So today is our final day in Scotland as we set off for Barnsley tomorrow. As we will have to pack and put the house back together we decided to stay local and finally do the Town Walk that we picked up on the first day. This is a guide to all the historic buildings n Peebles which actually took a couple of hours to walk round, interestingly we actually (by accident) found out that Holyrood house actually means holy cross house. Anyway a walk up and down the high street identified a number of official buildings such as the town house and various hotels including the ‘Tontine Hotel’ which was financed on the tontine principle which basically means that the last survivor of the original subscribers become the heir to the property – not sure I knew this and I am surprised that it didn’t result in more ‘accidents’ amongst the partners. We walked down to the river looking at the various school buildings visiting Parliament Square where it is said that in 1346 the Scottish Parliament held an emergency meeting following the defeat of King David II at the Battle of Neville’s Cross. Peebles also has a ruin, the Cross Kirk, which again seems to be quite well preserved considering it was a Trinitarian Priory built in 1260 after the discovery of ‘a magnificent and venerable cross’ and a gravestone that was inscribed ‘the place of St Nicholas the bishop’ from there we went to St Andrews tower which is all that remains of the Church of St Andrews which was repeatedly damaged in the 15th – 17th centuries by English invaders, apparently Cromwell’s cavalry used the ruins as stables for two years after the Battle of Dunbar. Then it was a walk along what is left of the old city wall and back to the house for a spot of lunch and relax before packing and sorting things out ready for our departure tomorrow.
I hope the southern climes have not had a bad effect upon you. Bradford should be pretty good for Indian food.
Have really enjoyed reading about your exploits and looking at the pictures. They do not have a great brick making tradition in Scotland. I forgot how grey all the building stone is.
You have certainly seen a lot more than we did but in our exploring days, we had a couple of small people who were not too interested in looking round buildings (my lazy excuse).
Hope all is well.