Behind The Photographs

The New Scottish Parliament

Wouldn’t you think that there has been a parliament continuously since Scotland became a country many centuries ago?

It’s a natural question to ask – and indeed the first recorded reference to a meeting of the Scottish parliament dates from 1235 and the first permanent meeting place for the parliament was established in 1632.

However, in the late 1600s Scotland made a huge blunder when it chose Panama as the setting for its colonial expansion. Scotland was already in trouble financially, and establishing a colony abroad seemed like a good idea.

After all, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and of course England had tried and succeeded at it.

And Scotland didn’t want to be left further behind in the heady days at the end of the 17th century when the European world was snapping up colonies all around the globe.

Unfortunately, the Panama isthmus was a terrible choice for Scotland’s venture. It was cut off from the rest of Latin America by the Darien Gap (still a treacherous swampy area today) and trade was a failure while disease was widespread. The Spanish who were busy claiming Latin American for themselves weren’t too friendly either.

The Scots had originally secured investment for the colony from international backers but when England leaned on the backers to withdraw, the Scots turned to their own people to raise the capital.

When the venture failed, the investment was lost and Scotland was more or less bankrupt.

At which point England kindly offered to pay off Scotland’s debts in return for political union.

When I first learned of this jewel of history, I thought of the analogy of a forced marriage with the aged groom paying off the beautiful bride’s debts in return for her hand in marriage.

The Act Of Union

Whatever the truth of the way the union came about, by 1707 England and Scotland became the United Kingdom and that was the end of the Scottish Parliament for the best part of 300 years.

The situation changed with a referendum in 1979 that set the scene for the UK Parliament to devolve power to a Scottish Assembly.

The first elections to the Scottish parliament were held in 1999 and in September of that year the first Bill was presented to it.

Constitutional Arguments

Because the Scottish Assembly was created under devolved powers that issued from the Parliament in Westminster, it does not have power over areas such as foreign policy and defence.

And there are constitutional arguments about whether the United Kingdom parliament could withdraw the legislation that has given Scotland its Assembly.

The argument runs that because the Scottish parliament was created by devolved legislation its power could be taken away under the principle that that which has been devolved may be reclaimed.

Frankly, I cannot see many Scots standing for that argument, and it seems to me that the likely direction is for further devolution.

Time will tell…

The Cost Of Building The Parliament

In 2003, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie QC was appointed to find out what went wrong with the project to construct the new building designed to house the Scottish Parliament.

He was appointed to find out how the cost rose from the 1997 estimate of somewhere between £24 million and £44 million to its eventual cost of £430 million in 2004.

The Site

Several locations were originally suggested for the new building, but eventually the Parliament was constructed on a piece of land at the bottom end of the long street at the other end of which is Edinburgh Castle and the Royal Mile.

The Palace of Holyrood, where the Queen lives when she is in Scotland, is also at the bottom of this street.

And the new Parliament building is directly across the street from the palace.

I can just imagine someone in Holyrood peering from behind the net curtains, and looking across at the Parliament as it was being built and lamenting the blot on the landscape. Or perhaps not.

Actually, there is something very fitting about the home of the constitutional monarch being located directly opposite the elected parliament. It’s a kind of checks and balances building arrangement with the monarch and the elected representatives facing one another.

Arthur’s Seat

However they are arranged, the Palace of Holyrood and the Parliament building are both dwarfed by Arthur’s Seat – the main crag of a small range of hills that together form the bulk of Holyrood Park.

Arthur’s Seat is 800 feet (250m) tall and is the remains of a volcano, now long extinct and covered in grass.

It is usually dotted with the tiny figures of people walking to the top – as we did a year and a half ago now.

And it is just a short distance from Holyrood House and the Parliament.

The Conclusion Of the Enquiry Into The Cost Of The Building Works

Lord Fraser concluded that the original estimate for the cost of building the Parliament was unrealistic given the very complex design envisaged by the Catalan architect Enric Miralles.

Miralles did not live to see the building work completed as, sadly, he died of a brain tumour in the year 2000, aged only 45.

Opinions On Architecture

To take a slight detour on the subject of architecture, this summer we went to several events at the Edinburgh Book Festival.

One event that we went to was entitled Architecture In The Ruins given by two critics of architecture – Miles Glendinning and Owen Hatherley.

In its own words, the event:

sets out to excavate the architectural wreckage created by an age of greed. It provides a coruscating attack on an era of iconic buildings and ‘signature’ architecture.

