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Gardens In Scotland
Gardening in Scotland, the design of planned spaces set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature in Scotland began in the Middle Ages. Gardens, or yards, around medieval abbeys, castles and houses were formal and in the European tradition of herb garden, kitchen garden and orchard. The first Renaissance style gardens in Scotland were built for the Stewart dynasty at their royal palaces. Members of the nobility and gentry followed suit. From the late sixteenth century, the landscaping of many estate houses was influenced by Italian Renaissance gardens. From this period there are many examples of formal gardens created for nobles, gentry and lairds. The legacy of the Auld Alliance and the beginnings of the grand tour meant that French styles were particularly important in Scotland, although adapted for the Scottish climate. In the late seventeenth century William Bruce put Scotland at the forefront of European garden design. In the eigh ...
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William Bruce (architect)
Sir William Bruce of Kinross, 1st Baronet (c. 1630 – 1 January 1710), was a Scottish gentleman-architect, "the effective founder of classical architecture in Scotland," as Howard Colvin observes.Colvin, p.172–176 As a key figure in introducing the Palladian style into Scotland, he has been compared to the pioneering English architects Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren, and to the contemporaneous introducers of French style in English domestic architecture, Hugh May and Sir Roger Pratt. Bruce was a merchant in Rotterdam during the 1650s, and played a role in the Restoration of Charles II in 1659. He carried messages between the exiled king and General Monck, and his loyalty to the king was rewarded with lucrative official appointments, including that of Surveyor General of the King's Works in Scotland, effectively making Bruce the "king's architect". His patrons included John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale, the most powerful man in Scotland at that time, and Bruce ros ...
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Beauly Priory
Beauly Priory was a Valliscaulian monastic community located at "Insula de Achenbady", now Beauly, Inverness-shire. It was probably founded in 1230. It is not known for certain who the founder was, different sources giving Alexander II of Scotland, John Byset, and both. The French monks, along with Bisset (a nearby, recently settled landowner), had a strong enough French-speaking presence to give the location and the river the name "beau lieu" ("beautiful place") and have it pass into English. An alternative story about the naming of Beauly village told by locals is that 'Mary, Queen of Scots' was said to have been travelling through the area, probably on her way to Dingwall in her late teens and popped her head out of the Carriage window and uttered the words 'Beau Lieu' (beautiful place). It is not the best documented abbey, and few of the priors of Beauly are known by name until the 14th century. It became Cistercian on 16 April 1510, after the suppression of the Valliscaulia ...
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Pluscarden Priory
Pluscarden Abbey is a Catholic Church in Scotland, Catholic Benedictine monastery in the glen of the Black Burn, southwest of Elgin, Moray, Scotland. It was founded in 1230 by Alexander II of Scotland, Alexander II for the Valliscaulian Order. In 1454, following a merger with the priory of Urquhart Priory, Urquhart, Pluscarden Priory became a Benedictine House. The Scottish Reformation saw the decline of the priory, and by 1680 it was in a ruinous condition. Some work to arrest decay took place in the late 19th century. In 1948, the priory became a house of the Subiaco Cassinese Congregation of Benedictines, and restoration began at the hands of monks from Prinknash Abbey in Gloucestershire. In 1966, the priory received its independence from the mother-house; it was elevated to abbatial status in 1974. History Etymology The name ''Pluscarden'', of which the earliest attestations were ''Pluscardyn'' in 1226 and ''Ploschardin'' 1233, is "problematic" in its origin. ''Pluscarden ...
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Columba
Columba or Colmcille; gd, Calum Cille; gv, Colum Keeilley; non, Kolban or at least partly reinterpreted as (7 December 521 – 9 June 597 AD) was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in what is today Scotland at the start of the Hiberno-Scottish mission. He founded the important abbey on Iona, which became a dominant religious and political institution in the region for centuries. He is the patron saint of Derry. He was highly regarded by both the Gaels of Dál Riata and the Picts, and is remembered today as a Catholic saint and one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. Columba studied under some of Ireland's most prominent church figures and founded several monasteries in the country. Around 563 AD he and his twelve companions crossed to Dunaverty near Southend, Argyll, in Kintyre before settling in Iona in Scotland, then part of the Ulster kingdom of Dál Riata, where they founded a new abbey as a base for spreading Celtic Christia ...
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Medicinal Herb
Medicinal plants, also called medicinal herbs, have been discovered and used in traditional medicine practices since prehistoric times. Plants synthesize hundreds of chemical compounds for various functions, including defense and protection against insects, fungi, diseases, and herbivorous mammals. The earliest historical records of herbs are found from the Sumerian civilization, where hundreds of medicinal plants including opium are listed on clay tablets, c. 3000 BC. The Ebers Papyrus from ancient Egypt, c. 1550 BC, describes over 850 plant medicines. The Greek physician Dioscorides, who worked in the Roman army, documented over 1000 recipes for medicines using over 600 medicinal plants in ''De materia medica'', c. 60 AD; this formed the basis of pharmacopoeias for some 1500 years. Drug research sometimes makes use of ethnobotany to search for pharmacologically active substances, and this approach has yielded hundreds of useful compounds. These include the common drugs asp ...
