Scottish Family Fact Finding Trip
Our first port of call was Ayr. We stayed with some friends, had a lovely time, visited a castle which is part of the National Trust for Scotland, called Culzean Castle (pronounced Colean!).
My daughter and I also visited the Ayr Carnegie Library, where I had been in contact with a member of staff helping me to trace members of my father’s family from 19th Century. We learnt one ancestor owned an Ayr butchers business, moved premises several times. We were shown maps with the various streets where the shops had been in the 1800s and later a map where the streets were now. One street’s name was changed to Victoria Street from Boghall Row, which I thought was a blessing, but Boghall was apparently a farm.
One of our friends said we had to go and see the ‘Electric Brae’ in Croy Brae (Ayrshire). It is an optical illusion. There is a stone explaining the phenomenon in a lay-by. When you park in the lay-by, look at the road, at the surrounding hills and fields, the road appears to go downhill in front of you. But taking the hand break off, the car gently goes backwards. Very odd!
We left Ayrshire, in the rain, and travelled up to Inverness-shire, where the sun was shining. Stayed in Spean Bridge, visited the Commando Memorial. The weather was the clearest I have ever seen there. Our friends texted us to say it was still raining in Ayr!
On the way to our hotel we stopped to take some photographs of Eilean Donan Castle in Dornie, one of the most photographed places in Scotland. The car park was full to overflowing, so we didn’t stay very long. I visited it years ago and looked round it, when it wasn’t so well known.
We visited a glen and village overlooking Skye, possibly having a connection with the other side of my family. My grandmother named her house, we think after a place in Scotland, though we couldn’t find the exact name. We went up a twisty single track road, overlooking a sea loch, to the place with the nearest place name to my grandmother’s home. The pleasant little hamlet was on the Sound of Sleat opposite Skye. We took a little ferry across to Skye which takes 4 cars at the most and is run by the local people. We didn’t manage to find any family connection but it will need further research, so we will go back at some time.
There are some ancient Brochs in the Lochalsh area. Brochs are tall stone towers, probably built around 2000 years ago, thought to be defensive, against other tribes and wild animals such as wolves, maybe even bears that still roamed in the woods. The Broch we visited was partially in ruins but impressive with double stone walls and steps inside the walls.
We drove from the Highlands to the south. We came over the Forth Road Bridge and could see the progress that is being made on the building of the new road bridge. The last time we saw this it was just several pillars standing in the river.
The last two days of our trip we spent in an intermittently rainy Edinburgh. We did some more research at the National Archives of Scotland, finding an ancestor in Perth who had donated money to the building of a bridge and another who built grandfather clocks.
We found a lovely place to eat in the evening, in fact we were so impressed we went back the following night as well.
We will have to go back again soon to do some more ‘research’.