Category: Architechture

We started the story… …of Inchaffray Abbey, and Bruce’s endowment to it in PART ONE, I talked about Bruce’s decision to give an endowment for a chapel to St. Fillan and a brief history of the early, awful months of 1306. In PART TWO, I got into the detail of the Battle of Dalrigh, which, […]

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During my two week trip to Scotland, I visited thirteen castles.  I’d be hard-pressed to say which was my favorite, although I can narrow it down to Tioram, Finlairig, Linlithgow, Urquhart, and Eileen Donan.  If I absolutely had to, I could probably narrow it down to Tioram and Finlairig. This week’s (or month’s, depending on […]

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As I research a sequence of hiking scenes today, I find myself in the midst of some of Scotland’s great and picturesque medieval ruins. Castle Campbell  There’s Castle Campbell, high in the Ochil Hills between the Burn of Care and the Burn of Sorrow, and once called Castle Gloom. How much more evocative can you […]

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Urquhart Castle, one of Scotland’s largest medieval castles, standing on the shore of Loch Ness, was one of two main inspirations for Niall’s home, Castle Glenmirril.  (Castle Tioram was the other.)  It sits on a promontory jutting out into the loch, at the north end of the Great Glen.  Urquhart dates from medieval days, or earlier.  Adomnan’s […]

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