View From The Museum

Posted on June 13, 2026 by Joe

The roof terrace garden atop the National Museum of Scotland on Chamabers Street, is one of my favourite places to take in views across my city. The modern extension of the Museum, which sits right across the road from historic Greyfriars Kirk, has a roof terrace which, like the Museum itself, is free for anyone to access, visitor or native alike.

(looking south to Bristo Square, where you can see some modern University of Edinburgh buildings on the left, the Hogwarts-like Teviot student union in the centre, and the domed rotunda of McEwan Hall on the right – where I had my graduation ceremony, a lifetime ago…

It’s not all historic, old, handsome buildings – there are also rather uglier intrusions onto the nearby skyline, such as these 1970s Brutalist towers Edinburgh University dumped on the city, after demolishing parts of the old George Square. They look rather better in a B&W photo than they do in reality!

Looking west to the old Greyfriars Kirk.

The roof terrace, being right in the heart of the Old Town, also offers fine views to Edinburgh Castle, atop its huge, volcanic rock.

Above – looking over the rooftops to nearby George IV Bridge. Below, looking northwards, the “crown” spire of Saint Giles Cathedral on the Royal Mile clearly visible on the skyline.

Normally you have to look up to admire the handsome dome of the Old College Building (which is adjacent to the original, Victorian-era part of the Museum, but from the roof terrace you get a different perspective.

Looking along the roof terrace garden of the National Museum of Scotland

A brief video panorma of the view from the roof terrace, starting off looking towards Edinburgh Castle, standing sentinel above the city as it has for centuries, then panning north and east, across the Old Town skyline, then zooming out into the Firth of Forth beyond, where huge ships are carrying enormous, yellow structures for new offshore windfarms out to sea from the Port of Leith.

Reflections On The Tyne

Posted on October 3, 2025 by Joe

I had a few days off this week, and on a whim I decided to take the train down to Newcastle. I have passed through the city so many times on the train to London or York, but never actually visited the city itself. On those train trips I would look out of the window as the train traversed the High Level Bridge over the River Tyne, and see the lovely, old Swing Bridge and the iconic, steel arch of the Tyne Bridge (now a symbol of the city), and think I’d love to get some photos of this spot. So this week I did…

I spent the afternoon walking around town, exploring and taking many photos (as always). By late afternoon I was badly in need of a rest and some food and drink, so found a nice bar on the Quayside, right by the river, and by the time I finished eating, dusk had settled across the city, so I got a couple of Blue Hour shots of the bridges, reflecting in the dark waters of the Tyne. As ever, click on the pics to see the much larger versions on my Flickr.

A Visit From Sir Nigel

Posted on September 17, 2025 by Joe

Dad came through for a visit, so we could go together to watch the beautiful steam locomotive Sir Nigel Gresley paying a visit to Edinburgh’s huge Waverley Railway Station

Built in the 1930s, this is an A4 Pacific mainline locomotive, very powerful and fast (its sister loco, Mallard set the world speed record way back in the 1930s, hitting 126 MPH – obviously modern high-speed trains go far faster now, but it still retains the record for the fastest steam engine). They also boast this magnificent “streamliner” casings, partly about aerodynamics, partly drawing on the Art Deco style of the period. Like a few other transport designs, such as the Jaguar E-Type, I think it is a design which manages to be very much of its era and yet somehow also quite timeless.

Cabin crew leaning out to talk to the crowd on the platform

A perspective shot, to give an idea of the sheer size of this steel beast

The Marie Antoinette Fan Club

Posted on June 22, 2025 by Joe

Spotted something rather interesting and unusual as I was walking in my neighbourhood recently: graffiti, but in French. Basically it claims that Marie Anotinette , born Hapsburg, was innocent and she was right.

Quite why there is French graffiti chalked onto a wall in Edinburgh, I cannot say, and why that person is making a stand for the executed French queen after a couple of centuries and in another country, likewise, I have no idea as to why. But it is interesting, and I rather like that peculiar things like this just show up as I walk around my city. I wonder how many walked past this without even noticing it?

