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January 11, 2024

northernvicar November and December 2023

One of my ambitions in life has been to see the Northern Lights. We should have been in Orkney for the last fortnight, and there have been some lovely photos from there. We have also seen photos from Northumberland over the last few months, but never seen the real thing. This evening the app started flashing red, a high chance of seeing them. So we went on an Aurora hunt. We drove north up the A68, then took the Bellingham road in West Woodside. There is a laybye on the north side of that road, and we could see...
Categories Northumberland/Railway History/Roman Britain/Scotland Comments: 0
November 9, 2023

Govan Old Church, Glasgow

Saturday 28 October 2023 was the oipportunity for a trip to Glasgow. Govan Old Stones had tweeted to say they were closing at the end of the month for a winter break, so why not visit now? I went Hexham, Carlisle, then the Glasgow & South Western via Dumfries – a beautiful (if long) ride. Then the Glasgow Subway to Govan. Govan Old Church is just down the road – a road with stunning (and uncared for) Victorian architecture on one side, and a 1960s grotty block on the other. The church itself closed in 2007 and is now...
Categories Scotland Comments: 4
September 10, 2023

northernvicar August 2023

We started the month with a trip north over the Border to Melrose, and a visit to the Roman Museum at Trimontium – https://www.trimontium.co.uk/. It reminds us that the Romans did move north – by 79 AD they were pushing into southern Scotland and constructed their fort at the place of the three hills, the three peaks of Eildon. There were Iron Age forts here, indeed several thousand people may have lived in the area the Romans conquered. This same site was to be used several times over the next hundred years or more, as the site was abandoned...
Categories National Trust/Northumberland/Personal/Railway History/Roman Britain/Scotland/Trams Comments: 0
December 31, 2022

northernvicarwalks Sep to Dec 2022

To be honest, Northern Vicar doesn’t walk much between September and December 2022. A routine blood test led to a cancer diagnosis, which led to major surgery at the end of November. The Chaplains at The Christie Hospital in Manchester came to see me (thank you), but I didn’t manage to go and blog the hospital chapel. In September we marked the passing of Her Majesty The Queen and the proclamation of the reign of King Charles III. I often moan about the Church of England centrally, but they were excellent in producing material for prayer and reflection as...
Categories Derbyshire/Personal/Railway History/Scotland Comments: 2
December 22, 2022

Orkney – services in St Magnus Cathedral and the Italian Chapel

You can find plenty of blogs about the gorgeous St Magnus Cathedral if you look back through this Blog (four detailed blogs in 2017 – use the search bar to the right and look for “Kirkwall”)- and a 2017 blog about the Italian Chapel here. Last year I blogged the two together. This year here is a short note to say we had the pleasure of worshipping in them both. On Friday 1 July we met some friends in Kirkwall. They had sent me a whatsapp message to say “hello” and a note they were in Orkney – so...
Categories Scotland Comments: 4
December 22, 2022

Orkney – Rousay and Egilsay

We’ve been to Orkney several times, but haven’t really done many of the Outer Islands. On Tuesday 28 June I ambled down to the Ferry office and a couple of staff sorted me out for a trip to Rousay and Egilsay the following day (we were the standby car on the final leg which could have meant we were unable to travel – they weren’t having that, so phoned the ferry’s captain to ensure there would be space for us). The following morning the question was “which idiot booked us on the 0820 boat from Tingwall to Rousay? When...
Categories 1,000 mile walking/Scotland Comments: 0
December 22, 2022

Orkney – a little bit of the St Magnus Way

I have been keeping an eye on the St Magnus Way website – https://www.stmagnusway.com/ -a 55 mile route across Orkney from the Broch of Gurness to Kirkwall, via Birsay and Orphir. 31 miles of it is on road, so I had wondered how much Julie and I could do together (she uses a powerchair). In the end we did very little. We had a lovely walk together on Sunday 26 June along the shoreline from the Broch of Gurness, and I did a bit more the following day, but I found it was harder walking than I had expected,...
Categories 1,000 mile walking/Scotland Comments: 0
December 22, 2022

Auchindoir, Aberdeenshire – St Mary’s

The Barhams are en route to Orkney. En route we spent some time in the stunning Bowes Museum, spent a night in East Kilbride, then (Thursday 23 June 2022) continued north and enjoyed the gardens and cafe of the wonderful Crathes Castle. Then we continued north and north of Lumsden I turned up the B9002 to visit St Mary’s church, Auchindoir at NJ477245. At Crathes I had picked up an excellent leaflet “The Historic Churches Trail, a guide to 12 of the best historic churches in Aberdeenshire. Somewhat ironic that the “best historic churches” in the county are all...
Categories Railway History/Scotland Comments: 0
August 26, 2021

Orkney 2021 – Burray, St Lawrence

Thursday 17 June was a beautiful day. We went to St Lawrence church on Burray, the island we’re staying on. It’s down a lane off the main road at ND492964. I had rather hoped we could get down to the beach, but no. It is a beautiful churchyard – Orkney Islands Council (I assume) care for them extremely well. First I made a beeline to the War Memorial. I had read the cottage’s copy of “Broch Island, a history of the island of Burray in Orkney”, by J.M. Struthers, 2013, and purchased my own copy from Kirkwall Museum. It...
Categories Scotland/World War 1 Comments: 0
August 26, 2021

Orkney 2021 – Burwick, St Mary

Having visited the Italian Chapel on Thursday 10 June we headed south through South Ronaldsay, right down to Burwick. This end of the island looks very desolate. There are beautiful empty buildings which I would love to buy and redevelop – but they are the same buildings I feel in love with last time. The church was locked with no notices, but there are fascinating lichens (or is that singular?) on the stones. Apparently it is St Mary’s church, built in 1789, replacing an earlier church. There is a website – https://www.saintmarysburwick.org/ of a Preservation Trust, but the paypal...
Categories Scotland Comments: 0