Owen Hatherley has travelled up and down Britain looking for bad architecture.

I was heartened when he had a few choice words to say about the soulless buildings that have sprung up in the center of Leeds (where Tamara and I are living now).

He illustrated his talk with slides and I remember how he ridiculed the kind of building that is covered in fake balconies only inches deep that are supposed to add special status value to poorly designed blocks of flats.

He railed against Councils that sold development sites to developers for pennies. The developers then built monstrosities with fake appeal and small rooms that sold at inflated prices.

Signature Architecture

The attack on ‘signature architecture’ struck a chord with me.

Signature architecture means the kind of building that shows off how talented and individual the architect is, but which produces a building that bears no relationship to the environment in which it is situated.

And that is a fair criticism to level at the Parliament building.

Things I Like

There are a lot of things that I like about the building. For instance, the colors are very attractive. The metal and concrete are light in color but the metal has been brushed so that it isn’t blindingly shiny.

The building is low and made up of lots of interacting elements, so it doesn’t just sit there like a lump that repels all comers.

Instead, its low and scattered profile seems fitting for a parliament that is supposed to represent the people rather than lord it over them.

And there is lots of repetition of detail that ties the whole building together.

You can see the repeat pattern near the windows in the photographs below. The pattern is supposed to echo the lecterns at which representatives speak. And I can see that acting as a reminder to MPs that their job is to take part – to speak and argue and agree.

Sketches Of Spain And Mexico

But the fact is that parts of the front are covered with wooden sticks about two inches thick that have nothing to do with Scottish architectural styles.

They reminded me instantly of a Mexican hut. In my mind’s eye I ‘saw’ a connection with the Catalan heritage of the architect. From there I quickly imagined Miralles on vacation as a teenager in the south of Spain or in Mexico, admiring the rough peasant huts with branches and twigs covering the verandahs out front.

Still, I don’t object to the idea of there being a connection with peasant huts because the parliament building is a building for representatives of the people to meet and discuss matters. Better that than something grand and superior.

If you detect my ambivalence, you are right. I like the building and at the same time I think the wooden sticks are faintly ridiculous. But I like the ridiculousness of it. It raises a smile and perks me up.

I could happily go to look at the building again. It is pleasant. Perhaps that is the bottom line.

In The Debating Chamber

The inside of the building gets my vote. The first thing I noticed is that the seats in the debating chamber are not arranged in two sets of opposing rows like in the House Of Commons in London. Instead the seats are arranged in a collective circle around the speaker.

Of course, the politics may be just as divisive and wasteful as Westminster politics, but the debating chamber, at least, does not encourage it.

Conclusion

So that is my take on the Parliament building. It attracts many visitors and there are free tours of the smaller committee rooms.

Tamara encouraged me to be as enthusiastic as she was to take the tour and I am glad we did. She was right – it’s a great way to see parts of the building that casual visitors are unlikely to see otherwise.

This is the rail bridge over the river Forth. On the southern shore, on the far side across the water in this photograph, is Edinburgh.

Note: You can find the ecard of this image in the Urban Landscapes category of Quillcards. Just head over there and then navigate to the images on page two of that category.

To the east (to the left of this photo) is the North Sea – just a few miles away.

There is a saying in Britain that something ‘is like painting the Forth Bridge’, which means that a task is a never ending.

The saying comes from the fact there is so much steel in the Forth Rail Bridge that the task of painting it is continuous and never ending.

The painters start at one end and by the time they get to the other end, the end where they started needs to be painted again.

There is even a 1930s British Pathe Film news item showing painters painting the bridge, with a voice-over describing how the work must go on (and on, and on).

A Modern Solution To An Old Saying

Time moves on, and now painters are halfway through painting the Forth Rail Bridge with a glass flake epoxy coating that will last for decades and put an end to the continuous painting efforts.

It is not just a matter of repainting. There were concerns that the thick glass flake epoxy wouldn’t stick unless the steel was sandblasted clean, and with over 50,000 tons of steel, six and one half million rivets, and a surface of two and one half million square feet (230,000m²) to cover, sandblasting would have taken rather a long time.

There were also concerns that the paint wouldn’t flex enough in the hostile weather conditions of the River Forth. The bridge twists and turns in the wind, and heats up and cools down during the day and night.

Leighs Paints who produce the new paint, set up a flex-bed to investigate whether the glass flake epoxy would stick and the result was that the paint held despite the flexing. Sandblasting was also found to be unnecessary and so the task of painting the bridge could get under way.

Six years later the painters are halfway through the task.

So it looks like it’s the death knell for ‘It’s like painting the Forth Bridge’.

Why There Is So Much Steel In The Forth Rail Bridge

The bridge was built not only to be strong but also to look strong.

That is because in 1879 – not many years before the Forth Rail Bridge was built – the bridge over the Firth of Tay near Dundee collapsed during a gale taking a train and its 75 passengers and crew to the river below.

The passengers and crew all died. However, the North British Railway Company (who owned the train and the Tay Bridge) eventually recovered the train from the depths and put it back to work.

I have this image in my mind of a barnacle-and-seaweed-encrusted engine blowing ghostly smoke from its stack and it makes its way in the dead of night over the new bridge over the river Tay.

A Public Outcry

The effect of the Tay Bridge disaster was that there was an outcry, and the public demanded that any new bridges be safe beyond question: Hence the amount of steel in the Forth Bridge.

Now looking up at the Forth Bridge from the northern shore, everything is quiet until a train comes through. Then the steel screeches and groans until the train suddenly appears high above, heading north.

Down below there is a small collection of houses and a public house, and this is a view of the bridge through the pub window.

It seems such a strong statement on the landscape, don’t you think, to have this view outside the window.

Up Close

Walking up a small road that overlooks the shore, the stanchions of the bridge are hidden and the girders seem like something from The War of The Worlds.

The Forth Road Bridge

In comparison, the road bridge a thousand yards upstream is a distant sliver of concrete that shoots across the Firth.

It’s far enough from the rail bridge that there is no traffic hum. It’s so strange. Just across the water is Edinburgh, but here it feels like a loop out of time, peaceful and slowed down.

The Firth Of Forth

A firth is the Scottish word for an estuary. It derives from the Norse word fjord, and geologically speaking the Firth Of Forth is a fjord.

It is tidal as far as Stirling, 30 miles, (50km) to the west, which accounts for the importance of the bridges across the Forth that save the westward deviation on the road north to Perth and beyond that to the Highlands.

The Firth Of Forth is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest and the islands in the firth are home to many tens of thousands of seabirds.

Bass Rock in the Firth is world famous for its colonies of gannets, puffins, guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, eider duck, peregrine falcons, and grey seals, with bottlenose dolphins sighted off the island.

It is for this reason that the Grangemouth oil refinery about 20 miles west of Edinburgh is so closely monitored. The refinery is operated by INEOS Group Limited and the last oil spill was in 2008.

Like with most of the world today, there is a ticking time bomb of technology behind the pleasant views across the Firth Of Forth.

Promenading In Regency Costumes

All this week the 2011 Jane Austen Festival has been celebrated in the city of Bath in Somerset, England.

Hundreds of Jane Austen fans and aficionados dressed in Regency costume kicked off the opening last weekend with a promenade through the streets of Bath.

It’s the 11th year that the festival has been held. It runs through tomorrow, and as always it has attracted Austen devotees from all over the world.

A Jane Austen Character In Bath

The quotation in this ecard – “It is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible” – comes from Jane Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey.

It is the novel’s protagonist Catherine Morland who is so advised during her first visit to Bath with family friends.

On The Street Where She Lived

The Jane Austen Centre organizes the Jane Austen Festival, and then all year ’round the center tells the story of the five years that Jane lived in the city and the effect that this experience had on her writing.

Located at No. 40 Gay Street, it’s similar in layout to No. 25 on the same street – which was the house where Jane lived for some months following her father’s death in 1805.

Jane’s Parents’ And Grandparents’ Connections With Bath

Bath is not a large city, and so it’s not that far from 25 Gay Street to the city’s Walcot area.

Walcot figures in Jane’s life because on April 26, 1764, Jane’s father George and her mother Cassandra were married at St. Swithin’s Church there.

Cassandra’s connection with the city was through her mother since her mother settled in Bath following the death of Cassandra’s father.

However, Jane’s parents did not stay in Bath after they got married because Jane’s father held the position of rector of the Anglican parishes in Steventon, Hampshire and a village near by. So Jane lived in Hampshire for the first 25 years of her life.

It was not until December 1800 that the family reacquainted themselves with Bath when it is reported that much to everyone’s surprise, George Austen announced as head of the household that he had decided to retire from the ministry, leave Steventon, and move the family to Bath.

More Associations With St. Swithin’s Church

Five years after he moved his family to the city, Jane’s father George died in Bath in 1805.

