portrait of scotland
TRANSCRIPT
Portrait of
Scotland
First published in Great Britam in 1997 for Lomond Books
36 West Shore Road, Granton
Edinburgh EH5 IQD
Produced by Colin Baxter Photography Ltd.
Reprinted 1999
Text Copyright © Colin Baxter Photography Ltd 1997
Photographs Copyright © Colin Baxter 1997
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval System or transmitted in any form or by any means
without the prior written permission of the publisher,
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 947782 87 7
Printed in Hong Kong
Front Cover Photograph: Eilean Donan Castle, Loch Duich.
Back Cover Photograph: Loch Kishorn and Loch Carron, Wester
Ross.
Page One Photograph: Loch Linnhe.
Portrait of
ScotlandPh o t o g r a p h s b y C o l i n B a x t e r
LOMOND BOOKS
EDINBURGH • SCOTLAND
4
Contents
Introduction Page 7
The Highlands and Islands Page 11
Argyll and the West Page 41
Eastern Scotland and the Borders Page 53
The Grampians and North East Page 65
Northern Landscapes Page 85
Index of Places Page 96
Culduie, Wester Ross (Ieft); Loch Lomond from the slopes of Ben Lomond (following page).
Portrait 0f Scotland
6
Introduction
How can you capture a portrait of Scotland on film?
Only by travelling its length and breadth in every season.
Scotland offers a variety of landscape and light out of all
proportion to its size. Its story grows out of the very
rocks of which it is made – from the gouging of glaciers
in the not-so-long ago Ice Age, to the rock cuttings made
for modern Highland roads. Its history and land use can
be read wherever you travel in the countryside.
There are contrasts at every turn. What could be more
different in texture than the cool grey glint of Grampian
granite from the warm honey sandstone of Edinburgh?
Or the red blocks which build Orkneys cliffs from the
pale quartz screes which stream off the anaent eroded
peaks of the far north-west? And if the very building
blocks of Scotland are so characteristic, then the land-
scapes they support reflect this, from the Southern
Uplands' lush river-valley woodlands to the endless
boggy moors of Caithness.
Rock, wood, pasture and moor are overlaid with a
pattern of land use which teils both of Scotland's past
and its present. The ruins of ancient Castles are the most
obvious signs of a martial story. But there are also more
subtle signs to look for, from the faint stripes of the
lazy-beds of a long-vanished rural Highland population
to the random, marbled pattern of an eastern Highland
grouse moor after years of annual heather burning.
There are few other places where such a sense of
continuity is woven into the landscape. The Scots pines,
with their open understorey of juniper and blaeberry,
surviving in places like Rothiemurchus below the
Cairngorms, are the descendants of trees which sheltered
bear and elk. The western seaboard, where the horizon-
profiles of far-flung islands alternately dissolve and
re-appear as the Atlantic squalls pass over, looks the
same now as it did when the Viking raiders and traders
named the high peaks of the island of Rum.
Rock forms, land use and a sense of permanency are
only some of the elements in the portrait. Yet another
factor is plain from a glimpse of a map of Europe.
Scotland is a tiny country, up at the bows of the
Continent, butting into the north Atlantic. On one side
are the mild but moist weather patterns sailing in from
the south-west. (This is why the lushest and most exotic
gardens are in the west, while many eastern extremities of
Scotland get less rain than, say, Rome.) The high
pressure and more stable Systems of the Continent lie
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Portrait of Scotland
out to the east. Where do the two weather Systems, ocean
and Continental, meet? Somewhere in the Minch perhaps
today, or the central corridor around Stirling tomorrow,
or the Border hills next week.
Ever-changing, hour upon hour, the weather fronts
battle it out over the heads of the Scottish folk. They
accept both the warm gold of the late summer after
harvest and the cold silver of the Arctic blast, when clear
northern air brings into sharp focus mountains sixty
miles away (and more) from the viewer. In Scotland, the
quality of light owes everything to this essential
instability of the weather. It creates the palette of
rainbows and haloes, orange tints, rain-washed greens,
piercing blues and diffuse yellows which paints the land-
scapes as the year – or as the day – goes round.
However, we did not always appreciate this wonder-
fully visual element in the Scottish landscape. For most
of the 18th Century, for example, the wilderness of the
northlands was seen as a decidedly unromantic and fear-
ful place of savagery. Later, Sir Walter Scott helped
change the perception of Scotland, creating a mix of the
sentimental and the grand in his verse-narratives and
novels. Before him, the cult of the picturesque had
already taken root in the Romantic Age, with Coleridge
and Wordsworth just two of the Romantic poets who
ventured beyond the Highland line in the early 19th
Century. By that time, the first real tourists had already
journeyed north in search of the perfect Scottish picture,
which they composed in a suitably framed mirror, their
'viewing glass', which it was the fashion to carry with
them.
