Edinburgh via Coldingham

Coldingham Priory

Today was another day in transit, but it was wonderfully easy since there were no trains and buses and transfers and different rules to deal with.  My friend Toby from Edinburgh drove to Eyemouth to pick me up.  Bless you, Toby!!  We stopped at Coldingham on the way -- a place that had caught our eye in passing a year ago when we went to Fast Castle.  The pictures above and below are on the grounds of the old Coldingham Priory and the current Coldingham Parish Church.  The priory was established in 640 AD (yes, just 3 digits in the date!).  It had it's share of ups and downs over the centuries from fires to Viking raids to border wars, but the medieval building was finally destroyed by Oliver Cromwell in 1650.  You know, when I was a schoolchild, I was taught to think positively of Oliver Cromwell, but now that I hear at nearly every cathedral or castle I visit that it was destroyed by Oliver Cromwell, I'm not feeling so positively towards him and am beginning to want to rename him "Dr. Destructo."  

This wall of diverse elements is known as a lapidarium.  It was built in the 1800s of stones found during a time of restoration.

The large slabs pictured below within the lapidarium are Templar gravestone slabs. 

Despite the work of Dr. Destructo and his armies, worship continues here to this day.

Like Eyemouth, Coldingham also has a nice beach area - different though - a bit more like some northern California beaches.

On the trip between Coldingham and Edinburgh, I saw windmills for producing electricity like the ones we have in California between where I live and the San Francisco Bay Area.  A couple of differences are that the hills are different in color and that we drive on the opposite side of the road!

When we got into Edinburgh, we stopped at Toby's place for a while first.  It wasn't time for check-in at my airbnb yet, so I just hung out a bit.  Rather than having Toby drive me, I decided to walk to my place. It ended up longer than I expected, but maybe that was only due to the fact that it started raining, which made the cobbles and flagstones slippery as I walked up and down hills hauling all my luggage along with me.  There is a reason I walk nearly everywhere no matter how far, other than being a cheapskate with a bit of a tendency towards pushing myself past my limits and a desire to lose weight, is that when you walk you get a better sense of how things are connected, and you get to see places close-up, details that you might otherwise miss.  (The next 6 pictures are on the way between Toby's flat and mine, but they were taken on various other days and not on that first walk!)  

When I arrived after about 30 minutes, I found the following at the end of the journey:

I shouldn't have been surprised, since I had started my walk similarly at Toby's flat!

But what I found when I opened the door to my new place was a large, bright, welcoming space - one of the nicest places I've ever stayed.  Truly, this place is unbelievably awesome!  I should post pictures of some of the awful places I stayed for comparison!

What a huge refrigerator!  All my other places just had a little cube of a thing. One place I stayed at earlier in my travels had one of those little cube-shaped refrigerators, a little segment of which was supposed to be a freezer, but EVERYTHING I put in the unit froze solid!! This place has a nearly full-sized refrigerator with separate freezer!  Wahoo!!

What a comfortable and lovely space in which to spend the last 5 or so days of my journey.

I don't like to miss any opportunities, so I dropped my stuff and took off for evensong at St. Mary's.

I got lost  .  .  .

  .  .  .  which I didn't think was possible for me in Edinburgh!

As it turns out I was on the opposite side of the Water of Leith than I thought I was, so I was walking in the wrong direction!  It's OK.  It was lovely, and you can't get too badly lost in Edinburgh.  You'll eventually find your way, and everything will be beautiful even if you don't know where you are.

I was late arriving to evensong, and I was afraid the door would be locked, but it was open.  Hooray!

This is my first time worshiping there where I was in the nave rather than in the choir.  It was interesting to get a different view, though I did miss being right next to the choristers.  I wonder if the space in which people are led to sit has to do with the time of the year?  St. Mary's has its own choir school and is the only cathedral in Scotland to continue a tradition of daily choral services; as you can imagine, the music is fantastic. Again, there were vestments involved, which I also do love!

After evensong it was off to Toby's place and then out to dinner together.

"Chim-chiminey, chim-chiminey, chim, chim, cheree  .  .  ."  I always expect to see Dick Van Dyke flanked by chimney sweeps dancing and singing on these rooftops!  

Circus Lane is between my place and Toby's.  I'll "have to" walk this way multiple times this week  .  .  .  alas  .  .  .  such a burden  .  .  .  oh woe is me  .  .  .  JUST KIDDING!

Bells Diner (right across the street from The Bailie) the restaurant where I had my first dinner in Edinburgh on this trip.  It's obviously well after 10:00pm since it stays light until ten!

