The East Lothian Coast

[poliphilo]

We carried on down the coast of East Lothian. We reckoned it would be a good idea to get over the border by nightfall and sleep in England.

We stopped randomly- on a whim.

This is the kirkyard at Aberlady. The Scots went in for these, massive, deeply carved gravestones. I don't have a date for this one, but it'll be 18th century.



And here's the Seton Collegiate Church. The Seton family- who were local warlords- and later Jacobites-  funded a college of priests to pray for their souls. The church still stands. The priests' house is a ruin. There was an awful lot of violence in this area, through the period of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.  The battle of Preston Pans was fought just down the road and the Collegiate Church got done over several times- by English invaders, protestant mobs, Hanoverian soldiers.  For a while it was abandoned and used as a carpenter's shop. Then the Weemys family refurbished it and turned it into a mausoleum. Ailz found the interior made her feel really panicky- like she'd been locked up and was never going to get out alive. I just found it solemn.
 




We took afternoon tea in St Abbs. There's a fishing village there and a rocky headland that's a designated Nature reserve.

Comments

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Who is the bust of the woman of? I find that slightly creepy but fascinating.

Your last photo is like a painting in that light, especially the foamy water. And then I saw the drain pipes... but it's still my favourite picture.
:)
Are those gulls all over the rocks?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone knows who the woman is. She's presumably a member of the Seton family. Sadly all the monuments were smashed to bits by 17th and 18th century fanatics.

I'm glad you like that last one. It came out better than I thought it would at the time. Drain pipes? Are you sure?

I think they're gulls. But I believe St Abbs is also home to more exotic species- like Puffins.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

I don't know what other kind of pipe that might be in the foreground. Do you know? It seems to go right out into the water.

But the light and the painted effect of the white churning water is lovely.

I was wondering about the puffins as I did know they nest up that way. But the birds here have a gull-like stance and are smaller than puffins..

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I honestly hadn't spotted it before. I had to blow the picture up before I could be sure it was there.

It might, I'm afraid, be a sewage outlet. Oh dear!

The birds are definitely gulls. But, you're right, puffins do nest on the Northumbrian coast.