Undiscovered Scotland: Home Page
Portobello is an eastern suburb of Edinburgh whose long sandy beach faces out onto the Firth of Forth. At its heart is the busy Portobello High Street which roughly parallels the coast and lies a little inland from it. Here you find the town hall built in 1912, opposite the old (and much more attractive) town hall, built in 1877 and now the town's police station.
The Falkirk Wheel Feature Page on Undiscovered Scotland
But it is the Falkirk Wheel itself that draws visitors to this spot. It is 35m or 115ft high, the height of eight double-decker buses. Each gondola contains 300 tonnes of water, meaning that the wheel moves 600 tonnes on each lift. But because the gondolas are always in balance (because boats displace their own weight of water) moving them ...
Scotfax: The Saltire on Undiscovered Scotland
The Flag of Scotland is the Saltire: the white diagonal cross of Scotland's patron saint, St Andrew, on a blue field. It is one of the oldest flags in the world, dating back, according to the version of the story you believe, to 832 or further, perhaps to 761. According to the most popular version of the legend, a joint force of Picts and Scots ...
Sweetheart Abbey Feature Page on Undiscovered Scotland
Sweetheart Abbey. The substantial remains of Sweetheart Abbey can be found on the eastern edge of the village of New Abbey, five miles south of Dumfries. To its south-west lie hills climbing to the summit of Criffel while to its east lies the estuary of the Rive Nith. The story of the founding of Sweetheart Abbey is held to be a testament to ...
Loch Etive Feature Page on Undiscovered Scotland
Loch Etive meets the Firth of Lorn and the open sea at Connel. From here it stretches east past Ardchattan Priory and Ardchattan Priory Garden on the north shore and Taynuilt on the south, before dog-legging north-east, ending after a journey of 17 miles from the sea at a ruined pier. Its northern end and the pier are accessible by car via a 14 ...
Timeline: Prehistory to 1000 - Undiscovered Scotland
Timeline: Prehistory to 1000. 8500 BC: The date of the oldest human settlement yet found in Scotland, at Cramond, near Edinburgh. 3000 BC: Maeshowe chambered tomb is built on Orkney. 3000 BC: Alleged date of origin of the Fortingall Yew, probably the world's oldest living thing. 3000 BC: Occupation of what may be the first Crannog or artificial ...
Stirling Castle Main Feature Page on Undiscovered Scotland
Stirling Castle: Main Page. A visit to Stirling Castle is an essential part of any visit to central Scotland. Its location rivals even Edinburgh Castle's for sheer magnificence as it sits on its high volcanic rock, visible for many miles in every direction. The Castle is in the care of Historic Environment Scotland.
Undiscovered Scotland: Timeline of Scottish History: 1740 to 1800
Timeline: 1740 to 1800. 29 October 1740: The birth in Edinburgh of James Boswell, the lawyer, diarist, traveller and author. 28 April 1742: The birth in Dalkeith of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, the lawyer and politician who became the last person to be impeached in the United Kingdom. February 1744: A French fleet intending to invade ...
Scotfax: Traditional Scottish Music on Undiscovered Scotland
Traditional Scottish music diminished in popularity during the middle decades of the 1900s: but the 1960s saw a radical roots revival in which young musicians rediscovered and made popular many of the traditional elements of Scottish music. The musicians of the 1970s, and since, built on the renaissance of the 60s and traditional music in ...
Timeline of Scottish History - Undiscovered Scotland
Wherever you turn in Scotland you come across signs of an incredibly complex and remarkably violent history. It might be one of the 2700 castles built in an often vain attempt to defend land, property and lives: or one of the innumerable battlefields where ordinary Scots fought, often with one another, and usually in pursuit of someone else's ambitions or beliefs.