Day 15 - Kelso - 22 September 2024

Last night, we had dinner at the restaurant in the Ednam Hotel where we are staying. It is beautiful.  The hotel is on the banks of the Tweed River and the outlook is fantastic.

The view from our window

Breakfast was a full Scottish breakfast with black pudding and haggis, both of which are tasty and hearty. It set us up for the day.

We headed straight to Lindisfarne Island (Holy Island) where Christianity was introduced to Scotland.  There is a long causeway to the island that is accessible only at low tide.  The tide times were perfect for us with access open from 10:30 a.m., just right.  Of course, there was a long line of cars and people were everywhere.

A constant line of people

In 635, King Oswald summoned Aidan, an Irish monk to establish a monastery on the island.  Cuthbert joined the monastery in 685 and went on to become one of the greatest monks-bishop and was eventually made a saint.  He died on 20 March 687 and was buried. The monks opened his tomb eleven years later to find that the body had not decayed. They took that as a sign of purity and saintliness.

The church was built around 1150 and there were a few monks at the monastery until 1537 when King Henry viii ordered all catholic abbeys and monasteries to be closed. Sadly, the abbey is now in ruins.

We followed the crowd to the Abbey and found that it does not open until 11:00 a.m. and being Sunday, there was a church service just finishing.  We looked around the grounds of the Abbey and church and decided to make our way to the castle. That is about 1.5 km away.  We will come back to the abbey and church later.

The castle

It was quite an arduous trek up the hill to the castle.  It was built in 1549 when the Scots and English were fighting in that area.  It continued as a garrison until King James came to power and combined the English and Scottish thrones.  Gradually the castle became less important. It was occupied by the coast guard for a while. 

What a fire place

The hill up to the castle

The main room

Not sure when this arrived

Very homely

The Abbey was an interesting place to see.  The ruins are well maintained and there are a lot of plaques giving information about the rooms and life in the Abbey.

A statue of St Aidan

The Abbey ruins

It would have been spectacular

Look at the detail

The entrance

St Mary's Church has a warm and welcoming atmosphere.  Whilst it is a small church building, it has similar features to larger buildings.

St Mary's church

Inside

This is made from wood

Look at that detail

Beautiful

After leaving Lindisfarne, we looked for the memorial of Grace Darling who, on 7 September 1838, risked her life to save the lives of nine survivors from the wrecked steamship Forfarshire. She was 22 and went out in a severe storm with her father. She won a silver medal for gallantry but contracted tuberculosis and died at the age of 26.

The memorial

About Grace Darling

We returned to Ednam House, our great hotel in Kelso.  Tonight, we had dinner at the Queens Head, local pub across the road.  I had beef and ale pie which was a typical UK pub meal. it was delicious.

Ednam House

The Queens Head