Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Tuesday, September 15--Edinburgh Castle & Heriot Row
Another gorgeous sunny day here in Edinburgh, though a bit chillier first thing in the morning. We headed into the city using our bus passes to go to Greyfriar’s Kirk. But again it is closed for some sort of rehearsal. So we walked past Sandy Bell’s Bar where there is folk music every night and on to Lauriston Place to snap pictures of Heriot School. This is a private school that would have been a good model for Hogwart’s. And since J.K. spent much time writing the books in the backroom of the Elephant House Café, very near to here, she just may have used it for inspiration. There are over 200 windows in the school and only 2 are alike. The school has a ghost of a drummer boy that plays in the turret stairs in the mornings--supposedly the little boy who once really did play a drum to wake the boys fell from these stairs long ago.
After Heriot’s, we headed to the castle to use our Historic Scotland passes to visit it once again. I mainly wanted to see the beautiful stained glass in St. Margaret’s Chapel (the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh) and the exhibit on the Scottish Crown, Sceptre, and Stone of Destiny. All was very interesting & beautiful. Edinburgh Castle has its own share of ghosts. One headless drummer, a ghost dog that haunts the battlements, ghostly prisoners in the vaults, and one Lady Glamis, Janet Douglas who was burned as a witch on the esplanade here in 1537.
Ray used one of the phone boxes at the castle to take care of validating one of our new credit cards, then we headed to Waterstone’s to pick up a book I wanted on Haunted Places in Scotland. Next was dropping off the owner’s mail at the Factotum office and walking down to Heriot Row to take pictures of the house where Robert Louis Stevenson lived. Out front was the lamppost he wrote of when he was a child:
My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky.
It's time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.
Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to sea,
And my papa's a banker and as rich as he can be;
But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I'm to do,
O Leerie, I'll go round at night and light the lamps with you!
For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
And oh! before you hurry by with ladder and with light;
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him to-night!
I could just imagine him there, peeking out the window to watch the lamplighter.
Then we took the bus to South Bridge, checked our mail box, and caught another bus back to the apartment.
After Heriot’s, we headed to the castle to use our Historic Scotland passes to visit it once again. I mainly wanted to see the beautiful stained glass in St. Margaret’s Chapel (the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh) and the exhibit on the Scottish Crown, Sceptre, and Stone of Destiny. All was very interesting & beautiful. Edinburgh Castle has its own share of ghosts. One headless drummer, a ghost dog that haunts the battlements, ghostly prisoners in the vaults, and one Lady Glamis, Janet Douglas who was burned as a witch on the esplanade here in 1537.
Ray used one of the phone boxes at the castle to take care of validating one of our new credit cards, then we headed to Waterstone’s to pick up a book I wanted on Haunted Places in Scotland. Next was dropping off the owner’s mail at the Factotum office and walking down to Heriot Row to take pictures of the house where Robert Louis Stevenson lived. Out front was the lamppost he wrote of when he was a child:
My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky.
It's time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.
Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to sea,
And my papa's a banker and as rich as he can be;
But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I'm to do,
O Leerie, I'll go round at night and light the lamps with you!
For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
And oh! before you hurry by with ladder and with light;
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him to-night!
I could just imagine him there, peeking out the window to watch the lamplighter.
Then we took the bus to South Bridge, checked our mail box, and caught another bus back to the apartment.
Decided to go to the 5 o'clock showing of Harry Potter at the Omni Centre, so it's back on the bus to go downtown and have pizza at Pizza Hut and see one of our favorites. : )
***pictures from top: Heriot's School; Edinburgh Castle; stained glass in St. Margaret's Chapel; view from the castle, looking out over Calton Hill to the Firth of Forth; dog cemetery at the castle for the dogs of the soldiers.
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