Painters, too, came to interpret Scotland in a
dramatic light, both as visitors, such as JMW Turner,
and as natives, like the Reverend John Thomson – a kind
of Sir Walter Scott in paint – or Horatio McCulloch
with his gloomy crags and Castles like scaled-up picture
postcards. In the 19th Century, they all responded emo-
tionally to the austere and unforgiving landscapes of
Highland Scotland, and influenced the way we perceive
the place today.
Yet any portrait of Scotland cannot be exclusively
Highland. Another angle is represented by, say, the
fishing villages of Fife, with their long struggle with
the sea and their architecture which speaks of ancient
trading links with the Low Countries. The wooded river
valleys and pastoral scenes of the Scottish Borders also
contribute to the picture. Essential Scotland also has to
encompass the livelmess of its cities: the style and
panache of Glasgow or the sheer theatricality of
Edinburgh. Industrial Scotland even has its own icon in
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Portrait of Scotland
the shape of the Forth Rail Bridge, the epitome of
Victorian confidence and exuberance, and also a symbol
in steel of the grandeur and drama of Scotland.
The islands, too, have much to add to a complex and
many-faceted picture. Those of the Clyde estuary, such
as Arran, have for generations played a part as an escape
from the industry of the central corridor of Scotland.
Generations of Glaswegians, for instance, have trampled
the granite ridges of Goat Fell – or at least enjoyed the
view of its distinctive profile from the ferry.
Further to the west, the Inner Hebrides beckon with
all their varied charms: Islay of the glorious beaches, yet
a place busy with whisky distillenes; Mull with its grand
Castles and pastel-painted Tobermory; or Iona, Mull's
tiny neighbour, a place of pilgrimage exerting a pull on
thousands of visitors each year out of all proportion to
its size. On Colonsay, moor and pasture, woodland,
beach and cliff are just the right scale for the near-
perfect Hebridean island – irresistibly beguiling. Others
might argue that it is further out still, somewhere in the
long chain of the Western Isles, that the stronghold of
Gaelic culture is to be found.
Not all of Scotland's islands belong to the Celtic
world. Orkney and Shetland embrace a Norse heritage.
Orkneys cluster of islands has a greater concentration of
prehistonc Sites than anywhere else in Europe. At Skara
Brae you can glimpse the everyday life of the Orcadians'
ancient ancestors – a neolithic village, complete with
stone furniture. Beyond the horizon, beyond the Viking
stepping-stone of Fair Isle, Shetland is positively un-
Scottish, so near the surface lie its Norse roots.
Yet the traveller need not voyage so far. Some of
Scotland's finest landscapes can be seen almost from the
roadside at places like Glencoe or Torridon and many
other points in the West Highlands. The light that
bathes the hills has a special quality, making the heart
ache with its sheer unexpectedness and clarity and adding
atmophere and drama. Its effect can be equally
transforming on other rural and urban landscapes,
inviting the observer familiar with theses scenes to look
at them afresh. Small wonder the Romantic poets, the
painters and generations of ordmary folk have been
inspired by it.
Yes, Scotland really does look like these photographs.
This is one man's portrait of the country, capturing its
essence in the fleeting moments of light on the elements
of rock and water – austere, grand, inspiring or, more
likely, something beyond words.
Gilbert Summers
9
The Highlands and Islands
Loch Torridon, Wester Ross – looking west towards Liathach (left) and from Beinn Alligin (above).
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Portrait of Scotland
Loch Hourn and Knoydart with Eigg and Rum in the background.
12
The Highlands and Islands
Skye and Raasay from near Applecross.
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An Teallach and Strath Beag, Wester Ross.
14
The Highlands and Islands
Loch Ewe, Wester Ross.
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'The Three Sisters', Glencoe.
16
The Higblands and Islands
Castle Stalker, Loch Linnhe and Kingairloch.
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The Isle of Skye across Inner Sound.
18
The Highlands and Islands
Shieldaig, Wester Ross.
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Portrait of Scotland
Strath Croe and the mountains of Kintail.
20
The Highlands and Islands
Nostie Post Office, Kyle, Wester Ross.
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Summer Isles.
