Castle of Park, Landmark Trust, Glenluce, Scotland

28 December 2006

I’ve just spent a week at the Landmark Trust property The Castle of Park, and a good week it is too. Being in Glenluce, near Stranraer it’s quite a way to go from London but not as bad as you might think. Okay, it might have been easier if the flight back from Newcastle hadn’t been cancelled but still…

The castle itself is very big and has numerous staircases which means you can go to one room and come back via a different route, which was a source of endless fun. It wasn’t the warmest but with a big fire going it was fine after a couple of days.

Here’s some pics and videos:

A shot of the castle as we turned up:

Inside the great hall:

The fireplace in the great hall:

The sitting room:

The main bedroom (which me managed to grab as Kerry got there too late – “you snooze you lose the best place to snooze”, as they say:

Surely everyone sits by the fire in a deckchair?:

A side view of the castle. It’s a kind of anti-tardis in that it actually seems bigger on the outside than the inside:

We went to Port Patrick. Here’s what the view from the harbour looks like:

Port Patrick does have a nice little lighthouse, although I’m not sure how much practical use it is:

Another view of Port Patrick:

Whilst in Port Patrick, I saw God:

I also saw a man camping on a grassy hill, in December. He’d carefully positioned his tent to get the maximum benefit from the wind off the Atlantic:

Port Patrick also has a small ruined castle just along the coast. I preferred staying in ours:

Another castle view:

More castle:

Old gateway meets new gate:

The coastline was quite impressive:

Some more rocky coastline:

Although anywhere that has this many broken umbrellas on the cliff faces surely can’t be a good place to camp::

We went to the Mull of Galloway, which we worked out was the southernmost tip of Scotland. Someone else had already worked that out, we found, and put some signs up saying the same, but we still enjoyed it. Iain and I got the most south, having ventured down some steps to the foghorn. There weren’t many people here, so I didn’t put too much effort into parking:

It’s quite impressive being able to see Ireland from the mull (as pictured in the distance), and you can also see the Isle of Mann in the other direction (not pictured):

There’s a lighthouse on the mull:

And a helipad, for people who can’t be bothered to drive:

Near Port William, some sand flats:

My own shadow on the sand flats. Being Scotland, and winter, the sun didn’t get more than about 2 degrees above the horizon:

Everyone seemed to find the sand quite interesting:

The phD students found it especially fascinating:

We visited the remains of an ancient fort. Yes, it really was this interesting:

There were also standing stones around. Actually, there were a lot of stones around generally, but some of them had been propped up:

Another of the two standing stones:

Its partner:

The days were short and the sun low so it made for some good photos:

Druchtag Motte was another highlight. This information panel really built up the excitement levels:

And look what awaited us at the motte? A lump of grass-covered earth with two sticks and a rope:

The sunset on the way back was quite impressive:

Near the Castle of Park there’s an aqueduct that looked quite impressive lit up on a foggy night:

Another shot of the Glenluce aqueduct:

Another small fishing town and another piece of quality entertainment. This time, a tiny motorbike apparently with no age limit:

I couldn’t resist having a go on the motorbike either, especially on such a twisty circuit:

And my mum really got into it:

We did find a stone circle too:

A warming shot of the Castle of Park fire:

On the way back we went to Vindolanda, which is quite an extensive set of Roman ruins near Hadrian’s Wall and not too far from Newcastle. However, the mocked up ‘Roman life’ scenes were the most entertaining: