The Amazing Loch Lomond

Many of us live in cities with all the crowds, stress, noise and dirt in the environment. Most probably we have not often come across nature, searched for it or even be one with it. But there is this marvelous place in central Scotland that will surely blow you away; a dream place for those wanting to escape from a boring and almost monotonous pace of city life.

With exuding natural beauty of a 24-mile-long freshwater lake interspersed with picturesque islands, diverse landscapes and medieval castles, all these existing components makes up the lovable loch that we call, the Loch Lomond.

Loch Lomond is a freshwater Scottish “loch” lying on the Highland Boundary Fault, the boundary between the lowlands and highlands of Central Scotland. Measuring 27 and a half square miles, it is the largest single inland waterway in Great Britain (by surface area), the second largest lake in Scotland and most probably the most famous lake after Loch Ness. It is now part of the Loch Lomond & the Trossachs National Park, Scotland's first national park and most spectacular visitor destination. The loch has 30 or more other islands, some so small that they disappear when the water levels are high, and others large enough to be (sparsely) inhabited. One of the loch's islands, Inchmurrin is the largest island in the British Isles, while Inchconnachan island is home to a colony of wallaby (marsupial), its young is known as “joey” just like many other marsupials.

The very name Loch Lomond depicts nothing but nature in perfection. The main tourist focus is on the western shore, around Balloch. This is the place to head for boat trips and home of the Maid of the Loch, an authentic paddle steamer and utterly unique venue for events and functions. Further, development is attracting large numbers of visitor like the this magnificent addition to the area, the Mull Railway, which will link Balloch and Loch Lomond Shores. Also on the western side are the villages of Arden, Tarbet and most northerly, Adlui. Arden boasts Scotland's most beautiful Youth Hostel. The most picturesque of the loch's villages is Luss on the west bank. Its streets are laid out in a linear pattern and were originally part of the planned estate village built by the Colquhouns. Recently restored, they present a pretty sight.

The loch is one of the country's premier boating and water sports venues. It is open to every kind of watercraft including kayaks, canoes, wind-surfers, jet skis, speedboats and cruisers. Having said all these, Loch Lomond presents the perfect retreat for the young, the old, the busy people who deserve to enjoy or get a life!

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Best War Films: "BRAVEHEART"

BRAVEHEART

 Mel Gibson fights for the independence of Scotland from English rule

A stupendous historical saga, Braveheart won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for star Mel Gibson.

He plays William Wallace, a 13th-century Scottish commoner who unites the various clans against a cruel English King, Edward the Longshanks (Patrick McGoohan). The scenes of hand-to-hand combat are brutally violent, but they never glorify the bloodshed.

There is such enormous scope to this story that it works on a smaller, more personal scale as well, essaying love and loss, patriotism and passion. Extremely moving, it reveals Gibson as a multitalented performer and remarkable director with an eye for detail and an understanding of human emotion. (His first directorial effort was 1993's Man Without a Face.)

The film is nearly three hours long and includes several plot tangents, yet is never dull. This movie resonates long after you have seen it, both for its visual beauty and for its powerful story.

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Edinburgh: Empress Of The North

The capital city of Scotland, Edinburgh, is the country's second largest city and the 7th largest city in the United Kingdom. Resting in the south-east of Scotland, Edinburgh has a rugged setting with a collection of many Medieval and Georgian style architecture. It is one of the most picturesque cities in Europe. No wonder it constantly brings about a million of travelers every year.

People visit Edinburgh, basically, to see the ancient stone tenements dating back from the medieval times and to see and celebrate Edinburgh Festival. The city holds a collection of official and independent festivals in August and early September each year. There are about ten major festivals in Edinburgh including Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh Fringe, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival, Edinburgh International Television Festival, Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival, Edinburgh People's Festival, Edinburgh Art Festival, Edinburgh International Internet Festival, and iFest.

Not just celebrations, Edinburgh also has a number of famous landmarks and notable infrastructures: the iconic Forth Railway Bridge that connects Edinburgh to eastern Scotland; the Edinburgh Castle which stands on the basalt plug of Castle Rock, dominating the skyline of the city; the Crown Square, the citadel iat the top of the castle; Edinburgh Zoo and some of the many museums including the Museum of Scotland and the Royal Museum are the major sights in this historically elegant city.

Edinburgh is proud to be the home of many well-known authors, philosophers and visionary namely David Hume, one of the pioneers of the philosophy of Empiricism; Adam Smith, the father of Economics and of course, one of today's most sought after authors, J K Rowling of the Harry Potter series. I bet you Harry Potter fans out there, know now why the setting of the fiction novel is likely Scottish!

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The BSA and the Ben Nevis Observatory

The £500 Government Grant to the BSA accounted for more than a quarter of the School's income for the period 1894-1918. However it did not meet with approval in a letter to The Scotsman (5 October 1904). The correspondent was making a complaint to MPs from Scotland over the lack for funding for the Ben Nevis Observatory.

Interestingly the BSA funding was on a par (in 1904) with the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland. The Scottish Meteorological Society was awarded ('a miserable') £100, and the correspondent added:

Even the British School at Athens has a grant of £500 per annum, but a similar sum could not be spared for the Ben Nevis Observatory!

However by this period several students from Scotland had been admitted as Students.

The letter closed with this parting shot:

It is evident that for Government grants only English and Irish need apply.

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BSA Students and Clerical Family Backgrounds

It is striking how many students (about one sixth) admitted to the BSA up to the First World War were sons and daughters of clerical families. Several students were later ordained members of the Church of England, or served as ministers in Scotland.

Church of England

• Thomas Dinham Atkinson, son of the Rev. George Barnes Atkinson (d. 1917), Rector of Swanington, Norfolk, and schoolmaster in Sheffield.
• Edward Frederic Benson, son of the Rev. Edward White Benson (1829-96), headmaster of Wellington College, and later Archbishop of Canterbury (1883-96).
  
• Alexander Cradock Bolney Brown, son of the Rev. George Bolney Brown (1850-1931), Rector of Aston-by-Stone, Staffs.
• John Winter Crowfoot, son of the Rev. John Henchman Crowfoot.
• David George Hogarth, son of the Rev. George Hogarth (1827-1902), vicar of Barton-on-Humber.
  
• Charles Cuthbert Inge, son of the Rev. William Inge, DD., Provost of Worcester College.
• Montague Rhodes James, son of the Rev. Herbert James (1822-1909), Rector of Livermere, Suffolk.
• Henry Stuart-Jones, son of the Rev. Henry William Jones (1834-1909) Henry William Jones (1834–1909), Vicar of St Andrew's Church, Ramsbottom, Lancashire.
• John Cuthbert Lawson, son of the Rev. Robert Lawson (d. 1909), Rector of Camerton.
• William Loring, son of the Rev. Edward Henry Loring (1823-79), Rector of Gillingham, Norfolk.
• Robert John Grote Mayor, son of the Rev. Joseph Bickersteth Mayor (1828-1916), of Queen's Gate House, Kingston-on-Thames, Surrey; schoolmaster, headmaster and university professor.
  
• John Linton Myres, son of the Rev. William Miles Myres (d. 1901), Vicar of St Paul’s Preston.
• Oswald Hutton Parry, son of the Rev. Edward St John Parry; in 1891, private school master in Stoke Poges, Bucks.
• John Ff. Baker Penoyre, son of the Rev. Slade Baker Stallard-Penoyre.
• Edward Ernest Sikes, son of the Rev. Thomas Burr Sikes (St John's College, Oxford, 1849), Vicar of Burstow, Surrey.
• John Laurence Stokes, son of the Rev. Augustus Sidney Stokes (1846-1922), Vicar of Elm, Cambs.
• Erwin Wentworth Webster, son of the Rev. Wentworth Webster (1829-1907), Anglican chaplain at St Jean-de-Luz, Basses-Pyrénées.
  
• Hercules Henry West, son of the Very Rev. John West, Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
• Rev. William Ainger Wigram, son of the Rev. Woolmore Wigram (1831-1907), Vicar of Brent Pelham with Furneaux Pelham, Hertfordshire.
  
• Arthur Maurice Woodward, son of the Rev. W.H. Woodward.
  

Ministers in Scotland

• John G.C. Anderson, son of the Rev. Alexander Anderson, from Morayshire.
• Mary Hamilton, daughter of the Rev. William Hamilton, minister of Trinity Congregational Church, Dundee.
• Elizabeth Hilda Lockhart Lorimer, daughter of the Rev. Robert Lorimer (1840–1925), minister of the Free Church of Scotland at Mains and Strathmartine, Forfarshire.
  

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Mary Hamilton and the BSA

Mary Hamilton (1881-1962) was educated at St Andrews. Her father, Rev. William Hamilton, was the minister of the Trinity Evangelical Union Church in Dundee. (The church had been opened by James Morison [1816-93], founder of the Evangelical Union, in December 1877.) She held a fellowship from the Carnegie Trust (working on incubation) and was subsequently admitted to the BSA for the sessions 1905/06 and 1906/07. In Athens she met Guy Dickins (1881-1916) and they were married, c. 1909. Mary continued to use the address of her parents in Dundee.

Dickins was appointed lecturer in classical archaeology at Oxford in 1914 and they moved to 12 Holywell Street. Dickins was commissioned in November 1914 (Kings Royal Rifle Corps) and served in France; he died of wounds received on the Somme in 1916. Mary continued living at Holywell Street until 1917 when she moved to Bevington Road in Oxford. In 1925 she returned to Scotland, Callendar in Perthshire. She subsequently married Lacey Davis Caskey (1880-1944), curator of Classical Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and her contemporary in Athens at the American School (ASCSA); they lived in Wellesley, Mass.

Mary returned to Callendar in 1950.

Bibliography
Hamilton, M. 1906. Incubation, or, the cure of disease in pagan temples and Christian churches. London: W.C. Henderson & Son.
—. 1906/7. "The pagan element in the names of saints." Annual of the British School at Athens 13: 348–56.
—. 1910. Greek saints and their festivals. London: W. Blackwood & Sons.

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BSA Students and St Andrews

Only a small proportion of students admitted to the BSA had studied in Scotland. There was a single student from St Andrews. Mary Hamilton, originally from Dundee, graduated from St Andrews in Classics in 1902, and subsequently held a Research Fellowship under the Carnegie Trust (1903/04). This resulted in her study of Incubation, or, the cure of disease in pagan temples and Christian churches (1906) [WorldCat]. She was formally admitted as a student to the BSA in 1905/06 and 1906/07; in 1905 she was also admitted to the British School at Rome.

Three former students of the BSA were lecturers in St Andrews:

• William John Woodhouse (1866-1937) was lecturer in Ancient History and Political Philosophy (1900). He had been admitted as a student at the BSA in 1889/90 and had subsequently been an assistant lecturer at Bangor (1896-99). In 1901 he moved to Sydney to be professor of Greek.
• Adolph Paul Oppé (1878-1957) was a lecturer in Greek from 1902 immediately after his year in Athens (1901/02). In 1904 he was appointed lecturer in Ancient History at Edinburgh.
• Alan John Bayard Wace (1879-1957) was appointed lecturer in Ancient History and Archaeology (1912-14) after a long-period as a student in Athens (first admitted 1902/03) and librarian for the British School at Rome (1905/06). He left St Andrews to become director of the BSA.
  

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Scotland and the BSA

Apart from Oxford and Cambridge, one of the main groups admitted to the BSA in the period up to 1914 consisted of students from Scotland. A key influence was (Sir) William Ramsay (1851-1939), a graduate of the university of Aberdeen, who continued his studies at St John’s College, Oxford. Ramsay had travelled widely in Asia Minor and was elected a research fellow at Exeter College in 1882. He was subsequently appointed to the Lincoln and Merton Chair of Classical Archaeology at Oxford in 1885, before moving back to Aberdeen in 1886 where he was Regius professor of humanity.

At least three of Ramsay’s students completed their studies at Aberdeen and then continued their studies in England.

• John G.C. Anderson, son of the Revd Alexander Anderson, from Morayshire. On completing his studies in Aberdeen Anderson went to Christ Church as an exhibitioner (1891-96) aged 20, and then out to the BSA as Craven University Fellow. He was involved with the publication of epigraphic material from the School’s excavation at Kynosarges, and then travelled in Anatolia making a special study of Phrygia. One of Anderson’s achievements was the plotting of a map of Asia Minor.
• William Moir Calder, the son of a farmer. He went to Robert Gordon College, Aberdeen (1894-99), then Aberdeen University, where he obtained a 1st class in Classics (1903). Like Anderson he was admitted to Christ Church as an Exhibitioner (1903), aged 22. On completing his studies in 1907, he was admitted first to the British School at Rome under Thomas Ashby. Like Anderson he had an expertise in epigraphy.
• Margaret Masson Hardie, the daughter of a farmer from Chapelton, Drumblade near Elgin. She had been educated at Elgin Academy before moving to Aberdeen University where she obtained a 1st class in classics. She then continued her studies at Newnham College, obtaining a first in classics. She was admitted to the BSA in 1911/12 and assisted with Ramsay's epigraphic survey of the sanctuary of Men Askaenos at the Roman colony of Pisidian Antioch.

