Castle by the Sea

At last we were able to visit a castle by the open sea, even though it was called the firth of forth, like the other sites we had seen but this was further out.

To look out over the partially remaining walled fortresses and see the waves crashing against the rocks below, to hear the bird cries, and to smell the salty air was so exhilarating.

At castle Tantallion there are 3 birds that nest there: fulmer,house martin, and gannets. I saw a fulmer (who is from the family of albatross) fly in and land on the rocks below.
It was exciting to have just read about them on one of the signs and then to see it. I wasn't able to capture its image though, not fast enough before it flew away.

The castle was massive and held the living quarters on the left side wing & tower and the guest quarters on the right side wing & tower and the keeper of the castle and guards in the center tower.

The main kitchen was at the far left side. A much larger system than any of the others. Why one could crawl and and use the over as a large bed space.

Across the firth was Bass Rock which now holds the light house. Monks used to live on that rock and used the twigs brought by the birds to make their nest, to build fires to keep them warm and ate fish that the birds dropped. They had to be hoisted up to their dwelling in a basket. No one lives their now.

A Scottish horse - legs are fatter and more hair around the ankles.

From the picture it looks like a pony but it was standing close to another horse that looked like our regular American horses and they were both the same size, just their coat and fur around the ankles differed.



At Dirleton Castle built in the mid 1200's was rebuilt in the 1300 and 1400's by different owners. As a families male heirs died out then the castle would be passed onto the females husband's line.

This castle showed the different stones used in the different time periods with the block sandstone in the 13th C, the rough stone in the 14th C, and the combination with mortar of rough stone & limestone stones.

They even had a bowling lawn but I didn't take a picture of it because it looked just like a large flat square of lawn.

The main thing about this castle was their beautiful formal gardens (though not too many flowers on display) and herb garden.

Have you heard of a dove cot?

I've captured the image inside and out.

It looks like a big beehive, where they housed their doves for eggs and poultry.

Our last castle for the day was more like a manor house (ruins) that sat among the fields and hillsides and next to the river.


A large part of the foundations were covered over with grass but you could see where there were individual rooms and at the end of the grassy space was part of the exterior wall. These castles were more for the nobleman who held the estate and the peasants who lived and worked the fields and village would pay their rent to him at his manor.

It was a charming place and to get to it we drove down a one car lane and prayed no one was coming in the opposite direction. We did fine.
We've commented about seeing so many castles and yet each one is different. Always there is something unique that we see or learn about. And of course the drive to them is always so beautiful.

Speaking of driving I (Linda) drove to work this morning. Pretty easy with hardly any other cars on the road (it was 6:30 am) but it is a start. I plan to do more driving here than I did while we were in Australia. Also for the past few days the clear blue skies have meant no cloud cover and we've had to scrape ice off our windows in the mornings.