22
The Highlands and Islands
Stac Polly, Wester Ross.
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Plockton and Loch Carron.
24
The Highlands and Islands
Beinn Sgritheall and Loch Hourn.
25
The Highlands and Islands
The remote Islands of St Kilda – Boreray and stacs (left), Hirta and Dùn (above).
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Portrait of Scotland
Inverness and the River Ness.
28
The Highlands and Islands
Urquhart Castle and Loch Ness.
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Portrait of Scotland
Quiraing, Isle of Skye.
30
The Highlands and Islands
The Cuillin Hills and Loch Scavaig, Isle of Skye.
31
The distinctive profile of the Island of
Rum seen from the golden sands of
Lòn Liath near Arisaig, Lochaber.
The Highlands and Islands
Eigg from Arisaig, Lochaber.
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Portrait of Scotland
Tràigh Scarasta and Chaipaval, Harris.
34
The Highlands and Islands
Loch Druidibeg and Hecla, South Uist.
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Portrait of Scotland
Ben-Damph and Loch Torridon, Wester Ross.
36
The Highlands and Islands
Vibrant golden colours at
the end of a rainbow near Alligin Shuas,
Upper Loch Torridon, Wester Ross.
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Portrait of Scotland
Glen Affric and Loch Affric
– from the air with Beinn Fhada in the
distance (left), and in the last light of
late autumn (right).
38
.
The Highlands and Islands
39
Argyll and the West
Iona – looking across the Sound of Iona towards Loch Scridain and the Isle of Mull (left);
Iona Abbey bathed in the warm light of a November afternoon (above).
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Portrait of Scotland
Inveraray Castle, Argyll.
42
Argyll and the West
Tarbert harbour, by Loch Fyne, Argyll.
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Bridges over the River Clyde, Glasgow.
44
Argyll and the West
The warm sandstone colours of Glasgow's
tenement buildings alongside Great Western
Road, seen from the air.
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Portrait of Scotland
The Islands of Gometra, Staffa and Iona.
46
Argyll and the West
Tobermory, Isle of Mull.
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Portrait of Scotland
The Islands and shore of Loch Lomond in winter.
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Argyll and the West
Loch Lomond from the air.
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Portrait of Scotland
Oban harbour (above); Bàgh an Tigh-Stòir, Craignish, Argyll (right).
50
Eastern Scotland and the Borders
Glaniis Castle, Angus (left); St Cyrus, near Montrose (above).
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Portrait of Scotland
Quothquan Law, South Lanarkshire.
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Eastern Scotland and the Borders
Devonshaw Hill and the Upper Clyde Valley, South Lanarkshire.
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Portrait of Scotland
The Bass Rock near North Berwick.
56
Eastern Scotland and the Borders
East Lothian and the Firth of Forth.
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Portrait of Scotland
Jedburgh Abbey at dusk, Borders.
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Eastern Scotland and the Borders
The Tweed Valley, Borders.
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Portrait of Scotland
The Old Town and St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh.
60
Eastern Scotland and the Borders
Edinburgh City Centre and Arthur's Seat from the west.
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Portrait of Scotland
Pittenweem, Fife (above); The Forth Bridge at dawn (right).
62
The Grampians and North East
Lochnagar and Balmoral Castle, Deeside (left); Fyvie Castle, Aberdeenshire (above).
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Portrait of Scotland
A frosty morning near Nethybridge, Strathspey.
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Morning mist in November across
Corriechuille near Grantown-on-Spey, with
the great bulk of the Cairngorm mountains
towering in the distance.
Portrait of Scotland
Loch Tummel and Schiehallion from the Queen's View.
68
The Grampians and North East
Loch Laidon, Rannoch Moor.
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Portrait of Scotland
Loch an Eilein, Rothiemurchus, Strathspey.
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The Gratnpians and North East
The River Spey and Loch Insh, Strathspey.
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Portrait of Scotland
Aberdeen Town House clock tower at dusk.
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The Grampians and North East
Aberdeen harbour and city.
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Portrait of Scotland
The Cairngorm Mountains from the air.
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Remnant Caledonian pine forest
dwarfed below the Cairngorm mountains
at Rothiemurchus, shieldmg the still waters
of Loch an Eilein.
Portrait of Scotland
Loch Tay, Perthshire.
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The Grampians and North East
The Falls of Dochart at Killin.
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Portrait of Scotland
Glen Feshie, Cairngorms.
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The Grampians and North East
Looking south from Beinn Mheadhoin high in the Cairngorm mountains.
