Scone Club Site, Tayside

I heard rain through the night, a pleasant sound when one is snug in bed, unless you lie awake worrying about the impact of the weather on the day ahead; I did not. Our last day touring from here at Scone was organised and not to be messed up by rain or lack of hot showers.

Scone Palace is only five minutes up the road from our camp, which is no surprise when you understand that this camp, and the race course which surrounds us, is all part of the estate of the Earl of Mansfield. We were lined up at the gate with the other cars and a coachload of Italian tourists dead on 9.30 am; the gatekeeper was tardy and we were all champing at the bit. We were the first to the ticket booth, waving our Treasure Pass and directed toward the palace.

I have already indicated that this is the hereditary home of the Stone of Destiny, so will not bore you further on this count. An Augustinian priory was well established by the time its status was raised to an Abbey in the early 1100s. The Abbey became integral in the coronation of Scottish Kings and these royal personages who swung by from time to time needed to be entertained and housed in grand style, hence it was necessary for the Abbot himself to be housed in a grand residence to host these personages, or that was the excuse for the establishment of such palaces on abbey sites.

As per elsewhere, the Reformation brought an end to this self-indulgence and the property was granted to the Earl of Gowrie. There seems to be a little uncertainty as to why or how the property then passed to Sir David Murray, whose family  have managed to retain ownership in one shape or form ever since. 

The Earls of Mansfield were created in the late 1770s when the fourth son of David Murray excelled in his role as Lord Justice of the King’s Bench, and was awarded with the title. When in Scone, he was relatively content to live in all that was left of the old abbey, the palace all that had been spared the wrath of the Reformists. But when his descendants took their turn in the early 1800s, they found it quite uninhabitable. In 1808, the original palace was basically demolished and rebuilt in Neo-Gothic style.

When in the early 1840s, Queen Victoria and her husband, who had recently become enamoured with the romantic Scottish Highlands suggested they might like to visit on their way to Balmoral, there was great excitement and massive amounts of money were spent on refurbishment and refurnishing. They stopped over for one night.

The Palace remains pretty much as it was then, although the silk wall hangings installed for Victoria are now seriously discoloured and disintegrating. The collection of fancy French furniture is showing wear and if it were mine, I would sell it off to pay for the recovering of the walls, just as I would sell off the wall cabinets full of fancy china which someone would be silly enough to pay millions for. When I expressed this practical solution to the economic needs of this Grade I property, Chris said I was a philistine; he is probably right.

The Murrays still live in the property, it is only the State Rooms that are open to the public and have been since 1966. Door takings are supplemented by weddings and conferences and other functions, and the racecourse and caravan park all pay some sort of rent for their corner of the grounds, so we were contributing in more ways than one.

Back outside, now with the rain falling, we made our way around the grounds, through the woods searching unsuccessfully for red squirrels, but delighting in the peacocks, highland cattle and the landscape generally.

We dined a la Kia before heading on to the centre of Perth before we left the area altogether. Perth, lying on the west bank of the River Tay, has a population of nearly 50,000 so is not insignificant. This market town was Scotland’s capital for many centuries, as is evidenced by its connection with matters all about Scone. Its economy in the earlier days was centred around linen and salmon, followed by glass and whisky in the 1800s. Later in that century insurance became important with General Accident’s headquarters here until mergers with other companies left the town only as a call centre.

We parked in the multi storey; these now our preference where possible because normally you can pay when you return, allowing endless time for exploration rather than being limited by any particular return time. 

The most attractive parts of the town are along the banks of the River Tay as were most of the places we wished to visit. We climbed up onto the rail and foot bridge to take some of the obligatory photos, and then made our way to the nearby Ferguson Gallery situated in the original Perth round iron water tower. Since the turn of the last century the gallery, which was the town’s Information Centre in the 1970s, has undergone huge renovation, all for the sum of £1 million; it is amazing how easily councils manage to spend public money. The Gallery was opened in 1992 and apart from the comment about waste of public monies, it makes for a wonderful exhibition space for a single artist’s work. 

Although J D Ferguson, the foremost artist of the Scottish Colourist movement, was born in Edinburgh’s Leith in 1874, he always considered himself a Perthshire lad, and increasingly cited this Highland heritage as the source of his creativity, hence it is entirely appropriate that Perth be the home of this body of work.

Many of the paintings are of his wife, dancer and artist Margaret Morris, which probably is the reason Chris suggested there was a lot of repetition in his work, or at least that shown here. He obviously loved and admired his “Meg” and I found it all very satisfying.

Next on our to-dos was St John’s Kirk, the present building only dating from the 15^th century. We were warmly welcomed here and given a self-guide laminated sheet to find our way about. We were pleased to have found a sheltered spot out of the rain and this served as well as anywhere else.

The last of the three on our list was the city’s Art Gallery and Museum housed in one of Perth’s grandest buildings. The galleries, open to free viewing, are small, and I had the impression that 99% of the collection is stored away in a dry basement, but what we were allowed to see was most pleasing. I was much more impressed with the museum here than the more modernly curated Dundee museum visited yesterday. It is true that some of the exhibits here in the Perth museum are a little faded and jaded with time, and the layout is a little dated, but it was altogether more visitor friendly. There were several families in the galleries with us and they seemed to be as enthralled as we were, even if it were with different facets of the exhibitions.

Here we were able to match the sounds of wildlife to each species and came away a little more informed for future red squirrel spotting and the like. We learned too that in the Highlands the mist causes high humidity in the air and cuts out sunlight, hence in the summer months the summits receive an average of only 2.75 hours of sunlight a day because of that mist. These same unlit summits have a yearly average of 260 gales above 80 kilometres per hour. Should we be heading their way!?

I learned too that the British record for a salmon caught by rod and line is held by Georgina Ballantine, who whilst fishing with her father in 1922 hooked a 29 kilo fish in the River Tay at Caputh. This accounts for the massive fish I saw jumping above the dam at Pitlochly three days ago.

By the time we emerged from the museum, the sun had come out; we wandered slowly along the river bank and back to the car park. We headed to Morrisons to top up with diesel and provisions, in readiness for our departure tomorrow.

Back at camp we found the hot water situation was unchanged and our neighbours with the beagles still in residence.