I am once again, as of May 24, 2022 in my favorite city in the whole world!! :-)

John Napier and the Treasure Hunt at Fast Castle

 

My focus is very much on mathematician John Napier these days, especially since I was able to get to Scotland this summer (2021), the pandemic notwithstanding.  I had tried for years to figure out how to get to Fast Castle, a very remote location, and there was just absolutely no way I could do it on my own trying to use public transportation no matter how I combined things like trains, buses, or even taxis.  Because of Toby, a wonderful tour guide that I connected with I was finally able to get here!  The reason I'm so interested in this spot is that it is the site of a treasure hunt undertaken by "my" mathematician, John Napier.  I could write paragraphs and paragraphs about this intriguing story, but I'll just share a bit and then get on with posting pictures.  Napier had a reputation as a sorcerer, which is a dangerous reputation to have had in the 16th century.  People often ended up executed if they were suspected of being sorcerers.  Napier was not only a scholar and an elder in his church, but he was a delegate to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, the author of a major theological work, and did some advising to King James VI/I (who was particularly well known for burning "witches").  So it seems to me that he had this reputation among the locals and at least one peer, Robert Logan of Restalrig.  Logan owned Fast Castle, which had (and has!) a reputation for being a location for hidden treasure - perhaps even Templar treasure.  There is a contract between Logan and Napier for Napier to go to Fast Castle and use his sorcerous skills to search for treasure.  There is a great deal to the story, but I'll leave it at that (for now!).  I should add that the hunt may or may not actually have taken place, but the contract exists and is in Napier's own hand, and so off I went to check it out!

After driving to a location that was a close as we could get to the site, we still had quite a trek across farmland and hills to get there!

I'm really thankful that the land owners allow people onto their property, mark it so well, and maintain the path!

First we walked across grassy farmland, and then the grassy landscape gave way to hillsides so full of heather that they looked like purple hills.

The heather gave way to bracken fern, and it was then that we began to see the ruins of the castle out on a promontory far downhill.  This whole trek was really quite a scramble.  We are quite far above the castle here, but the castle itself is on a cliff 150 feet above the water.

The bracken gave way to grassland again.  I love the rocks in the sea at the base of the castle cliffs.

This is the view I have always seen of this site.  It has never looked big enough to me to hold a castle.

Across the drawbridge we go, and this too was quite a scramble - even with a few little steps to help out; it was hard to get to the steps in the first place!

In order to get some scale or perspective on this, I took a picture of Toby working on getting up that slab of stone in order to even get to the helpful few steps on the far end.

Even though we have already descended very far in elevation, we are still atop high cliffs.

The promontory is actually quite spacious.  I'll post some pics to try to represent that, but it is hard to see because the promontory is made up of about 4 plateaus with steep drops down to each one, so they are rather hidden whether you look up or down.  I have no idea how anyone built a castle here!  I also can't quite imagine how large retinues traveled here.  For instance, in 1503 Margaret Tudor, the sister of King Henry VIII of England, spend the night here on her way to Edinburgh to marry King James IV of Scotland.  I know horses are sure-footed, but I imagine if they came overland that Princess Margaret would have been in a carriage of some sort, as would her ladies in waiting, and this is very steep terrain.  It's more likely at that time that they would have come by sea, but I don't know how they would have gotten up to the castle along these sheer cliffs.  (Mary, Queen of Scots, also stayed here for a time in 1566.)

Looking back up from on the promontory -- again, far larger than you might think given the view as you approach.

We explored every nook and cranny of this place.  I cannot imagine that anyone has more pictures of it than I do.  I may be exaggerating, but I think I took 200 pictures of this.  It took so long and was so hard to arrange a trip to get here, and it supports my research and my writing, so I wanted to document it well - and I was just really happy!

I don't know that this formation will still be standing even a few years from now, so I was happy I didn't have to wait any longer to get here!

As I mentioned in the first paragraph, there are lots of treasure stories associated with this castle.  Part of that is the sea caves at its base, which may have connected to the castle at some point.  The word "fast" in the name of the castle was initially "faux" or "false," because the owners of the castle would hang out deceptive lights to get sailors to think they were in port, and then the ship would wreck, and the wreckers would claim the spoils.  There was also a lot of smuggling activity along the coast.  It's also the case that Templars did flee to Scotland after the dissolution by the pope on Friday 13, 1307, and so there are rumors of Templar treasure.  (Side note: We were visiting on Friday 13th!)

After scampering around and exploring EVERYTHING, we found a lovely picnic spot and got refreshed.  Not a bad view for a picnic site!

While we were eating we noticed beautiful wildflowers, and Toby noticed something about the stonework of the ruins near us.  There were corbels - a structural piece of stone intended to carry weight, as of a roof - so this part of the ruins was actually atop a wall and tumbled down from the top:

There is a huge sunken area, and I'm not sure what to make of it.  Maybe a quarry?  Maybe a dungeon area where the floor collapsed?

It's all just so beautiful!

We stayed until quite late.

Looking back as we headed out.  How would you like to have been a bricklayer on this castle?!  (Again, from here the promontory is looking to small to accommodate a castle.)

While we were there we saw a rainbow that stayed longer than any rainbow I've ever seen in my life.  What was amazing is that we could see the end of the rainbow, which is something I'd never seen before.  I guess that means there really is treasure here, and, given the position of the end of the rainbow, I suggest that further searches take place on the hill just above the castle.

The other end of the rainbow was in the farmer's field - perhaps treasure here too!

All in all a BEAUTIFUL day - and a joy and privilege to finally get someplace I'd been trying to get to for many years now!  I am so happy and grateful!

I took some video for myself - to help me remember the scale of the place.  If you're interested, check out the 6 1/2 minute video below: