Stirling and Central Scotland


Book Description

Stirling and Central Scotland straddles the divisions between Highland and Lowland, rural and industrial Scotland. Castles range from Stirling, its fortifications enclosing a Renaissance palace of international significance, to the strongholds of medieval magnates at Doune, Blackness and Castle Campbell, from tower houses at Clackmannan and Alloa to the Georgian barracks complex of Dumbarton. Many buildings fully explained for the first time include Kinneil House, which developed from tower, to palace of the Regent of Scotland to Restoration showhouse; and the huge spread of Callendar House, aggrandized over four centuries with many changes of dress. Other major houses include Bannockburn House, with its superb plasterwork, and the eighteenth century mansions of Strathleven House, Touch House and Robert Adam's castellated villa of Airthrey Castle. Dunblane Cathedral and Stirling's Church of the Holy Rude magnificently represent medieval churches while post-Reformation successors range from the rural simplicity of Baldernock to the sumptuously fitted Alloa West Church. The buildings of the many towns and picturesque villages are just as varied, from Stirling's medieval Old Town, to the Victorian townscapes of Alloa and Falkirk, the prosperous villadom of Bearsden and Lenzie, and the redevelopment of blitzed Clydebank. Industrial memories of the collieries, mills, shipyards and ironworks are also recalled, not least by the contrast between the workers' housing and the industrialists' mansions. Notable twentieth century buildings include the boomerang-shaped Bannockburn High School, the University of Stirling's lakeside campus and the evocative development of Lomond Shores while the twenty-first century has opened with construction of the Millennium Wheel at Falkirk.







Scotland For Dummies


Book Description

Enjoy sightseeing and shopping in bustling Edinburgh and Glasgow or explore unspoiled scenery and welcoming towns in the Hebridean Islands, Southern Scotland, Tayside, and the Northeast. Go from the Highlands to the Lowlands. Hike, canoe, or just relax at Loch Lomand. This friendly guide gives you the scoop on: Edinburgh Old Town, with its intriguing winding alleyways Accommodations that range from sumptuous 17th century hotel furnished with Gothic antiques to a secluded seaside escape, and from a 17th century laird’s house to a sleek, modern and minimalist hotel Enjoying a pint of lager in a rustic pub where the barmen wear kilts and you don’t tip or touring distinctive distilleries Cathedrals, castles and historic sites like the Calanais Standing Stones (the "Scottish Stonehenge"), Edinburgh Castle that holds the historic Stone of Destiny and Scotland’s crown jewels, Doune Castle, made famous by the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Glasgow Cathedral Storied golf courses such as Muirfield, Royal Troon, and St. Andrews in the country credited with developing the sport Touring Sir Walter Scott’s mansion, Abbotsford, with it’s incredible library, relics, and mementos, or paying homage to poet Robert Burns at numerous sites Shopping for everything from fine wool knits to Caithness glass paper weights to Edinburgh Crystal to tartans and kilts to Highland Stoneware Like every For Dummies travel guide, Scotland For Dummies, 5th Edition includes: Down-to-earth trip-planning advice What you shouldn’t miss — and what you can skip The best hotels and restaurants for every budget Whether you’re looking for fun nightlife or the legendary Loch Ness monster…whether you want to explore art galleries and museums or walk craggy seacoasts, this guide gives you the flavor of Scotland so enchantingly you can almost hear the bagpipes.




Emblems in Scotland


Book Description

Emblems in the visual arts use motifs which have meanings, and in Emblems in Scotland Michael Bath, leading authority on Renaissance emblem books, shows how such symbolic motifs address major historical issues of Anglo-Scottish relations, the Reformation of the Church and the Union of the Crowns. Emblems are enigmas, and successive chapters ask for instance: Why does a late-medieval rood-screen show a jester at the Crucifixion? Why did Elizabeth I send Mary Queen of Scots tapestries showing the power of women to build a feminist City of God? Why did a presbyterian minister of Stirling decorate his manse with hieroglyphics? And why in the twentieth-century did Ian Hamilton Finlay publish a collection of Heroic Emblems?




Central Scotland


Book Description

This text is intended for all in central Scotland, residents and visitors alike, who wish to know something of the natural and man-made history of the area. It covers from Balmaha on Loch Lomond in the west, to Blacknes on the Forth estuary in the east; from Tyndrum in the north down to Slamannan in the south - an area which is at the heart, yet combines features, of all Scotland.




Travels in Scotland (1842) by J.G. Kohl


Book Description

Translation of a German traveller's account of his journey through Scotland in 1842




Ancestors of Clifford Earl McAllister Vol 2 Family Groups


Book Description

Vol. 2 of the Ancestors of Clifford Earl McAllister includes the family groups of the first 50 of 58 generations. The McAllister family goes back almost 2000 years to ancient Wales and Ancient Ireland, and the Sea Kings of Norway. Related to Prince Henry Sinclair and Winston Churchill, the lines also go back to the Merovingian Kings of Normandy, France and the Welsh Kings in 100 AD. You might find discrepancies the further back you get as spellings vary, dates are estimated, and sometimes a title is included in the name. While original research was done for the first 8 generations, you should use information past that as a 'guide' and not an absolute. Front cover photo: Top: The Hills of Tara in Ancient Ireland, and a Welsh castle from the 1300s. Rear cover photo: The Jarls/Earls of Orkney as they travel throughout the northern Atlantic.




Women's Travel Writings in Scotland


Book Description

This collection includes the first critical editions of both Anne Grant’s Letters from the Mountains (1806), one of the Romantic era’s most successful non-fictional accounts of the Scottish Highlands, and Elizabeth Isabella Spence’s Letters from the North Highlands (1816), a work that, while influenced by Grant’s Letters, attempted to move the genre of the Scottish travelogue in new directions. Read together, these volumes offer complementary views of Scottish Highland life at a time of major historical transition: Grant was offering outsiders her perspective as a long-time resident of the region, while Spence was, unapologetically, writing as a tourist. The Highlands were central to Romantic-era debates on subjects ranging from landscape and aesthetics to national identities, and, as this collection demonstrates, women were making significant contributions to those debates. The four volume set, edited by Kirsteen McCue and Pam Perkins, is accompanied by new editorial material including a new general introduction and headnotes to each work.