Day 37 We couldnt say farewell!

Wednesday 25/04/2018 Anzac Day at Home.... Rivers Hotel Gateshead Room 1004

Today I woke to scenes from Anzac Day thanks to those at home who put up the pics of FB..... thanks Leanne...
Good to see so many still participating, with so many trying to put a stop to our way of life in Aust, it’s refreshing to know we still have people who have pride in what we stand for and what we stood for....

Today we are also off to the lower parts of Scotland that we didn’t get to do before we came back over the border.... and it wasn’t until we got just before the border crossing it hit us that we had come this way on the bus 2 years ago and when we got to Jedburgh it all came back to me that we had dine Here and Melrose the other place in our planned trip today.... one good thought was that at least I remembered, not like John he can’t remember Melrose at all.... the old brain she aren’t what she used to be on either if us...

The scenery was unbelievable as we drove through the midlands towards and into lower Scotland. It is very different than England you would wander how it can be but it is.... Just like home each part of Aust is different to the next... what we were fascinated with was the sheer number of sheep with baby lambs, most having twins or triplets.... tiny little cuties jumping around as we sped past.... most white, a sprinkling of black and lots with black faces and white bodies... The hills were just a mass of white dots....

When we did hit the border there was the man from 2 years ago playing his bag pipes and selling his wares... He had a chat with us there used to be 2 of them but one has dies sadly he told us, he has been doing it for 29 yrs and lived in the area over 51 years... He said that this was the main route for the buses so it was worth his time, now the buses only come this way sometimes they use a different new route now... I don’t know how he does it with his high sox and kilt in the really cold winter. he told me that this year was the longest coldest winter that he has experienced since he started, it would seem that has even the case all over the UK....

Getting to Jedburgh we had the ahhhhh moment, and I even remembered you had to pay for the loo here... while at the loo it dawned on me we had been to Melrose as well..l ohh dear how silly of us, but we are here now so we took the time to explore Jedburgh as we didn’t get to do that last time... only a Wee stop and a Pic stop last visit on the bus.....
Jedburgh Abbey was founded by David I in around 1138 for Augustinian canons. Now a ruined Augustinian abbey, is situated in the town of Jedburgh, in the Scottish Borders 10 miles (16 km) north of the border with England at Carter Bar. Jedburgh is the largest town on the A68 between Newcastle upon Tyne and the Scottish capital, Edinburgh.... When the Protestant Reformation arrived in 1560, the monks were allowed to stay but the abbey was used as the parish kirk for the reformed religion. In 1671 the church was removed to the western part of the nave for safety reasons. This situation persisted until, in 1871, it was considered unsafe to continue worship at the abbey church and a new parish church was built. The Marquis of Lothian immediately started work on the restoration of the great church but in 1917 the church dedicated to St. Mary nearly 800 years earlier was handed over to the state and is now in the care of Historic Scotland as a scheduled monument.

The township has that really old quaint feel to it... so much still feels kinda locked in a time warp... we had a laugh at the name of the Spread Eagle Hotel.... looks like it might be shut now the letters are falling off sadly...

A look around, we buy a sausage roll and share it as we wander... so many if the buildings had a archways leading to apartments behind the openings, they called them a Close and each one had history behind of someone great who had been there, stayed there or lived there... made it interesting. Our time came to an end so off we set to see Dryburgh Abbey this one we hadn’t been to at all, so no need to try and recall it like this one and our next...
This Abbey is way out of Town the town of St Boswell... and set in the most beautiful setting yet... I feel I love with this place it truly was so pretty and so peaceful...

Dryburgh Abbey, near Dryburgh on the banks of the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders, was nominally founded on 10 November (Martinmas) 1150 in an agreement between Hugh de Morville, Constable of Scotland, and the Premonstratensian canons regular from Alnwick Abbey in Northumberland. The arrival of the canons along with their first abbot, Roger, took place on 13 December 1152. The David Steuart Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan Earl of Buchan bought the land in 1786. Sir Walter Scott and Douglas Haig are buried in its grounds.

I could have just sat here and veged except it started to rain... then the sun come out, then it rained again and finally as we were heading off wet the sun shone brightly and gloriously eliminating everything just glorious., as there was a big trench just covered up both sides and in the middle with daffodils.... they made the area just magical! So having seen as much as we could with the weather like it was, back to the car and off up the road..

The plan was to head to Melrose, have lunch, The the find the Leaderfoot Viaduct..... I was just in the middle of saying to John about trying to find the Viaduct when around a corner we came and there she was in all her glory.... No signs up anywhere on our side of the river to indicate it was coming up.... So as we had wizzed past, John had to backup...

Next to the Viaduct with this amazing old bridge..... The Drygrange Old Bridge is a disused road bridge over the River Tweed near Melrose in the Scottish Borders. It was built between 1776 and 1780 to a design by Scottish architect and engineer Alexander Stevens.] It replaced a ferry as part of an improvement to a turnpike road. It carried the A68 over the Tweed until 1974 when it was replaced by a box girder bridge to the east, engineered by Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners. The old bridge is not open to vehicles, but can be crossed by pedestrians and bicycles. The Old Bridge has a central span of 105 feet (32 m), with two side spans of 55 feet (17 m), and a smaller arch in the south abutment.The central arch has a rise of 34 feet (10 m). The rounded cutwaters are carried up to the level of the roadway and are topped with angular pedestrian refuges. Hollow spandrels reduce the weight of the structure, an innovation by Thomas Telford. The bridge has been modified by raising the level of the roadway on the approaches to make it more level, but the level of the original roadway can be seen in the string course on the exterior of the bridge. It is near to the Roman settlement of Trimontium, which is to the south-west of the viaduct. To the west of the bridge is the Leaderfoot Viaduct, a disused railway viaduct, and to the east of the Old Bridge is its modern successor. This group of three bridges is sometimes known as Tripontium.

Well now you had your history lesson on the bridge this was about the Viaduct... The Leaderfoot Viaduct, also known as the Drygrange Viaduct, is a railway viaduct over the River Tweed near Melrose in the Scottish Borders. The viaduct was opened on 16 November 1863 to carry the Berwickshire Railway, which connected Reston with St Boswells, via Duns and Greenlaw. The engineers of the railway were Charles Jopp and Wylie & Peddie. The railway was severely damaged by flooding during August 1948, with 7 bridges on the line failing, and the line closed to passenger traffic on 13 August 1948. Freight trains continued to run across the viaduct as far as Greenlaw until 19 July 1965. In 1981, the poor condition of the viaduct meant that it was due to be demolished. Historic Scotland took over control of the viaduct from British Rail in 1996.

This whole area was so interesting and only a little sign on the disused road on the other side of where we were, so unless you crossed the old bridge there is no way you would have known about their history....

So having taken my pics, it was hard to get them here, the angle of the road made it hard and all the gates under them were locked... so the angle I took them wasn’t as good as I had wanted, but I still had plenty of pics...

Off we set for Melrose and John still couldn’t work out that we had been here before... We even had lunch at the same shop, which I had hope we wouldn’t.... but it was the easiest to get food... he still couldn’t remember...
We had a wander around took pics of the Abbey from the fence line... paying fir one Abbey a day is costly enough, so sadly all I could do was capture shots at a distance... it’s ok with the iPhone but to get up close I use my good camera just don’t get to post these pic...

This Abbey like the others is a beautiful sight to behold, the window work out of sandstone is just so intricate and interesting, like fine lace work out of stone..... St Mary's Abbey, Melrose is a partly ruined monastery of the Cistercian order in Melrose, Roxburghshire, in the Scottish Borders. It was founded in 1136 by Cistercian monks at the request of King David I of Scotland, and was the chief house of that order in the country until the Reformation. It was headed by the Abbot or Commendator of Melrose. Today the abbey is maintained by Historic Environment Scotland as a scheduled monument. The east end of the abbey was completed in 1146. Other buildings in the complex were added over the next 50 years. The abbey was built in the Gothic manner, and in the form of a St. John's Cross. A considerable portion of the abbey is now in ruins. A structure dating from 1590 is maintained as a museum open to the public. Alexander II and other Scottish kings and nobles are buried at the abbey. A lead container believed to hold the embalmed heart of Robert the Bruce was found in 1921 below the Chapter House site; it was found again in a 1998 excavation. This was documented in records of his death. The rest of his body is buried in Dunfermline Abbey. The abbey is known for its many carved decorative details, including likenesses of saints, dragons, gargoyles and plants. On one of the abbey's stairways is an inscription by John Morow, a master mason, which says, Be halde to ye hende ("Keep in mind, the end, your salvation"). This has become the motto of the town of Melrose.

So having finished my 3 Abbeys for the day it was time to set off, we planned to stay off the main highways and stick to the back roads....We also planned to see as much of Hardin’s Wall as possible, but by the time we set off we realised it was getting very, very late, so we headed up the road finding one site which was a bit of a walk to it... being in a small village... Gilsland ......We had to park at the back of someone’s house to access the track, I felt like we were invading their privacy, but as we were told, you aren’t trespassing in Scotland all sites have public access... Hardin’s Wall at Gilsland......The fort was occupied by Roman auxiliaries from approximately AD 112 to AD 400. In this western part of Hadrian's Wall, the wall itself was originally built from turf, later replaced with stone (Hogan, 2007). The stone fort was built some time after the wall, in the usual playing card shape, with gates to the east, west and south. Inside were built the usual stone buildings, a central headquarters building (principia), granaries (horrea), and barracks. Unusually for an auxiliary fort, it also included an exercise building (basilica exercitatoria), perhaps reflecting the difficulties of training soldiers in the exposed site in the north of England. Excavations between 1987 and 1992 showed an unbroken sequence of occupation on the site of the fort granaries, running from the late Roman period until possibly 500AD. The granaries were replaced by two successive large timber halls, reminiscent of others found in many parts of Britain dating to the 5th and 6th centuries. Tony Wilmott (director of the excavations) has suggested that, after the end of Roman rule in Britain, the fort served as the power-base for a local warband descended from the late Roman garrison and possibly deriving legitimacy from their ancestors for several generations.....

So having seen this section we set off to find more, but once in the car realised it was just too late... so drive the rest of the back roads until we could join the main Hwy again...

While on this back Hwy we came across Hastings Castle tucked beside a small stream near farming homes... it was out of the way and still really intact... but by now it was raining and as I had, had dog poo on my boots and had to get out if the car by a puddle of water to clean them with my trusty dustpan brush... [Thank goodness for it] the wind I came up really blowing then the rain was blustery and small hail started pound me,.... so with all this just happened we decided we couldn’t pull up, just some shots from the window of the car... such a shame as it looked so interesting....

From here we just hit the peddle and off we speed to home, getting back after 7.30pm... I had to go to a shop to buy some extra undies, as I had run out of them. Some seem to have disappeared on the way... As we can’t wash until tomorrow our next Adobe has a washing machine... thank goodness...

Soup in the kettle was the order for dinner then off to bed it’s been another huge day...Read more