on a hillock with foam stones, and Clava Cairns is apparently not the site mentioned in the books (a better candidate for that would be the stones that remain of the cairn at Dunain, which I mentioned in my previous blog entry about Ostara), so I'm not sure what the exact connection is, but it's something to do with magical standing stones as part of the time-travel in the story, from what I gather. They've actually become too popular, and have been damaged by people climbing on the stones, and on the cairns, dislodging parts of the rock walls of the cairns. Large coaches and heavy traffic have also caused an access issue for the garage that runs recovery/road-side assistance from a little further down the road - and therefore for the clients they were off to rescue from mechanical trouble. If visiting during busy season, I would suggest parking elsewhere and walking down, as it is a pretty and pleasant walk (there are also several B&Bs, chalets, etc. nearby for accommodation.).

A rather rectangular stone. Photo taken by myself.

Raven. Photo by me.

The ring cairn was buried under snow, as was a stone with cup-marks tooled into it. When we got to the far end of the cairns, a tour-bus arrived with a medium group of tourist, and the peace of the place felt broken, so we walked off to get a better look at the viaduct instead. I must go back there again this year, and take photographs in different weather and seasons. I follow #ClavaCairns on Instagram, and a lot of beautiful photographs turn up in that hashtag, which is quite inspiring. Hopefully I'll be able to afford a new camera soon, and thus able to work on bettering my photography. For now, I am doing my best with my smartphone and some basic editing software. 

Snow in the dying light; photograph by Raven 

As a historical site, I thoroughly recommend visiting them, just to get a sense of the size and scale of these cairns. As a Neo-Pagan, I visit to reconnect with the sense of place, with spiritual ancestors and those past practices that inspired me to a nature-based spirituality. 

We made a tiny snowman made from two snowballs with twigs for arms. 

It's also just a pleasant place to be. There are some picnic tables near by, plenty of wildlife lives in the area, and the trees are rather lovely. Apart from solemn contemplation, it's nice to enjoy yourself, and I don't think it is any disrespect to those who were buried there thousands of years ago - as long as that doesn't spill into the sort of exuberance that could damage the monuments or make it so other people can't enjoy their time there too.
[My apologies for the formatting errors with the pictures; the blogging wizard keeps putting breaks/paragraphs where I don't want them, even when I remove them in the HTML editor...]

Cardigan/Aberteifi - Castle and Historic Church

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was in Wales a few weeks ago, visiting my Dad. While I was there, I visited three castles and a few old churches. I'm not sure quite how 'Gothic' in the spooky sense of the word this is, but it is Gothic in the architectural sense. It's hard to feel spooky on a day with such bright sunshine - glorious for many, but too warm for me!

This post does include a spider photograph, so if you're averse to spiders, then don't scroll past the ornate door. I have put it as the last photograph so you can still appreciate the others without having to look at spiders. 

Restored curtain wall, Cardigan Castle. Photo by me.

Cardigan/Aberteifi is on the River Teifi, and we went there to visit the indoor market, and have a look around. I had had been there before, and knew it had a castle, and it was restored in 2014 (which I had read about). The first time I had been to Cardigan was before that, and while I think local council owned it at the time, it was in disrepair after having been neglected by its previous owner and inhabitant for many decades. Unfortunately, while the entrance fee was modest, I didn't have enough money on me, so I didn't get to go inside the grounds. From what I gather, most of the buildings on site are later, but it has nice gardens, and I was hoping to at least look at the gardens, but it was not to be. I did take a couple of photographs of the exterior, however.

Secondary wall, embankment, and then primary wall with tower...
And a much later additional house/cottage, affiliated with the castle. Photo by me.

Another gem was a rather lovely medieval church that has been extended several times over the centuries. The church is The Priory Church of Our Lady of Cardigan (I don't know what that is in Welsh, although I did read it and I've since forgotten it). It is in a very beautiful graveyard, and next to a hospital but also next to a busy road. I did take some exterior photographs, but they didn't turn out very well. I apologise for no good overview photographs. My partner Raven also took some nice photographs, so with his permission, I have included those too. 

Photograph by myself. Gravestones in rows through yew trees.

The graveyard is mostly older graves, although I did not go around and get a particularly good average for the estimate age - looked like mostly 1700s and 1800s gravestones.They are almost all made of the same sort of grey stone as the church and the castle, and most are a slab given a roughly arched shape with text - not like some of the Protestant chapel yards, full of urns and obelisks, or a chapel on a hill we visited, which had a much wider variety of stones. (Unfortunately I accidentally deleted many of the photos of that particular chapel! )

Photo by Raven. 

This is the far corner of the graveyard. All along the back wall are grave-stones laid vertical, with the climbing plants sort of taking over in places. I don't know if they are memorials from plots that were re-used, or if this is just where fallen-over stones got placed, or if there were just a lot of people buried along the wall. 

I also think this photo goes to show what a bright and sunny day it was - very hot, a few wispy white clouds, and scorching brightness. Personally, I found it too hot; I overheat easily and get sun-burnt just as easily, so I prefer cloudier, cooler days. Some people love the sun, but I have to hide under hats, long-sleeved floaty clothes and lots of sun-screen.  
 

Dead Tree. Photo by Raven 

I'm not sure what kind of tree this was when it was alive. There were plenty of yew trees, but yews are poisonous to other plants, so I doubt that there would be other plants growing from it if it were a yew. The tree stump felt almost sculptural, and its timbers bleached grey-white seemed fitting with the stone and almost skeletal itself. 

Grave with ornate carving. Photo by Raven.

This gravestone near the entrance was interesting - it had some sort of crest surrounded by a laurel wreath or other foliage, but it has suffered the ravages of time - the central design, presumably a monogram, is pretty much illegible, and any motto or similar on the banner beneath the leaves has long since de-laminated. I think perhaps the topmost leafs have lost some mass, too. It's interesting to see a headstone carved in the shape of a Dutch gable, too. 

Architectural salvage. Photograph by Raven.

I'm not sure which part of the building this detail came from - I couldn't even figure it out by looking at it - it's some part of some Gothic details, but it's also a broken jigsaw piece of architectural history.  Raven took this photograph of it - I guess it looks sort of abandoned in this corner of the porch, but really it's a sign that someone's put it there so it doesn't get discarded. I don't know where on the building it used to belong - perhaps part of something that has since been altered, so it can't go back - but whatever it was, it is put there where it is not forgotten.  It's almost on display. 

Monk. Photograph by me

This monk's head terminates the arch over the porch. It looks like one of the more recent additions to the church. From what I gather of the church's history, I think at some point it was connected to a monastery as well as a priory (I'm really no expert on this), which I guess is why they used monks as a decorative motif. There's one at both ends of the archway, looking solemnly upon all those who enter the church. I don't know if they are representative of specific people or not.

Ornate ironmongery.  Photograph by me. 

Both Raven and I admired the ornate doors - I don't know how old they are, perhaps Victorian, perhaps earlier, but they have the most fabulous swirling ironwork on them.  I have a thing for doors and windows - maybe it's liminality of them. I also really appreciate when something that doesn't need to be ornate gets an artistic treatment. Plenty of church doors have much simpler hinges, some have fancier, but it's nice to see something like this. Someone put enough time, money and effort in for this to be not just an ordinary door - probably several people; someone to make the timbers into a door, someone (or some people) to do the metalwork, someone who designed it, someone who paid for it... Someone who checked that it would fit in the aperture of the door frame! It's not as common these days, to have such things made, and I think we're losing out. 

There are several stained glass windows in the church - framed by stone tracery that looks very, very old indeed - but maybe not as old as the apertures in the walls, as they look like they once had larger arches and arched tracery rather than arches in rectangles. I don't know exactly how many phases of construction and alteration there have been (I counted at least 5) but it's got so much history built into the walls. It was really quite fascinating. 

Spider, photograph by me.

I really like spiders. Raven, not so much. I saw this spindly one on its thread in the porch window. 

Glasgow Cathedral & Necropolis: A Very Gothic Lolita Meet

Graves through the trees, last
 time I visited. Click to expand

Last month I went down to Glasgow for a meet-up I was very excited about - a visit to the Cathedral and the Necropolis. It was organised by the moderator of the Scottish Lolitas group on FaceBook. Originally it was supposed to be for a guided tour on the Saturday, but it was re-arranged for the Sunday, which means we didn't get a guided a tour, but we were there for choral evensong rehearsals! I've been to Glasgow Necropolis before, once a few years back (when I had no idea how to style my wigs, or what boots suit what outfits... so I won't link back to that one!)
Getting to Glasgow from Inverness is a good 3+ hrs on the coach from Inverness, and I don't even live in Inverness itself, so I had to travel to the city first, and Lolita is not the most practical style of clothing for travel! For the most part, I kept my impractically high heels for photographs, and switched to ugly but comfortable trainers (more about how this didn't work out later on). The weather was really quite bright, and I started doubting my choice of an all-black ensemble to wear! It had been cloudy and overcast in the Highlands, but the weather got warmer and sunnier as I travelled south to the central belt.

I made some attempts to get a few photographs of the stunning Scottish scenery taken out of the window. I really like looking out of the window on long coach and train journeys, but I always end up wishing I could stop off at all of the interesting places and explore - one of  the downsides of not being able to drive is I can't go off on my own detours!

A rather tall and craggy hill, not entirely sure where

One place I'd love to go on a detour to explore is Ruthven Barracks - I managed to get one moderately clear shot of the Ruthven Barracks out of the coach window. It used to be the site of a castle (presumably Castle Ruthven?) but due to the Jacobite Uprising, the Hanoverian government built an imposing barracks over the site to station troops. It was part of a rather bloody section of Highland history. 

Ruthven Barracks from the road, photo out of a coach window.

I did my make-up partly on the coach - probably not the smartest idea, but I don't think it worked out too badly. Trying to do my lipstick was the hardest bit, so I waited for the change at Perth, so the coach would be stationary, to do that bit. 

Black hair with blue highlights now! Veil to hide scruffy bits.

I met up with the other Lolitas at the Tempo tea shop, for some bubble tea, and then we walked up to the cathedral. I didn't realise how far the cathedral was from the tea-shop, and made the mistake of changing into my high heels at the tea-shop, and struggling to keep up with the group as I'm a) not supposed to walk in high heels because of my ankle injury, b) not exactly steady on high heels anyway because I'm dyspraxic and clumsy and c) it was roasting outdoors and I was overheating in my clothes. Now I know that there's a steep hill up to the cathedral, I won't be doing that again! I put my trainers back on to wander around the cathedral, because it is uneven paving and there are lots of stepped sections, etc. 

The Lolita group outside the cathedral, photographed by Meshya.
I'm wearing comfortable but ugly trainers, but hiding them behind my bag!

The cathedral itself is really stunning. It's a medieval cathedral, but it still has an active congregation. It's the cathedral of St. Mungo, who is said to be buried there, known fully as St. Kentigern (He's Cynderyn in Welsh). 'Mungo' is actually an affectionate nickname with its derivation in an earlier British language (I've read conflicting articles as to which one), apparently meaning 'dear one'. St. Mungo/Kentigern is the patron saint of Glasgow. 

[Random Harry Potter musing aside: There's a large and rather old hospital (it was opened in the 1790's) near St. Mungo's Cathedral, currently with a rather grand and ornate stone building from 1914 dominating the local area - I do wonder if the combination of the two were the inspiration for St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical maladies, especially as J.K Rowling lives in Scotland, but in Edinburgh, not Glasgow.]

The cathedral does have a few stained glass windows, but much less than I expected. I don't actually know why, but if I had been on the guided tour, that would have been one of the questions that I would have asked. I noticed that a lot of the stained glass was stylistically 20thC and had a lot of beautiful greens, blues and purples, especially one which I think might be the Millennium Window (I didn't get a good photograph, unfortunately), and I'd guess made in the late 1990s to celebrate the then-upcoming turn of the millennium. The cathedral was spared much of the more destructive aspects of the reformation because the local population stepped in to defend it, but maybe the windows were still smashed? - I do not know. According to the unofficial cathedral ::website::, the decision to put in stained glass was made in 1856, but it doesn't say why there wasn't stained glass previous to that, when in most other medieval cathedrals, stained glass was introduced centuries before, often right from the start, and one of the benefits of the Gothic style is how the arrangement of space and fenestration work really well with stained glass (I wrote a mini-dissertation for one of my graded units on this sort of thing last year...). 

These windows included stained glass, but my camera blew it out too bright.

Another thing I noticed about the cathedral is that it has a relatively cohesive design overall, and doesn't look like the sort of cathedral built in a lot of disjunct Gothic/Gothic-related styles in many phases over many centuries (eg. Canterbury Cathedral), but more like it was built mostly to one design, even if there's different ceiling designs in the main nave and the choir. It has quite a harmonious and balanced building because of this - no mismatched towers (like the basilica-cathedral of St. Denis in Paris)  or Romanesque arches beside late Gothic tracery, no buckled columns (like Salisbury Cathedral) or much later additions in Baroque or other Neo-Classically derived styles mixed in, no awkward 20th or 21stC modern elements stuck on.

It's a very large and long building, and I don't think ALL of it was built at once, but it is remarkably united and singular building considering its age, and that it was built between 1136 and 1197, which is not as long as some cathedrals and basilicas, but still more than 60 years. It's on a straightforward linear floor-plan, with one extension off-centre rather than a cruciform transept, and these two (the Blackadder Crypt and its above ground chapel are aligned with the south transept, and the boiler wing is off centre) are the only bits that seem outside of the original design - the sacristy/chapter house while not part of the main hall-shape building, does seem like at least a very old addition, and maybe part of the original design, or of the original construction phases. I've seen a floor-plan, and been to the building, and these are my educated guesses on the history - it's not something I've really researched, nor did I get a chance to ask a guide. I've got to go back there, with a note-book, and get some more information!

Pews with fabulous Gothic arches and trefoil designs.

There's a lot of stunning carved wooden furniture in the cathedral - pews, choir stalls, and things that can't really be called 'furniture' like the organ loft and the great pipe-organ itself (which I was privileged to hear played!). The interior is impressively Gothic - I guess some of the wooden bits are Victorian-era, probably Gothic Revival, but I guess in a building like that, it's less of a revival, and more of a continuation of an ongoing tradition of ecclesiastical art and architecture.

Memorial with helm, shield and sword

There are a few graves and memorials within the cathedral itself, too. I tried to photograph many of them, but the photographs did not come out well. One that did, however, was  a grave with an effigy of the person's armour rather than the person themselves, complete with ornate helm and sword. Looking at the date, it was more symbolic of knightly things than something they would have worn in battle, as the grave is much later than the styling of the armour displayed, but it's still a rather beautifully rendered monument.

Vaulted ceilings and concentric details on the arches. Best ceiling photo.

I think the most stunning aspect of the cathedral, however, are the vaulted ceilings. These vaults are structural, not just aesthetic, and are based around intersecting Gothic arches. I took an awful lot of ceiling photographs, but it was quite hard to get good ones on just my phone - I don't have the old HTC with the 'potato camera' but my Samsung is an older model, and it struggles to get pictures that are crisp and aren't grainy (and slightly off-focus) in low light levels - at least with the standard camera app; I've downloaded Lightroom now, and I might be able to get better shots by having more control over the settings.

I took a LOT of ceiling pictures but most were terrible. This one was passable

I actually got separated from the rest of the group because I got distracted by taking photos of the ceiling. When I looked down, everyone was gone! A French tour guide said what I thought was "sur les arbres" so I went out to the trees by the entrance to look for the rest of the Lolita group, but they weren't there. In retrospect, I think she might have actually said "sur les arches" and I misheard because the Cathedral is echoey and it was quite busy in there, as they'd actually gone to the crypt - under the arches. One of the group found me, as apparently the French tour guide had run into the rest of the group, too, and told them where I was! After we were all reunited in the crypt, I changed into my high heels again for a photo by a grand candelabra.

Photograph by Meshya. Very tall candelabra.

As we left the crypt, the choir had got into full swing of their rehearsals. I'm not sure which choir it was - most of the choristers looked the usual student age, so I'm wondering if they were a university/conservatoire choir, and there was a TV crew setting up around them. They were absolutely amazing! It was Renaissance style polyphonic church music, but with the organ accompanying, and it was something really special. Hearing them was truly wonderful, and coming up out of the crypt to emerge into this sound, with the two big banks of organ pipes flanking on either side, it was something mesmerising.

Byzantine-looking mausoleum and many monuments,
photographed by me, from the bridge, on my previous visit to the Necropolis

After visiting the crypt, we concluded our visit to the cathedral, and crossed the bridge over the road, to the necropolis hill nearby. Glasgow Necropolis is somewhere I have visited before, but last time around, not many of my photographs came out, so this time I tried to take a few more. The last time I was there, the weather was hazy and dull, very overcast, and so my photographs were all very drear - I deliberately accentuated this with the use of black and white. Scotland is famous for its 'dreich' weather, but it can actually be brighter and quite sunny, so all the photographs from this trip to the necropolis are full colour with bright blue skies! I thought I'd share the ones from the last time, too, though, because I'm a cliché and I appreciate the gloomy aesthetic. 

Another of the previous photographs - grey skies and many monuments.

Neo-Classical mausoleum
Click to expand.

