Today was designated Abbey Day in our itinerary. It was not wrong. What we really did that was most important was get to…Scotland! (And, yes, mostly we had a rainy day.)
Historically, as today, there’s a sociopolitical core to the north and south on this great island, and somewhere on the lands between has been a border zone. Today, the border’s an agreed-upon line across the landscape. For generations, it was a wide swath of contention. The border was generally porous, often dangerous, and yet had economic potential in an agrarian economy. And, land, after all, is land, and land is territory.
From the 1100s–1400s, a castle on this hill, between two rivers, was a political and economic center. Kings lived here, and both the northern and southern sides held it in repeated succession cycles. This was Roxburgh Castle, founded in the mid-1100s by David I, King of the Scots from 1124 until his death in 1153. Now, at the foot of this rough double-hill, there’s a small layby with room for maybe four vehicles, and no signage.
King Henry I (coronated 1100, died 1135; fourth son of William the Conqueror, King of Normandy) held sway in England, but suffered from pressures brought by rulers on the continent, in Normandy and elsewhere on the northern rim.
The economic and political elite of the time included both nobility and the guys who controlled large abbeys-and-churches. They were two sides of the leadership coin. Yet, the petty kingdoms of the time rarely could dominate the peripheries for long. Accordingly, cagey religious leaders were happy to build and run Jedburgh (above) and several other abbeys not far from the Roxburgh core that for centuries held sway in the borderlands—and to feed off and accept the wealth of the nobility as donations to fund repeated monk-prayers (see how well it worked, the buildings of…almost…all are now in ruins). The leadership of some of these abbeys came from afar, others from Lindisfarne….
Into this general pattern of upheaval over the centuries, the place I found most interesting that we visited relates to my family history…. Traced through my mother’s father’s mother’s ancestors, we get back, after something like a dozen generations, to the Livingstons of Ancrum, post-Reformation (them, post-Dissolution) men of god here. The original Christian outpost here was established by David I, and it became a parish church after the Reformation in 1560. John Livingston became the minister here in 1648. Some of his relations migrated to the New World in the later 1600s, including signer of the Declaration of Independence for New York Philip Livingston (1716–1778). Anyway, (somewhat tenuous) family ties to the village of Ancrum (pop. ~300). In older times, the town center was west of the modern town center, near the ruined church, now surrounded by (mostly) 19th- and 20th-C headstones, and across the river from the ruins of a flax mill….
The icing on the cake…across that bridge by the church-cemetery, and up on the hill that has yellow blooms on the woody shrubs, are the remains of an Iron Age ring fort!
Posted at 10:22 PM |
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This is a rhododendron, although the individual blooms in the clusters look a lot like azalea blooms. Apparently, the anther count varies.
Posted at 9:50 PM |
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I walked past the neighbors’ house, and it was a pile of rubble. I think it was felled this morning. I knew this was coming….
Instead of giving you a photo of the slightly depressing hill of random building material, I present this sweet little pastel playhouse.
Posted at 8:52 PM |
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Drayton Hall, c. 1750 (but for over a century believed to date a decade earlier), mantel detail.
We visited the American version of the English version of Classical Greek/Roman decorative arts. Not sure what mythical moment this is honoring, maybe…let’s look at flowers because it’s really cold out…thankfully sunny, but still cold.
A little chemistry and political economy…. In the depression that followed the Civil…umhem, War between the States, an economic downturn that lasted for about six decades in the Charleston (SC) area, savvy landholders benefitted from mining calcium phosphate along the Ashley River and nearby (upstream of Charleston). The calcium phosphate was processed to make particularly rich agricultural fertilizer. By the 1880s, the phosphate from this field dominated world production. But it didn’t last long…new fields discovered in Florida were easier to mine, and there were other market shifts.
Enough of this…sleep tight.
Posted at 9:32 PM |
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This “side porch” is officially a two-story piazza here in Charleston SC.
Posted at 6:38 PM |
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I really liked that the post for the right side of this gate was a turned newel post, painted the same red, and also flaking grey. I also liked the construction method for this wall, with different techniques used for various sections. The part had large stones and little mortar. To the left, the wall was sloppy with drooping layers of fairly fine-grained concrete and smaller, flatter stones. All portions had about the same amount of floral encrustations.
We found this flower, an anemone, elsewhere…after dark.
Posted at 9:30 PM |
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Such a gorgeous warm and sunny day…we are so lucky! This “palm” “waves” over the water area (not turned on yet) of the playground in the upper H4WP.
BeltLine report: PACKed.
Posted at 10:22 PM |
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Neighborhood decoration…(only one shown).
Isn’t this the homeowner dream? A pair of giant concrete finials on posts flanking their driveway?
Posted at 4:50 PM |
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We did a wee bit of price comparison today, between Target and Walmart…didn’t plan to, it just happened that way. Final score for four grocery-type items, 50–50—no clear winner.
Posted at 7:56 PM |
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As old as this wall fragment looks, it’s in front of a house that’s something less than two decades old—and a replacement for an older home. Speaking of that phenomenon, I know of a dozen homes within a mile of this house that are being replaced right now—a mini construction boom of McMansions…so much for designation as an historic neighborhood based on architectural consistency….
Posted at 7:06 PM |
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