Reflections

(3 x PiPs) Peasholm Park is sited on the north side of the town of Scarborough in a mainly residential area. The site is about 14-hectares and takes in a narrow steep-sided valley running north-east towards North Bay. The valley gradually broadens until it opens out on to low-lying ground closer to the sea. The park is on the site of a medieval manor house of Northstead which was part of the Crown Estate from the 14th century. By the beginning of the 20th century the area was open land used for farming and as allotments. In 1911 Scarborough Corporation bought some land called Tuckers Field from the Duchy of Lancaster to create a public park. It was the borough engineer, Harry W Smith, who had the idea of setting out the gardens in Japanese style. Japanese style statues in the park were purchased from Killerby Hall and exotic shrubs and flowers were imported from the home of a local retired banker who was living in the French Riviera. In 1924 the park was extended south-westwards along Peasholm Glen following the purchase of more land from the Duchy of Lancaster 1921. Parts of the east side of the Glen were in private ownership and these were donated to the Corporation. The Peasholm Glen Tree Trail has rare and unusual trees. The lottery-funded project there aims to conserve the trees and provides a leafleted trail identifying the most interesting and important species. The leaflet is free and is also available to download from the internet. Together with signage on site, it opens up this resource to the widest possible audience. During restoration of the site the Dicksonian Elm, a tree that was previously believed to be extinct, was discovered alive and well in Peasholm Glen. Japanese themed gardens and lake with a pagoda said to be based on the Willow Pattern pottery design, are a central feature of the park. The lake has a central island which is accessible by a Japanese-style bridge. There are waterfalls and wildlife in the more tranquil wooded areas.

Loch Caroy is a sea loch on the west coast of the Isle of Skye. Taken from the garden of the holiday cottage we had rented.

Scarborough’s lighthouse stands on Vincent’s Pier, completed in 1752 and named after its engineer, William Vincent, The lighthouse, first constructed 1801-06, was seriously damaged during the bombardment of Scarborough by German cruisers on December 16th 1914. The lighthouse tower had to be dismantled and was rebuilt in 1931. Some 500 shells were fired on the town and eighteen people killed. The lighthouse is currently the home of Scarborough Yacht Club. The gun on right of picture is a 1914 Vickers pattern 13 pounder gun. Raised by Scarborough Sub-aqua Club and local fishermen October 1982, recovered from a depth of 100 feet (30 meters) from the wreck of the S. S. Hornsund, sunk by torpedo 23 September 1917 2-5 miles south east of this location. Airlifted into this position by a Wessex helicopter of D flight 22 squadron Royal Air Force 2 June 1984.

(1 x PiP showing the view on the other side of the bridge) Constructed in 1806. By John Carr. The bridge has one pointed arch and two segmental arches divided by cutwaters forming refuges on the narrow road. Now grade II listed.

View up stream from the 1806 bridge.

(4 x PiPs) The history of St Andrews Harbour is one that spans the centuries and is inseparably linked with the life of the coastal town it serves; indeed at one time the very life-blood of it. No doubt the Harbour's footings are to be found in nothing more than the unimproved shores of the Kinness Burn, around which the early inhabitants of the town, then still known as Kilrymont, would go about their simple lives of fishing and farming. During medieval times and through to the 16th century the harbour would see significant development with the construction of the original stone built piers and quays to serve the many travellers and merchants of the time; the town developing as an important academic, ecclesiastical and trading centre. Today the 18th to 20th century extensions and developments to the Long (North) Pier and Cross Pier form the well-sheltered havens of the Outer and enclosed Inner Harbours, which are home to a small, but growing, flotilla of pleasure craft and a small fishing fleet that in its heyday would have numbered fifty vessels and more.

A resident of Peaseholm Park - Scarborough

A resident of Peaseholm Park - Scarborough

(2 x PiPs) Peasholm Park is on the site of a medieval manor house of Northstead which was part of the Crown Estate from the 14th century. By the beginning of the 20th century the area was open land used for farming and as allotments. In 1911 Scarborough Corporation bought some land called Tuckers Field from the Duchy of Lancaster to create a public park. It was the borough engineer, Harry W Smith, who had the idea of setting out the gardens in Japanese style. Japanese style statues in the park were purchased from Killerby Hall and exotic shrubs and flowers were imported from the home of a local retired banker who was living in the French Riviera. In 1924 the park was extended south-westwards along Peasholm Glen following the purchase of more land from the Duchy of Lancaster 1921. The Peasholm Glen Tree Trail has rare and unusual trees. A lottery-funded project there aims to conserve the trees and provides a leafleted trail identifying the most interesting and important species. The leaflet is free and is also available to download from the internet. Together with signage on site, it opens up this resource to the widest possible audience. During restoration of the site the Dicksonian Elm, a tree that was previously believed to be extinct, was discovered alive and well in Peasholm Glen. Japanese themed gardens and lake with a pagoda said to be based on the Willow Pattern pottery design, are a central feature of the park. The lake has a central island which is accessible by a Japanese-style bridge. There are waterfalls and wildlife in the more tranquil wooded areas.

The North Pier is a classic example of Scottish vernacular harbour work. It comprises a pier of rubble construction, with a substantial bulwark on its seaward face, to protect the wide quay from over-topping seas in heavy weather. The course of the pier is somewhat crooked, reflecting the strategy of the builders to construct it from strong point to strong point along the natural rock skerry which forms its foundation. The dry-stone, rubble construction of this pier gives it great character and the surfaces reveal many examples of repairs to the pier, using a variety of different strategies for placing the stones. The outer, seaward face of this pier contains in places re-used stone with rolled moulded margins, presumably coming from the ruined castle or cathedral in the 18th and 19th centuries. The North pier has a number of important features along is length, including cyclopean stone mooring pawls, stone stairs leading to the bulwark and a stone slipway in the harbour where the pier joins the Shorehead quay. There is also a stone-built ramp at the root of the pier leading down onto the shore. This ramp is of indeterminate age but it connects with a rock-cut roadway leading towards the castle, where there was an important landing beach. The outer, seaward end of the North pier is of 19th and 20th century date, reflecting efforts to improve the access to the harbour in heavy weather. It is of typical Victorian and later cement construction, much more rectilinear than the earlier work at the shore-ward end. This later extension is fitted with cast-iron mooring pawls.

(1 x PiP) Situated below the walls of St. Andrews Castle