In 1933 a memorial cloister was built to commemorate the 8th Duke of Roxburghe. The cloisters were built in the style of the original cloisters.
8 Comments CherryPie on Aug 4th 2011
Kelso Abbey was built in 1128 by the Tironesian monks (originally from Tiron, near Chartres, in France). During the 1540s it fell into decline at the hands of Henry VIII’s army.
10 Comments CherryPie on Aug 3rd 2011
I invite you to join me over at Vision and Verb where today I reminisce about work over the years.
8 Comments CherryPie on Aug 3rd 2011
Floors Castle is home to the 10th Duke of Roxburghe who inherited the estate at the age of 19. For that last 20 years he has worked on ensuring that estate is self sustaining and financially viable for future generations.
The site for the building of Floors Castle is a natural terrace overlooking the River Tweed and facing the Cheviot Hills, the heartland of the Roxburghe Family Estate.
It lies on the opposite river bank to Roxburghe Castle, once the strongest fortress along the former border with England.
In 1721, William Adam was commissioned by the 1st Duke to make additions to the eastern end of an existing tower-house to create a plain, but symmetrical, Georgian country house.
The 6th Duke invited on the Scotland’s leading architect, William Playfair, to remodel the castle between 1837 and 1847. He drew his inspiration for Floors from the highly ornamented picturesque style of Heriot’s Hospital in Edinburgh.
The result is a romantic fairytale castle with its roof scape of turrets, pinnacles and cupolas.
14 Comments CherryPie on Aug 2nd 2011
Recently the publisher of this book contacted me to see if I would like to read the book and provided feedback. On receipt of the book I was immediately impressed by the quality of the photos and the ‘Did You Know?’ and ‘Top Tip’ highlights that feature throughout the book to emphasise information.
The book covers all aspects of bees and bee-keeping, providing lots of information for anyone who is interested in bees, not just bee-keepers. In a chapter called ‘The Joy of Bees’ the book starts by detailing the history of bees and man’s relationship with them, the relationship spans back thousands of years. Bees have been used in sacred rights throughout the ages. The book tells us that in Britain alone there are over 200 species of bee and that not all are social like the honey bee.
The book is split into chapters such as; understanding bees, first things first, your bees, through the seasons, reaping your rewards, troubleshooting, and taking things further.
The chapters take the reader through all the stages of bee-keeping, from understanding bees and how to keep them through to bee threats and diseases and how to mitigate them. The book also covers the honey bee by-products such as honey and beeswax.
At the end of each chapter there is a check-list of the issues covered making it easy to recap the main points. These check-lists are also repeated at the end of the book in a comprehensive list. The book also gives a list of useful websites and further reading.
The book contains a wealth of information, I really enjoyed reading it and will refer back to it. As well as learning about the art of bee-keeping, I was introduced to quite a lot of information about bees in general that I didn’t know before.
The book is published by Flame Tree Publishing who can also be found on twitter @flametreetweet.
14 Comments CherryPie on Aug 1st 2011
We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.
Dalai Lama
Mimi has launched the 8th BlogBlast for Peace which is taking place on 4th November 2011. Bloggers around the world join on that day to promote the same message “Dona nobis pacem” which is Latin for “grant us peace”. You can find out more about the day and what inspired Mimi to launch the very first BlogBlast on her blog.
I invite you to join us on the day.
4 Comments CherryPie on Jul 31st 2011
To celebrate the millennium, the Duke and Duchess of Roxburghe commissioned the construction of an ornamental parterre on the Queen’s lawn by Floors Castle.
I found it a little disappointing that provisions haven’t been made to view the whole design of the garden from a higher viewpoint.
16 Comments CherryPie on Jul 30th 2011
