Sunday 29 June 2014

Dollar

Today is Sunday; this must be Scotland. Robyn got straight down to family history business, and started looking for a place called Wester Sheardale. This is quite near to Dollar, but we drove along the wrong road, not really knowing where the place was. At length, Robyn decided that a particular road looked promising. We drove to the farmhouse at the end of it, and got out. We found the farmer and his wife, and told them what she was doing. These lovely people immediately tried to work out where Wester Sheardale is. Over a cup of tea, after much discussion, they realised that the place is actually at the base of the hill below their farm.

James and Linda could not have been kinder to total strangers. From puzzled looks when we first came to their door, to fond farewells half an hour later, they showed us the best hospitality Scotland can offer. As well as that, James has played Rugby Union against Australia, in 1984 and 1988. He even scored a try against us. It was only the lively sparring with his wife that stopped me from asking him more about that. Between them, and Robyn talking about her family, I couldn't get a word in. I will have to look it up on the internet when I can.

Following the directions that James and Linda gave us, we found the old Wester Sheardale house fairly easily. There are two original buildings; both heritage listed, category B. This means that they cannot be altered without permission. Both are fenced off because of the danger of falling stones/walls, and desperately need repair. There are two families, both tennants, in a separate building on the same site. The owner lives in Perth (Scotland). Robyn's great x7 grandfather lived in one of the old buildings in the 1600s, and owned the property. The place stayed in the (Drysdale) family until the 1800s.

 This is the old house. The bloke who fixed the roof in 1700 didn't do a very good job, did he?

The old coach house, a two story apartment block. It has views of the sky, and the dirt floor from both levels. A great little historic project for anyone wishing to chuck a million pounds at it.

Up on the lower slope of the hill is the ruin of a fine house built in the 1850s. It was demolished in the 1970s. There are still big blocks of stone in the forest, and the remains of a rather impressive set of stairs. It is amazing to see how much has been built and knocked down in Britain over the centuries.

Back to Dollar for lunch at the Cafe de Fleurs. We both had the soup, which was delicious. I also had a ploughman's lunch which was very good. It is a delight to find very good cafes and pubs in little out-of-the-way places like dollar.

At 2 o'clock, Robyn went to the local museum to search for -you guessed it - family history. She found a couple of names, and a few more leads to follow. Every extra person really is a bonus when she is searching the 16 or 17 hundreds.

I decided to take a walk. I first walked around Dollar golf course; it has to be the steepest in the world; it nearly killed me. There is a nice view of the town from there.

The view to the mountains (and in Scotland there are ALWAYS mountains), was beautiful. Those tiny little things at the bottom of the picture are golfers.

Escaping from there, I cheated a little, and walked down a creek that was in a farmer's sheep field. From there, a road took me back into town. In all, that was about 4 kilometres. There are walking trails all over England, and most of Scotland. I like walking along them, but the can go for miles, and can be hard work.

My stroll around the main part of town showed Dollar to be a modern town with many "new" style houses; under 100 years old. There is also a new housing estate at the bottom end of town. Dollar is actually a prosperous town, and the people here are all busy, and very friendly.

After Robyn had finished at the museum, we drove across to the nearby town of Tillicoultry. We were looking for graves - especially Robyn's ancestors' graves. No surprises there. There were none in the main churchyard, or the old graveyard up on the hill. I suppose that a few gravestones could have been lost over the last three hundred years, but I think she was just a little disappointed.

Back to Dollar.

We bought Chinese takeaway for dinner, partly because we couldn't get a sit-down meal in town. I think the Scottish girl who runs the place just got two meals out of the freezer and put them in the microwave. Still, they were tasty and filling. Back in our hotel room, we had vegetable foo yong, and chinese chicken & cashews. There was too much of it, and we couldn't finish the rice. It was good though.

That was our day -plenty of driving and looking; and some success. There will be more of the same tomorrow, I'm sure.

Til then....

Lex and Robyn.