Last day here

We can’t say it was actually planned this way, but both of us agreed that we’d left the best till last when we thought about what we’ve seen and done whilst we’ve been here. That’s not to say that anything else wasn’t worth a visit, just that we will always remember our visit to Glamis with particular delight.

The approach to the castle is stunning, the drive long enough to appreciate the lovely setting especially on this bright and sunny morning. Rather than arrange the car parks in the front of the castle, one gets to drive right up to the entrance and only then does the car park - just around the side - come into view. As we approached the entrance this morning, a gentleman stepped out to greet us, clip board in hand. He checked our booking and wished us Good Morning, saying that we were top of the list today! Our pre-booked timed entry was for 11.30 but as usual, we’d arrived early. Would we have to wait? No - we could go right in and enjoy a self guided tour.

There were no more than a dozen or so cars in the car park, so we felt happy to think it wasn’t going to be very busy, even though it’s Saturday.

Once inside, there appeared to be nobody about even though we could hear voices in conversation. We went up the stone staircase, following the signs and met two women at the top of the stairs; one managing the entry and the other wearing a name badge, so maybe a guide? They too offered a cheerful “Good Morning” and chatted a while about the castle, which they both clearly loved. May I take photographs? Yes of course, no problem. Oh, and scan the QR code with a phone and download the self guided tour.

Off we went, into the dining room.

Oh my word. The women had made it clear that this was a “real” home, that there was always someone living here and that all the rooms were used and enjoyed. Perhaps not everyday, in this case though?

As we went from room to room, my Hero using the app to find out more whilst I scribbled in my notebook and took photographs, it appeared that we had the place to ourselves. We weren’t aware of anyone in front of us and certainly, no one had followed us into the castle when we arrived. How lucky was that?

We climbed the spiral staircase to the top floor, noting the grilles in the hollow central column which my Hero had read were an early form of central heating - there was a stove at the bottom and the heat was emitted through a series of these openings, evenly spaced up the stairs. We realised too, that they also transmitted sounds pretty well, because we could still hear voices from the entrance hall.

Of course, there was far too much and I took way too many pictures to share here, but I appreciated the personal details like this photograph of the current Earl and Countess in the drawing room. The fresh flowers here and there were a lovely touch too.

I include a picture of the small chapel here because of the paintings on both walls…

and ceiling, for which the painter was paid a sum of £90 all in. It was quite a few years ago, of course!

Each room contained something of interest and it’s hard not to include them all. I’ll be selective though and stick to those which will stay with me the longest, including this room where three of the four walls were lined with this magnificent embroidery, worked by one of the Countesses - I need to find out which one! They had been made as a set of bed hangings and were so beautifully embroidered with large applied motifs and a large number of animals and birds stitched directly into the silk. The stitches were miniscule and the whole effect neat and precise. Exquisite.

They were also in remarkably good condition and only the section on either side of the door was protected behind plastic.

The person most of us associate most closely with Glamis is the Queen Mother, for whom the next three rooms had been repurposed as a personal suite when she married the Duke of York. This room showed many personal photographs, some of them very familiar indeed, of the young Princesses and the Queen Mother herself.

There was a particularly interesting piece of furniture in the next room, the King’s bedroom, called a “Semainier”. We’d not come across one of these chests of seven drawers before, but learned that there was one (lockable) drawer for each day of the week. Monday’s clothes were placed in the bottom drawer, Tuesday’s in the next and so on, ending with Sunday best being placed in the top drawer - hence the saying.

The last of the rooms in the castle was lined with glass cases, each one filled with personal memories of grand occasions, such as the wedding invitations above, with medals, photographs and other small items of interest.

I always like to see examples of handwriting and took particular note of this, the last page of an eight side thank you letter to “Dearest Granny”, written by our present Queen aged 12, following a holiday at Glamis.

We’d have happily finished our tour there, but actually, there was another interesting exhibition downstairs telling the story of some of the remarkable women of Glamis. One of my pet things about exhibition design is the need to tell a story effectively without too much reading - and this one definitely failed in that respect. Each one of the women was outlined in such a fascinating way and undoubtedly, each one of them had their own remarkable story. But it was too much to stand and read and take in…we tried, though!

On this lovely day, we could have taken a walk in the gardens, explored the Macbeth sculptures there or simply sat and had lunch here in the courtyard. We had another place on our list however, not too far away from here and we hoped we’d manage to squeeze it in before we needed to turn back.

We’d read about the Aberlemno Pictish stones in our guidebook, which made a point of their accessibility.

The first one stands in a small churchyard, surrounded by gravestones.

A couple of metres tall, it was difficult to capture the imagery on the side in shadow,

but the detail on the other, sunlit side was amazing, given its age and situation. Though the stones are now wrapped during winter to protect them from the weather, they’ve been standing here for getting on for 1500 years!

The other three stones in this group were along a, thankfully not too busy, road. We parked in the village hall car park as suggested and walked over to them.

We began with the middle one, because a group of three women were examining the nearest stone in great detail. We hoped they would have moved on by the time we returned!

Not much detail was apparent on this stone at first glance, though looking closely, I could see what I thought were the remains of the design on the information board. Or was it my imagination?

The Serpent stone was better.

We could trace almost the whole design from the diagram - wow.

OK, so we’d been up to the furthest stone and had both viewed and taken photos of that one and the middle stone, but had the group moved on? No…

So we did our best and worked around them.

This one was the most intricate of the three.

We returned to the car and jumped in, giving up on getting a photo of the other side without the three women in it. Except that, as we drove away, we noticed them walking along the road to one of the other stones, so we stopped, wound the window down and I whipped out my camera again!

Enough!

What a lovely day we’ve had!