One of my favourite things about the necropolis is that it was functioning for so long that it's a snapshot of changing artistic and architectural movements, and a reflection of changing funereal practices, not to mention the people who were buried and the various circumstances that the choice of monument reflects - those who buried by their next of kin, those with monuments paid for by the members of institutions and societies to which the deceased belonged, those with grand mausoleums, those more simple headstones... A cemetery is a history book encoded in stone and landscaping. I think I could go to the Necropolis a good few times, and with each time, learn more.

The Necropolis is also somewhere I could spend a lot more than a mere hour,  especially with a camera. I really, really wish I had a camera that worked at the moment - my cheap 'point and click' camera died (it had death spasms, with the shutter and zoom mechanism suddenly going through some random glitching motions and then breaking, before it expired) and the Canon camera I have on extended loan has trouble with batteries and charging... I just have my phone at the moment, and while the photographs are not terrible, but they could be so much better quality. A new camera is something I will have to invest in when I get a job!

I was trailing behind the group, photographing the monuments, but the group
are very aesthetic from behind, so that wasn't too bad! Note monument styles.

The Necropolis is also interesting because it also shows a lot of monuments that are both historical now, and were historically inspired when they were made, harking back to ancient Rome and Greece, ancient Egypt, Byzantium, and even a few with Celtic crosses, representing a late Victorian-era Celtic Revival. Plenty of Gothic Revival monuments, too, but interestingly, much fewer than at Inverness' own necropolis at Tomnahurich. Obelisks, and Classically inspired designs seemed most popular, partly because many are older, but also I think out of stylistic choice. I do personally think that there's something about the angular geometry and severity of some variations of the Neo-Classical that is severe and sober, perfect for sombre memorials.

An angel perched in stone. Photo by myself.

There were some figurative monuments, some with a statue of the deceased, some, like the one above, with angels. I quite like this contemplative angel - the plinth is huge and solid, and many of the neighbouring monuments are stones of similar forms, so it almost looks like an angel just landed there, on top of the stone, which I guess was the idea.

Graves through the trees. Photograph by myself.

The landscaping of the Necropolis is really quite park-like - apart from the paths and terraces, there are a lot of flowers and trees, and a lot of grass! One of the reasons I love graveyards (I wrote a whole blog on the subject ::here::). The cherry blossoms were in bloom - I like cherry blossoms in graveyards, because I think of Japanese sakura blossoms, and how they can symbolise transience, which is very fitting for a graveyard. There were also plenty of bluebells. Spring happens later in Scotland than in England, I've noticed, even later where I am. 

Lolita group participant in the shade beneath a cherry tree. Photo by me.

The Lolita group, myself included, took a lot of outfit photos and pictures of each other. While they took photos by some of the graves, I wandered off, not too far because I was back in my high heels and I am precarious in them, to look for interesting graves and vistas. I actually brought my cane with me, both to stabilise myself while wearing heels, and to help me walk once I had taken them off because wearing heels all day makes my ankles pretty sore indeed.

Lou Graves ( @gravelvet on Instagram) took this.
I looked pretty aesthetic while wandering off! 

I spotted a set of steps by some trees that were a good spot to get a tiered group photo so everyone could be seen behind everyone else, but unfortunately, in my high heels I was one of the tallest members of the group, so I needed to stand right at the top of the stairs! I was quite unsteady while trying to walk up the stairs, and getting back down was even trickier. Sometimes my eye for what might look good exceeds my good sense. 

LaFantome, who was the organiser of our meet-up. Photo by me. 

On the way down the Necropolis hill, I spotted a really pretty Gothic Revival monument. I don't often like posing with gravestones (and I've explained why in the past), but this time I wanted a picture of me with a monument because I just wanted a memento of having been to what is probably my favourite monument in the whole Necropolis - a very elaborate Gothic Revival monument with ivy growing up it. It's got so many of my favourite elements of the Gothic style - having a Gothic arch within a steep triangular gable, pinnacles, and having a screen of detached tracery. 

Me standing in front of my favourite monument, photo by

After the event, the others went to The Winged Ox, a restaurant in a converted church, but I needed to get back to the bus station for my coach home again, so I walked back to the bus station - getting some sushi en route. 

Sunset from the coach window

Overall, I had a very enjoyable time. Next time I will try and find some elegant footwear that isn't heeled and is comfortable but pretty, because swapping between trainers and high heels was just holding the rest of the group up each time, and got pretty annoying for me, let alone everyone else. The 'Tea Party' style flat shoes common in Lolita tend to look better with Sweet styles, and Gothic Lolita is usually worn with chunky high heels, so I'm struggling to think of a flat alternative that will still look elegant, especially as I have big size EU 42/UK8 feet! Any suggestions from Lolitas are welcome.

I definitely want to go back to Glasgow Cathedral, especially to do a guided tour - although perhaps I'd annoy the tour guide as I'd have a LOT of questions about the building! I also want to go back there with a proper camera to capture some better quality shots of the Cathedral's interior, especially the vaulted ceilings and the stained glass windows. 

Dundee City

For New Year's/Hogmanay, I went to stay with some friends in Dundee. I think it was either New Year's Day or 2nd January, but one of the days of the trip, Raven and I went for a wander around the city. There's a lot of very pretty architecture there, and an interesting cemetery in the city centre. Raven and I were on a quest to find a specific restaurant, so most of the pictures were just snapshots, and I didn't get a chance to look at what they actually were, and with this being exam season (and with me having been generally extremely busy with college this spring) so there's not my usual historical and architectural context.

Quiet Dundee Streets

The one place I have some context on is the Howff Burial Ground. It is urban, bordered on two sides by walls and roads, and on the other two by the rear walls - and windows - of tall Victorian buildings, including the former newspaper offices. There's a windowed tourelle on one of the old newspaper offices that seems to be firstly an afterthought, and both leaking and leaning precariously, which seemed expected - the whole cemetery seemed like a bubble within the city that was in a different time and a little bit like a different world. Even the trees there were tangled, winding and strangely shaped! The burial ground was originally part of the grounds of a Franciscan monastery, and I think the wall with the arches dates from 1601!

Tangle-wood tree

I don't know if this is is a specific species of tree that grows like this, or the result of some kind of pruning technique, but this tree just grew in knots and tangles and lumps and snags. I've never seen a tree like it, but there were at least two in Howff Cemetery. There were no leaves or flowers on it so I, who am no expert on trees, didn't even have that to go on to identify them.

It is possible to do a virtual cemetery tour if you look up 'The Howff' in Dundee, Scotland, on Google StreetView. Apparently it was uploaded by a Google user (a Kevin Reid) - I didn't even know that was possible! It looks like it was done with one of those 360° image cameras or something, as a series of "image spheres" at locations all around the cemetery paths. I don't know how you link to a specific place in Google StreetView, so I won't add the link here, but I do recommend looking it up. 

Neoclassical tower

Near the cemetery was this rather large and fancy Neoclassical building - I didn't catch what it actually was, as I was walking within the cemetery walls, not without, and didn't actually walk past the exterior of whatever it was to see a sign or anything. Whatever it is, it's a very ornate and grand building, and the light on that wintry day caught it beautifully. I looked it up on Google StreetView, and it looks like a concert hall or theatre. 

Church tower, one of a pair

I liked this church, but it was hard to get a god photograph of it because there is a bus stop right in front of it. It is on Panmore Street and has two of these towers and a charming rose window. I thought I'd take one of its 'witches' hat' roofed spire. I love the vents - possibly to help the sound of bells escape. 

McManus Galleries

I had a walk around the McManus Galleries - an amazing Gothic Revival building. I didn't get to go inside them as they were shut, but I took several photographs of the exterior. I would love to do a photo-shoot on the fabulous steps - I wonder if that could be arranged! I also think the steps - in Baroque swirling design - work really well with this otherwise very Gothic design. It's an altogether fabulous, magical-looking building... 

Steeple under rainy skies

This is the steeple on a rather interesting building. In the centre of Dundee is a building that, at first glance, would look like a cathedral. It is huge, old, and Gothic and very definitely the size and shape of the average cathedral. However, it is not a single-purpose building. It has been subdivided, and done so historically. There is the steeple, shown above, which I think is a municipally run clock tower, and at least two churches and a youth group using the rest of the building, with the spaces subdivided for these uses. Apparently subdividing the building became a necessity centuries ago, as there have been several serious fires in the building. The history of the site is very long with the earliest church on the site being from 1192 - a time-line of history of the building can be read ::here::. It's currently surrounded by a shopping mall!

The observant will have noticed that some of the photographs -specifically the ones of  buildings and monuments - are watermarked 'Architecturally Gothic'. This is one of the two Tumblr accounts I run. ::Architecturally Gothic:: is  my architectural photography Tumblr. It's mostly my own work, but I reblog a lot of other people's architectural photography too.