The reverend was buried in the southeast burial ground of St. Swithin’s, the same church in which he had been married more than four decades before.

St. Swithin’s is still a functioning church today. However, some time in the mid-18th century after the Austins got married, St. Swithin’s was rebuilt from its medieval state to something more roomy and contemporary.

Jane’s Visits To The Paragon In Bath

Jane was her parents’ seventh child. She had five older brothers, one younger brother, and one older sister.

Her sister was named Cassandra, and she was Jane’s closest friend. She also died unmarried like Jane.

Jane visited Bath before her father moved the family there in 1800 because Jane’s mother’s brother, James Leigh Perrot and his wife, had a house in the Paragon which is a street of beautiful and historic Georgian houses that still exists today.

Jane’s And Cassandra’s Travels From Hamphire to Somerset

During the time when James Leigh Perrot and his wife lived there, they did not have children and so they frequently invited their nieces Jane and Cassandra to visit them.

The Austen sisters would come up from the country parsonage of Steventon in Hampshire where the large Austen family lived, traveling about 65 miles (105 kms) to get to Bath.

About The Georgian Architecture That The Austen Sisters Saw

Through staying at their uncle’s residence in the Paragon and by walking around the city, Jane and Cassandra could see a lot of the Georgian architecture that still dominates the city today.

The King’s Circus In Bath

A beautiful example of Georgian architecture in Bath is the Circus, begun in 1754 and completed 14 years later in 1768:

Circus In Latin

The construction was given the name of ‘circus’ because in Latin it means a ring, oval, or circle, which is the striking shape of this structure.

It was originally called King’s Circus, though now it’s known simply as the Circus.

The Classical Facade

The Circus is divided into three segments of equal length, and in the center is a large grassed area with trees surrounded by wrought iron railings.

In keeping with Georgian architecture’s aim, each of the curved parts faces on to the three entrances – which means that all visitors see a classical facade straight ahead, whichever way they enter.

‘Famously Scarce’ Information About Jane

As one biographer put it, getting solid biographical information about Jane Austen is “famously scarce.”

This is because it is estimated that out of 3,000 letters written by Austen, only about 160 are known to have survived.

Most of the letters were originally addressed to her sister who it is said later burned “the greater part” of the ones she kept.

Cassandra then censored those she did not destroy.

There were other letters that were destroyed by the heirs of one of her brothers, Admiral Francis Austen.

Other biographical material produced in the 50 years after Jane’s death was written by her relatives. It is said to reflect the family’s preference to portray the author as “good quiet Aunt Jane.”

Jane’s Impressions Of Bath, From The Weighty To The Light

We do know some of the impressions Jane had of Bath, taken from her surviving letters and from two novels set in Bath, namely Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.

Writing in Northanger Abbey and featuring several of her characters, Jane wrote this about Beechen Cliff:

“That noble hill whose beautiful verdure and hanging coppice render it so striking an object from almost every opening in Bath.”

“The Tilneys were viewing the country with the eyes of persons accustomed to drawing; and decided on its capability of being formed into pictures, with all the eagerness of real taste… In the present instance Catherine confessed and lamented her want of knowledge, declared that she would give anything in the world to be able to draw;… He talked of foregrounds, distances and second distances; side screens and perspectives; lights and shades; and Catherine was so hopeful a scholar that when they gained the top of Beechen Cliff she voluntarily rejected the whole city of Bath as unworthy to make part of a landscape.”

Writing about buying fabric in Bath Street in a letter in June 1799, Jane wrote:

“I saw some gauzes in a shop in Bath Street yesterday at only 4s. a yard, but they were not so good or so pretty as mine.”

Writing in a letter in January 1801 about her mother’s search for a suitable house in Bath, Jane wrote this about Chapel Row:

“But above all others, her wishes are at present fixed on the corner house in Chapel Row, which opens into Prince’s Street. Her Knowledge of it however is confined only to the outside, and therefore she is equally uncertain of its being really desirable as of its being to be had.”

Writing about Gay Street in a letter in January 1801 on the search for a house, Jane wrote:

Gay Street would be too high, except only the lower house on the left hand side as you ascend; towards that my Mother has no disinclination; it used to be lower rented than any other house in the row, from some inferiority in the apartments.”

Writing about Gay Street in Persuasion, Jane wrote:

“The Crofts had placed themselves in lodgings in Gay Street perfectly to Sir Walter’s satisfaction. He was not at all ashamed of the acquaintance.”

