Sadly, four of the Maxwell-Stuart family who owned Traquair House were killed in the Great War. Their medals and photographs are on display in the left hand new wing.

An accompanying information sheet lists their fates:-

The Stewarts and Maxwell Stewarts of Traquair House were firm Jacobites and the house contains Jacobite relics.

Hair belonging to the parents of Bonnie Prince Charlie:-

Portrait of “Betty Burke”, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s alias when he was on the run disguised as a woman. The caption spells it Burk:-

The family was Catholic. This is the Priest Hole:-

And its stairs:-

The Lion* Gates to Traquair House  were closed when James VII (James II of England) was deposed, not to be re-opened until the Stewarts were restored to the throne. They remain firmly shut:-

Edited to add:- I have been reminded in a comment that these are actually Bear gates, not Lion gates.

Bells to summon servants, Traquair House:-

A harpsichord:-

Ground floor room:-

Cradle used for James VI (James I of England):-

Bed of Mary, Queen of Scots:-

Relics of Mary, Queen of Scots:-

Most letter cases in print works were untidy as the letters would be thrown in. The workers knew where they ought to go and worked on memory. This is a cleaned up example:-

Letter cases, printing blocks etc:-

Smail’s used to print the local newspaper the St Ronan’s Standard. This is a printing block of a front cover:-

Lithograph stones:-

A press:-

Chicago press:-

Heidelberg press:-

Wharfedale press. As I recall this was Smail’s first three-colour printing press:-

The conceit of a visit to Smail’s is that you are starting a printing apprenticeship. Apprentice Card cover:-

Inside of card:-

My apprentice piece:-

Robert Smail’s Printing Works, Innerleithen, now overseen by the National Trust for Scotland is a treasure trove of printing memorabilia and artefacts. When the Trust took the premises over there was a record and sample of every single print job the works had ever produced along with all their historical printing presses.

Desk as it was left:-

Shelves and ledgers:-

Stock:-

Photos. The Yellow Pages are for 1985, the year that Smail’s was handed over:-

Printing Room:-

Reverse view:-

Originally any machinery in Smail’s was driven by this paddle wheel utilising water from a local stream:-

Paper stock:-

Guillotine. This was a late addition to Smail’s inventory of equipment; bought due to safety regulations:-

By the entrance to Brodie Castle in Moray there is a Pictish Stone:-

Reverse:-

Information Board:-

Clava Cairns is a site near Inverness containing the quite well preserved remains of prehistoric structures used for burials. It’s also very close to the Culloden battle site.

General view from entrance:-

Looking back from inside site:-

Cairn (with entrance hidden by standing stone above):-

Interior of cairn:-

Cup and ring marks:-

In the first Jacobite Rebellion (in 1689) a battle took place at the Pass of Killiecrankie.

I had always meant to visit the site but somehow never had until April last year, despite it being only three miles from Pitlochry which we have visited many times.

The Pass is a very tight space between two steep hills on either side of the River Garry. Not an obvious spot for a battle.

The government forces were advancing from the south to remove the Jacobite presence from Blair Castle just to the north and were attacked from the hills by the Jacobites under the command of John Graham of Claverhouse (aka ‘Bonnie Dundee’) scourge of the Covenanters by whom he was later dubbed ‘Bluidy Clavers’.

Such was the lack of space in the Pass the government troops could only line up three deep, firing up the hill.

The Jacobites were victorious but Dundee was killed by a musket ball. With his death the Jacobites lost their militarily talented leader and the rebellion petered out soon after.

In the government soldiers’ retreat one of them was forced to make a desperate jump acros the river to escape capture (or worse.) A path leads down from the Killiecrankie Visitor Centre to the site of the leap.

Soldier’s Leap:-

Video:-

The once prolific writer Len Deighton – whose surname I share (apart from its pronunciation: he rhymed it with Dayton, my family rhymes it with Brighton) – has died: at 97, a good innings by any standard.

Back in my youth I was a keen reader of his spy fiction – he and John Le Carré were the two preeminent spy writers of the time – but it was his Bernard Samson stories, the Game, Set and Match; Hook, Line and Sinker and Faith, Hope and Charity trilogies and their prequel, Winter, which I consumed most avidly.

Then there were his forays into Altered History, SS-GB and XPD, which I greatly enjoyed.

His interest in the Second World War was explored further in the novels Bomber and Goodbye Mickey Mouse, both excellent, before he embarked on History proper with the books Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain; Blitzkrieg: From the Rise of Hitler to the Fall of Dunkirk; the lavishly photographically illustrated Battle of Britain, an interest consummated by the much later review of that war in its entirety in Blood Tears and Folly.

Of these latter I only read one during my blogging years.

Leonard Cyril (Len) Deighton: 18/2/1929 – 15/3/2026. So it goes.

Holy Trinity Church is in the centre of St Andrews, in what is a kind of town square, two sides of which are pedestrianised. It is the traditional Parish Church for the town and was where John Knox helped to start the Scottish Reformation.

For some reason it was open when we were in the town in September 2024 so we took the chance to have a look around.

East window:-

Door and west window:

The pulpit is fairly elaborate and lit up from within:-

The wooden ceiling is also worth a look, containing several armorial crests:-