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. 

Photographic Friday: Gothic Revival Church By The Sea

I have to do a precedent study for college, as I am designing a seaside home in a semi-rural location, so I have been visiting a bunch of little fishing villages on the Black Isle coast as that is the area our home is for. That is quite a long way to go just to look at stone cottages with bottle-neck gables, rectangular windows and dormers ('coastal vernacular residential architecture idiosyncratic to the locality')  as lovely as they may be, so I gathered up some friends and made a road-trip of it. Raven, Catastrophe and K went with me. 

Catastrophe and K photographed by Raven; he's an awesome photographer!

The weather was a bit chilly, and partially cloudy, but a lot milder than I would expect for February in Scotland; there's still snow on the taller hills, but it's strangely mild this year in terms of temperature -  in terms of storms, it's been quite bad. Catastrophe and K went to stand right up near the sea wall and got utterly soaked by the crashing waves. Raven photographed them, and I went off to look at cottages. But I didn't JUST look at cottages... 

Above the cottages I noticed a graveyard and church... 

How can I resist Gothic Revival architecture?

I haven't been able to find out much about Rosemarkie Parish Church except that it was opened in 1821, and is in a similar style to most of the stone-built Gothic Revival parish churches in the Highlands; it's very 'Church of Scotland' - fancier than most Free Church churches and less fancy than Catholic ones. I know that many of the parish churches are very similar, but I find them all uniquely charming in their own way, and while to some it may seem "they're all the same", to me each one is different with its own quirks, and I appreciate all of them. 

I like dramatic skies and pointy arches

As far as churches go it is not the biggest, nor the fanciest, nor the most unusual, but the thing I really like about it is not just the building itself - it is its location. It is just up the hill from the beach; it overlooks a row of cottages and then there is the coastal road and the pebbled beach. The view is pretty impressive. It is an exposed place and the salt on the wind reminds you that you're not far from the sea at all. 

That's not a field beyond the hedge, it's the sea

I love these wee churches with their pretty graveyards. I've been around hundreds, and they never fail to enchant me. I've written about why graveyards appeal to me before, and while I am no longer Christian, ecclesiastical architecture still appeals to me - people have made such beautiful things in devotion to their God (and sometimes, I guess, for secular ulterior motives too) and many of the better-designed churches convey a sense of peace and optimism, or in the case of grand cathedrals, seem to be man's best attempt to build something on Earth approximating how it is in Heaven.  I think some of them got pretty close. 

I also like mausoleums...

It has its own graveyard. I would think there are quite a few who would like to be buried looking out at sea for the rest of eternity, especially in a community that was for a long time a fishing village. I really liked this Gothic iron fence - the gate seems broken, not closing properly; I didn't leave it open like that out of laziness or anything; I didn't even open it, and I didn't want to fiddle with it in case I broke it more. 

Beyond that row of graves and the hedge behind them is a steep hill and then it is, as you can see behind the fence at the rear, the sea. Rosemarkie faces onto a firth, rather than the open sea, so somewhere on the horizon will be Morayshire - the land between Ardersier and Culloden. 

This is just one point on my road-trip, and there will be more architectural photography over the next few days, including the ruins of Fortrose Cathedral. It  surprises me how many truly grand and quite vast ecclesiastical buildings lie in ruins across the Highlands - Beauly Priory and Elgin Cathedral being notable examples. 

Autumn Road-Trip 3: Rafford Cemetery

Suzy_Bugs suggested visiting Rafford on our road-trip; I think she spent some of her childhood in the area, and was keen to get us to visit this old cemetery. The cemetery itself is in what seems to be an odd location; off two main roads and away from the church. I think this is because the cemetery pre-dates the church, and while there is a small building in the centre which I think was the grave-keeper's cottage, there's no visible sign of where the church used to be. I will cover the new church in my next post. The whole place is quite low, in a bit of a valley, surrounded by wooded hills and a small village. 