Writing about the Pump Room in Northanger Abbey, Jane wrote:

“Every morning now brought its regular duties… the Pump Room to be attended, where they paraded up and down for an hour.”

Later in the book she writes how the Thorpes and Allens stayed:

“…long enough in the Pump Room to discover that the crowd was insupportable, and that there was not a genteel face to be seen.”

In Persuasion, Jane also wrote,

“In the Pump Room one so newly arrived in Bath must be met with.”

Writing about the Axford buildings which are now a continuation of the Paragon, Jane wrote this about her aunt in a letter in January 1801:

“We know that Mrs Perrot will want to get us into Axford Buildings, but we all unite in particular dislike of that part of the Town, and therefore hope to escape.”

Writing about Walcot Church in a letter in June 1799, Jane wrote:

“My Aunt has told me of a very cheap shop near Walcot Church [for hat trimmings] to which I shall go in search of something for you.”

Writing about her father’s funeral to take place in Walcot Church, Jane wrote simply in a letter in January 1805:

“The funeral is to be on Saturday at Walcot Church.”

Writing about Sydney Gardens in a letter in May 1799, Jane wrote:

“There is a public breakfast in Sydney Gardens every morning, so that we shall not be wholly starved.”

Writing about Sydney Gardens again in a letter in June 1799, Jane wrote:

“There is to be a grand gala on Tuesday evening in Sydney Gardens; a Concert, with illuminations and fireworks; to the latter Eliz. & I look forward with pleasure, & even the Concert will have more than its usual charm with me, as the gardens are large enough for me to get pretty well beyond the reach of its sound.”

Writing in a letter in May 1801 about the Upper Rooms now known as the Assembly Rooms, Jane wrote:

“By nine o’clock my Uncle, Aunt and I entered the rooms & linked Miss Winstone on to us. Before tea, it was rather a dull affair; but then the before tea did not last long, for there was only one dance, danced by four couples. Think of four couples, surrounded by about an hundred people, dancing in the upper rooms at Bath! After tea we cheered up; the breaking up of private parties sent some scores more to the Ball, & tho’ it was shockingly & inhumanly thin for this place, there were people enough I suppose to have made five or six very pretty Basingstoke assemblies.”

Writing about the main theatre in the city in Persuasion, Jane wrote:

“The theatre, or the Rooms, where he [Captain Wentworth] was most likely to be, were not fashionable enough for the Elliots, whose evening amusements were solely in the elegant stupidity of private parties.”

Writing in Northanger Abbey about her characters the Allens and the Thorpes at the Royal Crescent (then known simply as the Crescent), Jane wrote that they:

“… hastened away to the Crescent, to breathe the fresh air of better company.”

Writing in a letter in May 1801 about coming into Bath with the evening sun in her eyes, Jane wrote:

“The first view of Bath in fine weather does not answer my expectations; I think I see more distinctly through rain. The sun was got behind everything, and the appearance of the place from the top of Kingsdown was all vapour, shadow, smoke and confusion.”

In Northanger Abbey, Jane’s characters Henry Tilney and Catherine discuss Bath when Henry tries to disillusion Catherine as follows:

“Bath, compared with London, has little variety, and so everybody finds out every year. For six weeks I allow Bath is pleasant enough; but beyond that, it is the most tiresome place in the world. You would be told so by people of all descriptions, who come regularly every winter, lengthen their six weeks into ten or twelve, and go away at last because they can afford to stay no longer.”

Jane’s character Isabella Thorpe in the same novel expresses it more dramatically:

“Do you know I get so immoderately sick of Bath, your brother and I were agreeing this morning that, though it is vastly well to be here for a few weeks, we would not live here for millions.”

Lastly, it is believed that in her novel Persuasion, Jane’s character Anne Elliot may be thought to express Jane’s own opinion about Bath:

“Anne disliked Bath, and did not think it agreed with her.”

[Anne] “dreaded the possible heats of September, in all the white glare of Bath.”

However, Jane brought in the positive side of Bath too. This can be seen through her character Admiral Croft in her novel Persuasion who asserted heartily that Bath met his requirements very well:

“We are always meeting with some old friend or other; the streets full of them every morning; sure to have plenty of chat.”

City Mouse, Country Mouse

As well as the hustle and bustle of the city, Jane and her characters often showed a great love of the outdoors and nature, as shown by the quote in this Quillcard that appeared in her novel Mansfield Park:

Showing the author’s love of the great outdoors, Jane asserts through her novel that “they are much to be pitied who have not been… given a taste for nature early in life.”