Photo of the day: Charlotte Square

On a bright cold day, Edinburgh seems to glow with charm. We went for a long walk this morning but I only took one photo, between the heavy wrought-iron fence that locks the public out of the Charlotte Square Gardens. The only time we are allowed through is after the marquees go up for the Edinburgh Book Festival in August.

I love the way the Albert Memorial is centred between trees that are scattering their leaves around the gentile lawn. This wee patch of green is one of my favourites spots in the city.

Happy happy solstice

Do you remember a few weeks ago I wrote that within a month the flowers and plants that line the paths through the walled gardens at Culzean Castle would be waist high?

It is true. This is how the gardens look at high summer. A big solstice squeeze for lovers of beautiful Scotland. Have a wonderful day.

Welcoming summer at Culzean Castle

If there is a place to well and truly welcome summer into your life, the 600 acres of manicured splendour that surrounds Culzean Castle is enough to make you babble deliriously at the bees.

I achieved just such a state of dreamy awe during our most recent visit. Imagine me, half strolling and half gliding across the lawns in front of the tiered gardens and the light caramel exterior of the castle itself.

“Hello fountain…hello palm trees…hello lovely giant stone planter filled with perky yellow flowers.” Every few minutes I lower my camera and grin dopily over at JP, who shakes his head and tries to keep me moving before all my limbs turn to rubber and I collapse.

All of this before we take the stairs that lead down to the banks of the Forth of Clyde. From here it is easy to get a sense of what an imposing sight this estate would have been several hundred years ago, gleaming from its cliff top, a delicate gem and a impenetrable fortress rolled into one.

It is low tide so we take our time walking around rocks and boulders, staring into pools and even turning over a couple of stones to see if there are any wee beasties hiding there. A blood red sea anemone gleams in the water, its tentacles waving lazily in the tiny current as the tide begins to push back in.

With the rare treat of a cloudless Scottish sky calling us to remain outside, we take only a quick tour of the Castle’s interior before heading back out. The history of Culzean is tied to the Kennedy family, who trace their ancestry back to Robert the Bruce.

There are two elements of the castle interior that I adore above all, and since no photos are allowed inside, I share two that I have borrowed from the property’s web site.

The red and white flourishes of the oval staircase makes you feel like you're walking up the swirling insides of a Willy Wonka candy, only to emerge into the ultimate sugary centre, the round drawing room.

This room was used for entertaining and was usually kept sparsely furnished. After all, who would want to risk adding anything that might detract from the gasp-inducing sea views available out of each and every window.

As stunning as the interior of the castle is, on the cusp of summer there is nothing that compares to the lush beauty of the larger estate, from the gardens to the forest walks and the wide blue belly of the Forth of Clyde.

Everywhere we turn, scenes of idyllic grandeur fold open like a living pop up book. The sunlight pushes through the trees, causing the already intense green to glow even brighter.

Within a month the plants that line the main path through the walled gardens will be waist high, but for now the last of the apple blossoms are slowly fading, the breeze plucking some off their branches and sweeping them down on us as we walk. How can anything be this romantic? Jane Austen would have swooned. Even the estate’s deer seem amazed by it all.

Today we have just the swan pond (which today holds only ducks) and the pagoda left to see. The pagoda has been rebuilt in the same design as the original. Back in the 1800s it housed exotic birds and animals, and as it is set on a hill and surrounded by tall trees, I can’t help thinking it would make a dream fort for children (or an ideal escape nook for adults).

This was my second visit to Culzean and I am more in love with it than ever. A property like this calls for some additional planning in order to get the most of it:

-Come early. Culzean is one of Ayrshire’s most popular tourist destinations, including tour buses and school outings. Arriving when the grounds open gives you the best opportunity to bask in a bit of solitude. Also, on days that start out sunny, clouds can often start to sweep in by 11am, so an early start could mean more blue sky views.

-Give yourself the whole day. It’s 600 acres, remember? If you don’t have a picnic lunch along, go to the café and eat chocolate cake while overlooking the Ayrshire coastline.

Thus ends our summertime tour of Culzean. I can’t believe it’s over. Sigh.

Wait - shall we go again? Why not. Here’s a lovely forest path, with the sun shining through just so. Let’s see where it takes us, shall we?

Kibble Palace and the mystery of Victorian decadence

Kibble Palace feels like a place with two histories. The bulk of the facts lay on a well trodden path through time, from the day it was built to its restoration and its ongoing status as one of Glasgow’s most famous buildings. But there are crumbs of another history that lead off in a different direction entirely, following a trail through giant ferns and emerging in the realm of pure imagination.

The facts are as follows: Constructed of wrought iron and glass, Kibble Palace was built by engineer and photographer John Kibble in the 1860s before it was dismantled and moved from his home at Coulport, Loch Long to Glasgow on a barge in 1871. Gifted to the city as the Kibble Crystal Art Palace and Royal Conservatory, it was used as a venue for concerts and exhibitions for several years until the 1880s when it began to be used for the cultivation of plants as part of the Botanic Gardens.

Following a lengthy and painstaking restoration, Kibble Palace reopened in 2006. The building’s innermost sanctuary continues to be dominated by a collection of Australasian tree ferns, many of which date back to the 19th century and have grown in the glass house for more than 120 years. A series of 19th century sculptures dot the outer walls as walkways splice through the jungle-like clutter.

Now on a typical weekend afternoon the dominant sound is that of children running and laughing as they chase each other or try to hide from their slower moving parents. Everywhere you turn, tiny explorers are bursting through the undergrowth, planning their next move.

It all sounds very straight forward, doesn’t it? Marvellously, Kibble Palace also looks a little like a Dr Who episode that has been set inside The Lost World, but there is still something missing. Despite the magnificence of the ornate columns and the surreal beauty of the centre dome, overall the place lacks the kind of warmth and lustre one would expect it to have.

Perhaps my expectations would not have been raised had I not read in my Rough Guide to Scotland that the palace, when it was first reconstructed in Glasgow, was used not as a concert venue but as a “Victorian pleasure dome.” The idea certainly changed things in my mind. Looking around, I imagined red carpeting, candlelight, ridiculous plush furniture and grown men and women playing very naughty games of hide and seek among the plant life. The Garden of Eden come to life.

Certainly, John Kibble himself paints an odd and intriguing character. Along with his decadent glass palace, Kibble’s inventions included a floating bicycle that he pedalled across Loch Long, and in 1858 the world’s largest camera, which was so big it had to be mounted on a horse-drawn cart.

For what it is, Kibble Palace is magnificent. It is an important piece of British architectural history and a valuable home to some very old and wondrous plants. But as I sat there all I could do was yearn for those morsels of magic that weren’t being utilized, and for the rest of the afternoon I continued to chase the ghosts of debauchery around my mind. Oh, what a luscious film set it would make.

Before we step away from the dreamlike world of glass and tall, strange plants, we have one more stop. A few steps from Kibble Palace is the Botanic Garden’s main range of glasshouses, there exists the most beautiful iron spiralled staircase reaching up-up-up towards the ceiling.

Rusting in places, the staircase is nestled among the trees and gated at the bottom to keep visitors from attempting to climb up. When the sun shines through the glass and pierces the gaps in the leaves, it is easy to imagine the stairs are ancient and abandoned and that they lead upwards into the clouds like in a fairytale. Or maybe it’s just me, following those invisible crumbs again.

Lauriston Castle Part 1: The Gardens

Well, the addresses are coming in and it looks like the Great Tablet Giveaway will be a success. Mailing begins Friday = exciting times.

In the meantime, let's go somewhere pretty.
Time stopped for Lauriston Castle in 1926. That was the year the Edwardian mansion was gifted to the nation, along all of its contents and the 30 acres of surrounding grounds and groomed gardens.

In accordance with the wishes of owners William and Margaret Reid, a childless couple with a love of prints, porcelain, and tapestries, the house has since been maintained and displayed just as it was when the Reids were alive, a testament to “intelligent education of the public taste.”

The oldest part of the castle is the tower house, built in 1593, with the rest of the mansion house being added in the 1800s. A litany of facts exist regarding the architects and earlier owners of the castle, but as usual we won’t clamour around on the wires of historical time lines.

Instead let’s take a moment to nestle against the idea of a massive stone house remaining unchanged and uninhabited for more than 80 years. Cared for by the City of Edinburgh, the shelves are dutifully dusted, the chimneys dutifully swept and the rugs dutifully cleaned. The grandiose gardens are kept up so that weddings and croquet tournaments can be held on the lawn that looks out to the Firth of Forth and (on a clear day) the mountains of Perthshire.

The gardens are both quaint and refined. A dancing nymph is frozen amidst the small reed bed that lies to the left of the upper driveway near the house, against which a giant’s bouquet of pink rhododendrons is growing.

On a bright blue morning in the spring, the mouths of daffodils sing mute songs along the wide trails that line the property . A long row of benches face the expansive view of the languid Forth, and a soft breeze blows the new leaves that are squeezing from the branches of the towering trees.

But guess what? There is no one else around. Thirty acres, an immaculate garden, an empty castle, but no host of eager tourists, no dog walkers or history buffs. A Saturday morning at the start of the tourist season and you can easily find yourself remarkably alone, with the exception of the single pheasant who ducks beneath a shrub every time you approach with your camera.

During my morning visit I did come across one woman who was also taking photos. She lived nearby and advised me that the castle, including the attached Japanese Garden (one of the largest in UK) it is rarely busy with visitors. The interior of the castle can only be visited as part of a guided tour, and currently there is just one a day.

Even if you removed the experience of seeing this truly stunning location, the exquisitely eerie feeling that comes from solitude amidst this lonely grandeur is alone worth a visit. Next time we shall venture inside this glorious building, which is apparently haunted by the sound of ghostly footsteps wandering the rooms.

Tender balance: Edinburgh-Kyoto Friendship Garden

Look straight ahead. What’s there?
If you see it as it is
You will never err
-Bassui Tokusho

On the edge of the grounds of Lauriston Castle, lies this one-hectare garden, stuck on and unassuming like one of those tabs you use to control the movable pictures in pop-up books.

There is a plaque at the entrance advising visitors that the garden was opened in 2002, as well as a host of other information, lines of wasted words that politicians use to stroke each other’s egos. We will ignore the facts and talk about more important things.
Like the way the large stones, black islands in a sea of light pebbles, catch the sun and turn the shadows around themselves. The edges look so sharp, yet they cut nothing.
Or how, on a spring morning, you can walk through this garden alone and watch the pink petals float down from the trees and land on the still pond before drifting between shoots of bamboo, where a lily is also blooming.

Broad, flat stones mark a path across one end of the pond, making a short journey feel much longer. Stand on the middle stone and you can look across to where the trees seem to grow like ribbons from the edges of a small bridge, underneath of which a waterfall is collapsing over a series of rocky platforms, sending rippling arches across the surface. You can watch these ripples widen as they reach out to you in their slow, calm deaths.

As the sun climbs you can take to the bamboo-walled shelter and look through the trees toward the lazy slink of the Forth estuary. The hours pass and it will be hard to leave the garden. The subtle changes in light nudge your perception like time against the minute hand just before it relinquishes the fight and lets go.

The truth is never taken
from another.
One carries it always
By oneself.
Katsu!
-Tetto Giko