Photograph by HouseCat

The photograph above is what I presume was the grave-keeper's cottage. I had a peek in the windows and open door, and it looks like it is now home to things like planters, but was once where someone lived or worked. Either way, it is fairly empty now, mostly home to lots and lots of spiders. It still has its windows, and it still has its roof, so it has managed to remain a little outbuilding quite well. 

Photograph by HouseCat

The photographs to the left, above and below are of a large mausoleum that dwarfs most of the surrounding grave monuments. The mausoleum has no roof, but does have several plaques inside, mostly over grown by ivy and brambles, so  I could not read which family are interred there. At the back I presume there had once been a plaque naming the family and which members were buried there, but that had fallen away. There were still plaques on other walls, though. The walls of the mausoleum are surprisingly thick, and I do wonder if it was initially designed to have a roof, or whether the family who had it built just wanted a sturdy monument. 

It was late afternoon and quite a bright day, so the shadows were quite strong, and everything getting slightly golden as evening approached. I think it was a rather good time for photographing. Some of the photographs I took later on were perhaps a bit too late in the day, but I think I had it just right for here, Rafford Church and the earlier photographs for Pluscarden Abbey (later in the road-trip). I think there is a window of time in the late afternoon, if the weather is suitable, that is really good for architectural photographs, because there's enough shadow to get defined planes and faces of walls and roofs (especially if there is detail and subtle angles) but it's neither dazzlingly bright, nor too dingy. 

Photograph by HouseCat

Suzy_Bugs told me that both this cemetery and the one by the abandoned chapel visited earlier have graves far more recent than the last use of their associated church or chapel because there is some rule or law that says that if a graveyard stops being used for new burials for long enough, that it can be developed over or somesuch. I'm not sure if this is exactly right, but it does pose an interesting question about how long human remains and graveyards should be left untouched in respect to those who are buried there. Personally, I would be in favour of never building over them (especially as it seems in recent years that we expand our cities and towns too much), but sometime land is unknown to be the last resting place of people because it has been disused as a cemetery for centuries or even millennia. There are a lot more factors in this debate than I can fit into a small paragraph, but it is something I'd like to hear my reader's thoughts on. 

Graveyards, Mortality and Snow

Back in early January, I went on one of my lunch-breaks to a Chapel Yard cemetery in Inverness. I had an extended break, and had time to take the bus from work into the city and then have a quiet stroll. When I got back, one of my colleagues was asking where I'd gone on my break, and when I responded with a graveyard, asked me if I was visiting a relative, and then got surprised when I said that I was just there for a quiet stroll, and thought it would be quite morbid. I think this is a fairly standard reaction from most non-Goths, and some Goths too, and visiting graveyards for reasons other than visiting a specific grave or for a funeral seems alien to a lot of non-Goths, and quite normal to a lot of Goths. I had to get back to working, and so didn't have time to explain to my co-worker exactly what I find appealing - I just said that I liked the peace and quiet, and I didn't have time to take a bus out to the park.

Snowy graves at Chapel Yard Cemetery, Inverness. Phone-cam photo by me.

The full answer is a bit more complicated. 

It is mainly because I do indeed find graveyards peaceful and quiet. Unlike public parks, they get very few visitors. Usually, I am the only person there, and I am unlikely to be disturbed, which gives me time to be alone with my thoughts and away from the rest of the living.  I guess the fact that most people find them morbid, if not outright creepy, is one of the reasons that they remain a place of solitude. While I am an outgoing person, extended social interaction does tire me, and I need time alone to recuperate. Visiting a graveyard does not quite guarantee me brief isolation, but it is most usually solitary enough - some are more frequently visited than others, and I've been to a couple with paths straight through them and thus people using them as thoroughfares, but the Chapel Yard cemetery at the end of Academy Street in Inverness is at least not used as a short-cut, even if it is bordered by two busy and converging roads. Actually, considering its situation, it is surprisingly quiet, something which I attribute to the high walls surrounding it and the numerous trees, shrubs and hedges.

More snowy graves, photographed by HouseCat

Graveyards often have quite interesting masonry and sculpture - old mausoleums, grave-stones and markers, old walls, etc. I like these on aesthetic grounds, but they also serve as a reminder to put things in perspective: as Hippocrates said, "Life is short, art is long" - not just that the physical artefacts of human crafts outlive their makers, or that our deeds can outlive us, but that life is short and that learning any skill, or practising any art, or really doing anything well, is time-consuming and it is important to manage your time wisely - and that includes taking a break from things so that when you go back to them you are more productive. Yes, the graves are very much a reminder of human mortality, but rather than depressing me, this inspires me and reminds me to always live life like I will be struck down by lightning or traffic the next day; I try to make the most of things, avoid leaving things unsaid, and do my best to fill each day with experiences and productive activities.

Interior of mausoleum, note extinguished torch
carving on the far wall. Photo by the HouseCat

Death does not depress or frighten me; yes I wish to accomplish certain things before I am gone, but the fact that I will be gone does not upset me, and never really has. I don't believe in an afterlife, and my view on reincarnation is more that my soul will be recycled, and maybe the next thing I am made into will retain little flashes of me-ness, the way recycled paper sometimes has little bits of still-legible text or flashes of colour, but mostly that which makes me the person I am now will cease to be. These things have never scared me; it just seems logical that all things are born, die, and get recycled one way or another, even if its just the physical recycling of decomposition. Maybe this is why I am attracted to the Gothic; death does not terrify me, not even the prospect of my own demise, instead it just seems like another part of life, and therefore I am not put off the macabre, and if anything just as curious about it as I am anything else. Suffering frightens me, but not dying; being dead seems to mostly be awful for those left grieving in the absence of the deceased, and be merely oblivion for the one who has died. As such, reminders of death, such as graveyards and skulls, don't upset or make me miserable.

Details of the graveyard, with interesting carvings.
Photo by The Housecat, collage made in PicMonkey

Graveyards are also often rare green spaces in urban areas; especially those that do not come with much parkland, or come with parkland that is just flat grass for sports with little in the way of trees and shrubs. I often see a wide variety of birds, and sometimes animals - I often spot hedgehogs and squirrels in graveyards. Sitting on a bench and observing, or going for a quiet stroll, is one way I can get in my dose of "nature time" - something I need to keep myself grounded. For places associated with death, they are usually teeming with life.

I go to graveyards to find solitude, peace, perspective and life, and usually I find it in those places, even if they are places of death for others. 

Barevan Church and Graveyard

In which I take even more photographs of windows...

After visiting Rait Castle, we headed to Wester Barevan, south of Achindown and Nairn, to visit the ruins of Barevan church, which has been ruined for a very long time, long enough for graves to have been lain in the floor of the old church. Barevan church and graveyard, in the summer sun, is one of the most peaceful and picturesque graveyards I have ever been to. It is almost like a garden, rather than a graveyard, and has plenty of pretty trees and nice views. 

A grave is lain where the altar once was... Eerie.

However, all it takes is a change of weather to give it an entirely different atmosphere. When the clouds roll in and obscure the sun, and when the wind rattles the leaves, it suddenly feels much more exposed. It is not quite as bleak as the wilder, open places of Scotland, as there are trees and it is circled by woodland and hills, but suddenly the weather seems very much there, and the stone walls seem greyer, and the lack of a roof suddenly becomes a concern. 

I heard you like windows, so here are two windows
seen through a window, viewed in a browser window,
perhaps on a computer running Windows...

The style of architecture, from the rough stone walls down to the Y-tracery on some of the double windows being carved from single pieces of sandstone, reminds me of Rait Castle, and I wonder if they were built at similar times or even perhaps by the same people, or whether that is just how things were done in that place in those times. As you may have noticed, I still have my obsession with photographing windows. 

