Month: May 2018

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The Ross fountain at Edinburgh Castle

Work to renovate the historic Ross Fountain was completed this afternoon as the last statue was crane-lifted into place. A mainstay in West Princes Street Gardens for more than 140 years, the A-listed Edinburgh landmark has been undergoing a £1.9m restoration since last July. The statue at the top of The Ross Fountain in West Princes Street Gardens was put back into place today marking the completion of the £1.9M renovation.

Buy t-shirts and prints of the Ross Fountain at Edinburgh Castle 

During the work a small crowd gathered to watch the lofty two-tonne statue being carefully dropped into its final position. It signalled the end of a meticulous repair job spearheaded by the Ross Development Trust and conducted by Wigan-based specialists Lost Art Ltd.

Vibrant new colour scheme for restored Ross Fountain Testing, ancillary works and landscaping still remain to be finished, with a final unveiling scheduled to take place in the next 5 or 6 weeks.

Among those in attendance was Lord Provost Frank Ross who seemed impressed with the restoration as the finishing touches were made. He said: “It’s fantastic. Once the scaffolding’s down and people get to see it, I really believe that the citizens of Edinburgh will get to love it”. Fiona MacDonald, Conservation Architect at Edinburgh World Heritage, who have helped to partly fund the project, said: “We’re delighted the project has now finally been delivered. It’s wonderful that it’s now here in all its glory”.

David Ellis, Managing Director the Ross Development Trust added: “It’s been almost a year since we were standing here taking her down and it’s been a huge amount of work but it honestly feels like it’s flown past. Seeing her go up though is obviously a fantastic moment, this is really the final piece of the puzzle. “They (Lost Art Ltd) have put in an incredibly strong foundation and a whole new modern pumping system, which will make sure there is no potential that the fountain will have to be switched off in the future – which is exactly what everyone wants. “What is most important is making sure it’s going to run properly for decades to come.”

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Read more at: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/watch-ross-fountain-ready-to-flow-once-more-as-restoration-completed-1-4743385

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Doune Castle pictures

Doune Castle was built in  1400 for the first Duke of Albany and provides the setting for Castle Leoch in Outlander .  It was also the set for Winterfell in Game of Thrones and Monty Python’s Holy Grail. Visit Doune Castle on a unique private tour of Outlander film locations .

doune castle tours, outlander
doune castle tours

Doune is one of the best preserved medieval castles in Scotland.
great hall ,doune , outlander

The Great Hall is 20 metres by 8 metres , and 12 metres high to its timber roof, again a 19th-century replacement.The hall has no fireplace, and was presumably heated by a central fire, and ventilated by means of a louvre like the one in the modern roof. No details of the original roof construction are known, however, and the restoration is conjectural.Large windows light the hall, and stairs lead down to the three cellars on ground level.

The hall is accessed from the courtyard via a stair up to a triangular lobby, which in turn links the hall and kitchens by means of two large serving hatches with elliptical arches, unusual for this period. The kitchen tower, virtually a tower house in its own right, is 17 metres (56 ft) by 8 metres (26 ft). The vaulted kitchen is on the hall level, above a cellar. One of the best-appointed castle kitchens in Scotland of its date, it has an oven and a 5.5-metre (18 ft) wide fireplace. A stair turret, added in 1581 and possibly replacing a timber stair, leads up from the lobby to two storeys of guest rooms. These include the “Royal Apartments”, a suite of two bedrooms plus an audience chamber, suitable for royal visitors.

Doune Castle has featured in several literary works, including the 17th-century ballad, “The Bonny Earl of Murray”, which relates the murder of James Stewart, 2nd Earl of Moray, by the Earl of Huntly, in 1592. In Sir Walter Scott’s first novel, Waverley (1814), the protagonist Edward Waverley is brought to Doune Castle by the Jacobites. Scott’s romantic novel describes the “gloomy yet picturesque structure”, with its “half-ruined turrets”.

doune castle , outlander

The castle was used as a location in MGM’s 1952 historical film Ivanhoe which featured Robert Taylor and Elizabeth Taylor. The BBC adaptation of “Ivanhoe” in 1996 also featured Doune as a location. The castle was used as the set for Winterfell in the TV series Game of Thrones (2011–present), an adaptation of the A Song of Ice and Fire series of novels by George R. R. Martin. The castle was used as a stand-in for the fictional “Leoch Castle” in the TV adaption of the Outlander series of novels.