High Hopes

Outside Linlithgow Palace

As I was off last week I thought I’d take advantage of my Historic Scotland membership and visit somewhere new. Having looked around the near vicinity, I noticed that I had never been to Linlithgow Palace. This sounds very grand but it is actually the ruins (or, at least a well preserved shell) of the former royal residence and was also the birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots. For once this is actually a reasonable connection to Mary Stuart as pretty much every building In Scotland that was built before 1587 will claim some sort of connection to her. Those built after that will claim a link to Robert Burns; and those built after his death probably have a spurious correlation to Billy Connolly or someone.

At the top

Anyway, after admiring the fountain in the middle of the courtyard we proceeded to explore the various chambers via the vast array of stairways. Some areas are fenced off, which is just as well as they don’t look particularly safe but it is possible to climb up to the top of one of the towers. The view from there is pretty impressive but I have to say that I felt rather apprehensive about being so close to the edge of a rather old stone wall, even if it does have a metal barrier to prevent the unwary from falling off the edge. According to my daughter, this is because I am afraid of heights.

It's a long way up there.

Now, I would not say that I’m afraid of heights. I’ve been up mountains. I’ve even been up in aircraft and I can say that the height didn’t bother me in the slightest. I’m pretty sure that it is the ground which has the capability of killing you but, even then, I’m not scared of the ground either as I tend to spend most of my time with my feet attached to it. What bothers me is being on the wrong end of a distortion of space-time that is trying to accelerate my body very rapidly to the hard and massive body that is causing that gravity well in the first place. So, far from being scared of heights, I’m actually terrified of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.


Anyway, despite the good view I was rather glad to get back down to ground level and managed to get this rather nice picture of Scotland’s national animal on the fountain.

Unicorn on Linlithgow Palace Fountain.