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Iona
Iona (; gd, Ì Chaluim Chille (IPA: iːˈxaɫ̪ɯimˈçiʎə, sometimes simply ''Ì''; sco, Iona) is a small island in the Inner Hebrides, off the Ross of Mull on the western coast of Scotland. It is mainly known for Iona Abbey, though there are other buildings on the island. Iona Abbey was a centre of Gaelic monasticism for three centuries and is today known for its relative tranquility and natural environment. It is a tourist destination and a place for spiritual retreats. Its modern Scottish Gaelic name means "Iona of (Saint) Columba" (formerly anglicised as "Icolmkill"). In 2019, the island's estimated population was 120. Residents engage in farming, using traditional methods. Other occupations include crofting and tourism-related work; some craftsmen make goods for sale locally, such as pottery, tapestries, jewellery and knitted goods. In March 1980, the Hugh Fraser Foundation donated much of the main island (and its off-lying islands) to the current owner, the National ...
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Christianisation Of Scotland
The Christianisation of Scotland was the process by which Christianity spread in what is now Scotland, which took place principally between the fifth and tenth centuries. Christianity was probably introduced to what is now Lowland Scotland by Roman soldiers stationed in the north of the province of Britannia. After the collapse of Roman authority in 410 CE/AD, Christianity is presumed to have survived among the British enclaves in the south of what is now Scotland, but retreated as the pagan Anglo-Saxons advanced. Traditional narratives depict Scotland as largely converted by Irish missions associated with figures such as St. Columba, from the fifth to the seventh centuries, but many of these figures were later constructs or founded monasteries and collegiate churches in areas to which Christianity had already spread. Scholars have identified a distinctive form of Celtic Christianity, in which abbots were more significant than bishops, attitudes to clerical celibacy were more r ...
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The Kings Knot From Stirling Castle - Panoramio
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a v ...
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Garden Of Cosmic Speculation
The ''Garden of Cosmic Speculation'' is a 30 acre (12 hectare) sculpture garden created by landscape architect and theorist Charles Jencks at his home, Portrack House, in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. Like much of Jencks' work, the garden is inspired by modern cosmology. History Features The garden is inspired by science and mathematics, with sculptures and landscaping on these themes, such as black holes and fractals. The garden is not abundant with plants, but sets mathematical formulae and scientific phenomena in a setting which elegantly combines natural features and artificial symmetry and curves. It is probably unique among gardens, drawing comparisons with a similarly abstract garden in Scotland, Little Sparta. Access The garden is private but usually opens for only five hours on one day each year for 1500 ticket holders through the Scotland's Gardens programme and raises money for Maggie's Centres, a cancer care charity named for Maggie Keswick Jencks, the late wife of ...
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Charles Jencks
Charles Alexander Jencks (21 June 1939 – 13 October 2019) was an American cultural theorist, landscape designer, architectural historian, and co-founder of the Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres. He published over thirty books and became famous in the 1980s as a theorist of Postmodernism. Jencks devoted time to landform architecture, especially in Scotland. These landscapes include the '' Garden of Cosmic Speculation'' and earthworks at Jupiter Artland outside Edinburgh. His continuing project '' Crawick Multiverse'', commissioned by the Duke of Buccleuch, opened in 2015 near Sanquhar. Early years and family life Born in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 21, 1939, Charles Alexander Jencks was the son of composer Gardner Platt Jencks and Ruth DeWitt Pearl. Jencks attended Brooks School in North Andover, Massachusetts, and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature at Harvard University in 1961 and a Master of Arts degree in architecture from the Harvard Graduate Schoo ...
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Little Sparta
Little Sparta is a garden at Dunsyre in the Pentland Hills in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, created by artist and poet Ian Hamilton Finlay and his wife Sue Finlay, since 1966. The Arcadian garden includes concrete poetry in sculptural form, polemic, and philosophical aphorisms, together with sculptures and two temples. Altogether it includes over 275 artworks by the artist, created in collaboration with numerous craftsmen and women. History The garden was first established in 1966 and was originally named Stonypath. Finlay chose the name "Little Sparta" in 1983, in response to Edinburgh's nickname, the "Athens of the North", and playing on the historical rivalry between the Ancient Greek cities Athens and Sparta. Little Sparta survived numerous disputes, or "Wars" as Finlay termed them, regarding the rating of the Garden Temple. Finlay lived there until shortly before his death in 2006. The wars are documented in the papers of Graeme Moore, landscape artist who worked wit ...
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