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Portrait of Scotland
Glen Avon, near Tomintoul, Moray.
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The Gratnpians and North East
Corgarff Castle, Aberdeenshire.
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The Lairig Ghru, Cairngorms, from the air (above), and from near Aviemore (right).
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The Gratnpians and North East
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Portrait of Scotland
84
Northern Landscapes
Ardvreck Castle and Loch Assynt, Sutherland (left); Balnakeil Bay, Sutherland (above).
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Portrait of Scotland
Gaada Stack, Foula, Shetland.
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Northern Landscapes
Coppa Wick near Sandness on the west mainland of Shetland – the island of Papa Stour beyond.
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Handa Island and Point of Stoer, Sutherland.
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Northern Landscapes
Looking north from Handa towards the far north west corner of Sutherland – Cape Wrath.
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Portrait of Scotland
Ben Hope and Loch Hope, Sutherland.
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Northern Landscapes
Foinaven from Oldshoremore, Sutherland.
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Portrait of Scotland
'The Old Man of Hoy', Orkney.
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Northern Landscapes
The prehistoric village of Skara Brae, Orkney.
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Portrait of Scotland
The northern landscape of Shetland – Breakon, Yell (above); Aith Voe, Mainland (right).
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Northern Landscapes
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Index of PlacesAberdeen 72, 73 Glen Avon 80 Nostie 21
Aberdeenshire 53, 64, 65, 81 Glencoe 16 Oban 50
Angus 52 Glen Feshie 78 Old Man of Hoy 92
AnTeallach 14 Gometra 46 Oldshoremore 91
Ardvreck Castle 84 Grampians 74 Orkney 92, 93
Argyll 40, 41, 42, 43, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51 Handa Island 88, 89 Perthshire 68, 69, 76
Arisaig 33 Harris 34 Pittenweem 62
Balmoral Castle 64 Hecla 35 Plockton 24
Balnakeil Bay 85 Inveraray Castle 42 Queen's View 68
Bass Rock 56 Inverness 28 Quiraing 30
Beinn Alligin 11 Iona 40, 41, 46 Raasay 13
Beinn Fhada 38 Jedburgh Abbey 58 Rannoch Moor 69
Beinn Mheadhoin 79 Killin 77 Rothiemurchus 70, 75
Beinn Sgritheall 25 Kingairloch 17 Rum 12, 32
Ben-Damph 36 Kintail 20 Schiehallion 68
Ben Hope 90 Knoydart 12 Shetland 86, 87, 94, 95
Ben Lomond 6, 49 Laing Ghru 82, 83 Shieldaig 19
Borders 58, 59 Liathach 10 Skara Brae 93
Cairngorms 67, 74, 75, 78, 79, 82, 83 Lochaber 32, 33 Skye 13, 18, 30, 31
Castle Stalker 17 Loch Affnc 38, 39 South Lanarkshire 54, 55
Chaipaval 34 Loch Assynt 84 South Uist 35
Clyde Valley 54, 55 Loch Carron 24 Stac Polly 23
Corgarff Castle 81 Loch Druidibeg 35 Staffa 46
Craignish 51 Loch an Eilein 70, 75 St Cyrus 53
Cuillin Hills 18,31 Loch Ewe 15 Stirlingshire 77
Culduie 4 Loch Hope 90 St Kilda 26, 27
Deeside 64 Loch Hourn 12, 25 Strath Beag 14
East Lothian 56, 57 Loch Insh 71 Strath Croe 20
Edinburgh 60, 61 Loch Laidon 69 Strathspey 66, 67, 70, 71
Eigg 12, 33 Loch Linnhe 17 Summer Isles 22
Falls of Dochart 77 Loch Lomond 6, 48, 49 Sutherland 84,85,88,89,90,91
Fife 62 Lochnagar 64 Tarbert 43
Foinaven 91 Loch Ness 29 Tobermory 47
Firth of Forth 56, 57, 63 Loch Scavaig 31 Torridon 10, 11
Forth Bridge 63 Loch Tay 76 Tràigh Scarasta 34
Foula 86 LochTorridon 10, 11, 36, 37 Tweed Valley 59
Fyvie Castle 65 Loch Tummel 68 Urquhart Castle 29
Glamis Castle 52 Moray 80 Wester Ross 4, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 19,21,
Glasgow 44, 45 Mull 40,47 22, 23, 24, 36, 37
Glen Affnc 38, 39 Nethybridge 66 Yell 94
96