These Charles Rennie Mackintosh designed tea rooms – for the famous Miss Cranston – were privately refurbished in the past few years but are now in the care of the National Trust for Scotland and seem to go by the name Mackintosh at the Willow, but that’s also the title of the affiliated gift shop next door.

We visited them because we hadn’t been there before but also to have lunch; which was excellent.

Sauchiehall Street was having work done on it at the time:-

In the photo above you can make out the circular design fronting the windows. This is a close-up:-

The Tea Rooms’ street sign:-

Internal lighting gantry:-

Wall frieze and partition wall below:-

These window curtains help diners escape scrutiny from outside:-

Leith Hall is a country house near Kennethmont, Aberdeenshire. It was the home of the Leith-Hay family for nearly 300 years but is now run by the National Trust for Scotland. Since we were in the area last August we took the chance to visit it.

The Hall from the approach road:-

Back of house:-

At each side of the entrance gate to the Hall’s garden are Pictish Symbol Stones:-

Its gardens are nicely laid out.

Garden pathways:-

Feature wall:-

Kirriemuir, in Angus, Scotland was the birthplace of playwright and creator of Peter Pan, J M Barrie.

It’s a nice wee town, north of Dundee and a few miles away from Glamis and its Castle which was the childhood home of the late Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. (I posted a photo of the War Memorial for Glamis village, on which is the name of her brother, as the Honourable Fergus Lyon, here.)

Many of its buildings are constructed from red sandstone:-

In the centre of the town there is of course a statue of Peter Pan:-

Barrie’s birthplace is now in the hands of the National Trust for Scotland. The family lived in a room and kitchen on the first floor.

In a house like this the kitchen is a largish room with a cooking range of some sort and usually what is called a bed recess, which is an alcove designed to fit a box bed into. Probably all the kids in a family would have slept in that bed. Today a kitchen like that would be described as a ‘family room’ as it was multi functional. The ‘room’ usually had a bed recess too and the parents slept in that one. Sometimes the ‘room’ doubled up as a sort of parlour during the day. There were eight children in the Barrie family and what with all of them and the noise of the weaving looms on which his father worked, it must have been a bit lively.

The entrance doorway is round the back:-

Just across form the entrance is a washhouse which was J M Barrie’s inspiration for the Wendy House in Peter Pan.

There’s not much light in there but you can see the tub, basket and washboard:-

Barrie never forgot his origins. One of his brothers died young and he used this as the genesis of the idea for the ‘boy who never grew up.’ Barrie’s mother could not get over her loss and he himself felt pressure to live up to her perfect memory of his dead brother. Despite his subsequent fame and fortune he was buried in the family plot in Kirriemuir Cemetery (which is up a fairly steep hill from the road leading east out of the town.)

Barrie’s grave. The plaque saying ‘J M Barrie Playwright’ is reasonably new. When I first visited there the grave’s surroundings were much plainer:-

Threave Garden lies just to the west of Castle Douglas in Dumfries and Galloway and are in the care of the National Trust for Scotland.

The gardens are lovely, well worth a visit.

Pond and Japanese bridge:-

Japanese bridge (Threave House behind):-

Japanese Bridge from approaches:-

Cascade:-

I took a video of the cascade to get the full efefct:-

Threave House. I believe this is used as administration offices, now:-

Fuller view:-

From the Show Business world of my youth, Mary Tyler Moore.

From the Politics of my young adulthood, asker of the West Lothian Question, hounder of Thatcher over the sinking of the General Belgrano, a real thorn in the side of the establishment, Tam Dalyell. His home The House of the Binns is now in the care of the National Trust for Scotland. The good lady and I visited there a few years ago now and saw Tam at a distance. He looked frail. We did, though, later strike up a conversation with his wife, Kathleen Wheatley, over armorial china of all things, and she seemed a very down to earth person.

Well-known actor, a memorable Caligula in I, Claudius, also The Naked Civil Servant, The Elephant Man and Doctor of sorts, John Hurt.

Mary Tyler Moore: 29/12/1939 – 25/1/2017. So it goes.
Thomas (Tam) Dalyell: 9/8/1932 – 26/1/2017. So it goes.
John Vincent Hurt: 22/1/1940 – 25/1/2017. So it goes.

Newhailes is a stately home near Musselburgh in East Lothian. It’s now in the care of the National Trust for Scotland.

Front view:-

Rear view:-

There was a tree there festooned with a mushroom-type growth, in several places:-

Walking the grounds we came upon this memorial to the Battle of Dettingen. There is a Latin inscription in memory of John, 2nd Earl of Stair, who fought as 2nd in command to George II at the Battle of Dettingen:-

The battle took place in the War of the Austrian Succession and was the last one in which a British Monarch led his troops.

Reverse view:-

English inscription after a renewal in 1907:-

Pollok House, not owned by but run by the National Trust for Scotland, is in the south side of Glasgow, set in great parkland; so much so you would never believe you were in the middle of a big city.

Pollok House, showing gates on to parkland of Pollok Park, Glasgow:-

This is a stitch of three photos to get in the full frontage. In reality the grass and road don’t have that bend in them:-

The house contains an array of paintings – mostly of that branch of the Hapsburg family who ruled Spain for centuries. Being notoriously in-bred they are a fairly unprepossessing bunch. The very informative guide was much more taken with this painting by El Greco of rather different content; Lady in a Fur Wrap (picture from BBC Your Paintings):-

A certificate on an internal wall on the corridor leading to the tea-room (which has a marvellous setting, being housed in what was the Edwardian kitchen) commemorates the house’s use as a hospital during the Great War:-

On a wall of Pollok House’s garden facing the parkland area there is a War Memorial dedicated to the men from the tenantry and staff of Nether Pollok who served in the Great War. There are 58 names on the cartouche. Beside 13 of them is inscribed “killed” – beside another it states “died”.

That makes 14 out of the 58 who went away that lost their lives as a consequence. A fraction under a quarter of the total. And some of the others would have been wounded.