This month, it’s all Scotland all the time: first, a glimpse of a castle from a train triggers some troubling memories, then there are some beasties, not at all “[w]ee, sleekit, cow’rin,” or “tim’rous”1 , and finally — now that’s a beastie.
Once again, those of you waiting for the best music from the 2010s are out of luck2.
Carbisdale Castle
If you take the train in the north of Scotland, you will pass Carbisdale Castle: a spectacular grey fortress commanding the Kyle of Sutherland like a watchful sentinel. Surprisingly, it is not old at all; having been built in the early 20th century for Mary Caroline, who was first the mistress of the Duke of Sutherland, and later the Duchess. After he died, the Duke’s biological heirs built the castle to settle Mary Caroline’s controversial inheritance claims3. It was both a home and a weapon of spite—a stone reminder to the Duke’s children that she would not be erased4.
After the Duchess’s death, Carbisdale became, for many years, Scotland’s most spectacular youth hostel5. In the 1960s when I was just a boy, I spent a night there on a family holiday. I don’t remember the building for its fabulous architecture, nor its amazing views. I remember it for scaring the crap out of me.
When Carbisdale was donated to the Scottish Youth Hostel Association, it came with a fine collection of marble statues, which were displayed in a long cavernous hallway. We had to pass through it to reach our accommodation. Everywhere I turned, statues stood in shadowy alcoves and dimly-lit corners. Yes, they were beautiful, but I was 6 years old, and they terrified me. Their eyeless stares followed me through the halls. I was certain that they moved silently when I wasn’t looking directly at them. To me they were, not alive exactly—but not quite dead either.
The statues are long gone; sold in 2015 to fund the Scottish Youth Hostel Association’s network. In 2016 the castle itself was sold to the first in a chain of developers. Today it belongs to Samantha Kane, who calls herself Lady Carbisdale though there is no such title. She is a flamboyant barrister with a colourful/shady history in the UK and middle eastern business world, and who has thrice crossed the gender threshold. She claimed Carbisdale as her own: restoring it, inhabiting it, attempting to breath life into its stones. Alas, she recently put the castle up for sale. Now, it could be yours for only £3.5 million, which honestly seems quite reasonable. Anybody want to go half?6
County Show
Once a year, the town of Kirkwall gathers to celebrate the agricultural and cultural heritage of the Orkney Islands, It’s a very big deal. Many of the businesses in town give their employees a day off, so that they can participate. I managed to get a few pics from this year’s event.
Over-tourism update
Edinburgh is now officially on my list of places ruined by tourism7. We visited in mid-August, which is peak tourist season and so that was probably not the smartest decision, but there were reasons. Our arrival at the train station was awful: streets and sidewalks8 were jammed. We were so happy to get out.
We didn’t even try to navigate to the castle or the Royal Mile: it would have been miserable (and fortunately we’ve been before).
That being said, the National Museum of Scotland was excellent, and I enjoyed seeing this at the National Galleries:
The painting had been in the hands of various corporations who used it for advertising purposes for a century. It was only returned to the public in 2016 when the National Galleries of Scotland purchased it for £4 million from drinks mega-conglomerate, Diageo.
PS: the header image this month is Carbisdale Castle looking less scary than I remember.
- Apologies to Rabbie Burns. ↩︎
- Next month, I promise. ↩︎
- For which she spent 6 weeks in prison. ↩︎
- The settlement required that the castle be built outside the Duke’s lands, and technically it is. However it is on a prominent hillside and is visible for miles, including from the route that the Duke’s heirs would have traveled regularly. The clock tower has no face on the side facing the family lands, as the Duchess didn’t want to “give them the time of day”. Nice people. ↩︎
- After the Duchess but before it became a hostel, the castle was owned by a Norwegian-Scot, and provided refuge for the Norwegian royals during Nazi occupation back home. ↩︎
- Just kidding. I’m never going back. There are probably ghosts crawling all over the place. ↩︎
- Also on the list: Florence, the Vatican, Venice, Skagway AK. ↩︎
- AKA the “pavement” in the local vernacular ↩︎