Narrow depth of field, focusing on stone texture

I really enjoyed photographing the ruined church. I had some fun trying out new ideas with the photography, such as the photograph above. Normally at this point, I would be elaborating on the history of the architecture, but I really don't  know very much about the history of this graveyard - to me it is this is a totally unknown and unexpected graveyard in the middle of the countryside; I have no idea of why it is there, or what sort of congregation it would have had - there's not much settlement about it nowadays, but maybe more people lived there in the past. 

That one rock makes it seem more desolate than it is, by being less desolate.

I still think the strangest thing about that place is how quickly it changes with the weather, how rapidly it goes from almost serene to foreboding, how rapidly the clouds and wind can change how it feels. I will finish with two colour photos, taken within an hour of each other, which I think illustrate this point. 

This photo was taken a couple of steps away from the one above.

The clouds are dark and flat, what little blue is in the sky is quickly retreating and the walls are caught in shadow. Less than hour earlier I took quite a different photograph, looking in through the door of the church at a head-stone, and it seems so bright - like another time and another place, somewhere sunnier and with bright walls and green vines. 

Tomorrow I will showcase a guest post from Raven of ::Chance Photography:: with photographs from both Rait Castle and Barevan graveyard. Architecture week runs until Saturday, so stick around for more photographs!

Mausoleums, Cemeteries and Sundials

I did not want to spam everyone with too many pictures at once yesterday, so today I am posting some of the pictures of other areas of Inverness, notably the cemetery at the end of Academy Street and pictures from Falcon Square.

A broken urn

These pictures are of a broken urn in the Cemetery at the far end Academy Street. It is not the sort of hollow urn for ashes, just a decorative one from atop a monument. I found something distinctly beautiful yet terribly tragic about this ornament. It is from above a grave marker, has broken and then been put upon the edge of this wall. I love all the textures and colours, the dark green especially, and the yellow-green of the moss. When I go to graveyards and cemeteries, I do not take photographs of actual headstones and markers, as feel it is disrespectful to the memory those interred and their families to use something so important for aesthetic entertainment. Architecture and statuary are not so personal, so I am more comfortable photographing those things. 

Sculptors' Mark on Headstone

This is an exception to my policy of not photographing grave-markers. The actual text on this grave had been obliterated by time and weather, but the sculptor's mark remained. It is also the first time I've actually spotted a sculptor's mark on a headstone. 

Skulls with Bat-Wings, Bones and Ravens

I saw this part of a mausoleum and thought it was fascinating. One difference I have seen between Scottish and English graveyards is that in Scotland there are far more open references to death - I see a lot of skulls, inverted chalices, bones etc. In England I saw more angels and Madonnas, more floral designs and more poetry. I'd never seen a skull design in a graveyard before I moved up here. The graveyard in Academy Street is full of such designs, and it does make the place a bit eerie. 

I do not just take photographs of cemeteries and churches, and there is actually quite a bit of interest in the city, as there are in most British towns and cities (and most mainland European ones too). One of the wonderful things about Scotland is that history surrounds you and virtually everything has a story. Even the modern things are often beautiful, and I see a lot of pubic statues and monuments. 

Sundial at Falcon Square

In Falcon Square, which is the main square outside the Eastgate Shopping Centre (the mall, to Americans) is a statue of a unicorn rearing on a pedestal, birds swooping round it. At the base of the pedestal there are four sun dials, one each face of the pedestal. Here are photographs of parts of two of them. A lot of people, including those who live in the city, forget that these sundials are here, or ignore them. There are people who regularly sit on the pedestal steps and have still not noticed the sundials. Personally, this is very peculiar - there are four metal dishes, quite large, inserted into the side of a very large pedestal; this should be obvious. The bronze has gained a beautiful patina, with hints of green and gold. The sundials are relatively recent, so the casting is still crisp. Personally, I find the sundials one of the more attractive features of the square. It's much nicer to look at than the bus-stops and gaggles of teenagers and shoppers, anyway.