Steaming Into Town

Posted on May 24, 2025 by Joe

The other weekend I got to see a gorgeous-looking steam locomotive, Tangmere, steaming its way into Edinburgh’s huge Waverley Station, after hauling a line of coaches up from York that morning.

It’s quite something to see a mainline steam locomotive in this day and age – I could hear it before I saw it, that distinctive huff-huff-huff sound before it emerged from the tunnel in a cloud of steam. It’s very different from seeing on in a museum, as a static exhibit – this is one doing what it was built to do, snorting steam, “breathing”, fire in its belly, a steel dragon, effortlessly hauling a long, line of coaches.

I’ve never seen one of this type in action before – Tangmere is a Battle of Britain Class loco, named after the RAF airfield near the village of Tangmere, which was an important air station during the Battle of Britain. These “spam cans” or “slabsides” (due to their distinctively shaped airflow casings) were designed for the Southern Region, so not something that would be seen up here even back when steam locos were common.

One of the massive drive wheels in close-up

A visit to York

Posted on November 4, 2024 by Joe

I recently took the train across the border to visit the beautiful city of York, in the North of England, a city which encompasses many historic eras – Roman, Viking, Medieval – but like my own Edinburgh is small enough to make it very walkable, a boon to exploring. I took a lot of photos (as usual), so this is just a first batch taken wandering around York on a gorgeous autumn day.

This is the King’s Manor, which started off in the 12th century as an abode for an abbot, but which was substantially remodelled in the 15th century. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 it became the headquarters of the Council of the North, with royal visitors including James the VI and I, and Charles I. Since the 1960s it has been a part of the University of York. My meanderings brought me back here in the evening, so I nabbed a night shot using Mr Bendylegs, the wee mini-tripod (not as great as the big tripod, but much easier to carry on a trip).

Unlike many historic cities, York has not only managed to retain a substantial amount of its medieval city walls (some built on Roman foundations), but a large part of them are still walkable – you access them by going up and down steep, stone steps in the old, fortified gates which punctuate the walls as you go around the heart of the city.

Same gatehouse, as dusk was falling, with the twin bell towers of the magnificent York Minister visible, catching the last of the day’s light:

And the gatehouse once more, this time after night had fallen on this ancient place:

A view along the River Ouse as it cuts through the city:

Strolling the narrow streets – as you can see, the old walls and gatehouses are just part of the fabric even of the modern city, people passing through them regularly.

People taking photos of the city:

York Minster rising above the narrow streets and old buildings of York’s historic heart:

Korean busker entertaining crowds in a small square in the historic heart of the old town

A statue of Minerva with a pile of books juts out from this old building near the Minster. Goddess of wisdom, she signifies the importance of a nearby publisher and bookseller from 1801:

All Roads Lead To Rome

Posted on September 3, 2022 by Joe

Dad and I paid a return visit to this remarkable, 6-metre high sculpture of a Roman Legionary’s head and helmet by Svetlana Kondakova, which now sits right on the line of the Antonine Wall, the ancient fortified boundary of the mighty Roman Empire, near Kilsyth and Nethercroy.

I grew up in a town on the edge of Glasgow which had been a major fortification on the Antonine Wall (begun in AD 142), a vast series of fortifications and barriers, which stretched from the Clyde to the Forth, bisecting Scotland across what today we call the Central Belt (between Edinburgh and Glasgow), and this is situated pretty close by. Unlike the more famous Hadrian’s Wall, it’s harder to see as much of its remains as the more northerly Antonine Wall was built mostly of wooden pallisades and turf and, of course, the normal Roman precautions of defensive ditches. While it doesn’t leave as much above ground as the stone-built Hadrian Wall further south, it does leave a very clear mark in the landscape of Scotland to this day, which you can cleary see and follow (it makes for a great walking route).

I love the positioning here: our legionary is facing out north, from the wall, the northernmost outpost of the Roman Empire, across the lower land below that leads over to the huge, geological bulk of the Campsie Hills in the distance (a long chaing of extinct volcanoes and major geological landmark), as if still scanning for any potential barbarian attacks. I also like that they chose not to paint it, but to allow it to be bare metal and oxidise naturally. The more stretched out tones of sunlight as we slip into autumn here suit that colouring rather well, I thought.

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Tag Archives: Histoire