This pattern of continuing studies in England is found for students from Glasgow and Dundee. Two of the BSA students had previously studied at Glasgow.

• James George Frazer had studied at Larchfield Academy, Helensburgh, and then at the University of Glasgow (1869-74). Among the influences there was George Gilbert Ramsay, professor of humanity (1863-1906), who had been educated at Trinity College, Oxford. At the age of 20 Frazer went to Trinity College, Cambridge (1874-78) where he obtained a 1st class in the Classical Tripos (1878). Frazer was admitted to the BSA as a mature student to work on Pausanias.
• One of G.G. Ramsay’s other pupils was Campbell Cowan Edgar, from Tongland, Kirkubrightshire. He was educated at Ayr Academy, then Glasgow University (1887-91). For part of this time Edgar studied under (Sir) Richard Claverhouse Jebb (1875-89) and Gilbert Murray (1889-99), consecutive holders of the chair of Greek at Glasgow. After Glasgow, Edgar became Bible Clerk at Oriel College (1891), at the age of 20, continuing his study of classics (1891-95). The award of a Craven Fellowship allowed him to study in Athens where he gained archaeological experience at Kynosarges and on Melos. His contemporary at Oxford and in Athens was Anderson. Edgar worked with David Hogarth at Naukratis and shortly afterwards joined the catalogue commission in Cairo.

Other students from Scotland included:

• Hilda Lorimer, the daughter of Revd Robert Lorimer, was educated at Dundee High School at the University College, Dundee (1889-93) where she obtained a 1st class in classics. At the age of 20 she obtained a scholarship to continue her studies at Girton College, Cambridge, obtaining a first class in 1896. She was admitted to the School as Pfeiffer Travelling Student (1901-02) and was able to work with W. Dörpfeld of the German School.
• Duncan Mackenzie, who had studied in Edinburgh (1882-90), chose to study on continental Europe. He completed a doctorial thesis on Lycian sculpture from the University of Vienna (1895). His experience of continental archaeological training soon put him to good use in the BSA excavations on Melos, and then with Evans at Knossos.

Few students from Scotland were admitted directly from Scotland. During the session 1894/95 two theology students from Aberdeen went sent out:

• John Garrow Duncan, from Aberdeen, by the Church of Scotland.
• A.F. Findlay, by the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

Both worked specifically at modern Greek. Duncan became interest in Egyptian antiquities and worked with Petrie in Egypt and Palestine. Findlay worked specifically on the account of Paul at Athens in the Acts of the Apostles.

In 1895 there was a concerted move to improve the financial situation of the BSA. The appeal to the treasury was supported by academics from several universities in Scotland: St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. This seems to have encouraged the admission of a number of students direct from Scotland.

• Archibald Paterson, an Edinburgh graduate, who went to Athens 1895/96, to work on Christian antiquities.
• W.W. Reid was a student of Ramsay in Aberdeen. Reid was admitted to the BSA on a Blackie Travelling Studentship (1896-97). He travelled through Asia Minor and Cyprus. He was later ordained a minister in the Church of Scotland.
• William Alexander Curtis, who had studied theology at Edinburgh, went to Athens at the age of 21 (1897-98), and was later to become a colleague of Ramsay at Aberdeen as professor of systematic theology (1903-15) before returning to Edinburgh.
• Mary Hamilton, a graduate of the University of St Andrews, was admitted to the BSA as a holder of a Research Fellowship under the Carnegie Trust (1905-06, 1906-07). She worked at the interface of theology and the classical world, in particular the custom of incubation.
• John Arnott Hamilton, an ordained minister and Edinburgh graduate, was admitted to the BSA at a mature student (1913-14). He had a long-standing interest in church architecture, and went out to Athens as a holder of the Blackie Scholarship to study Byzantine architecture completing a work on the church at Kaisariani.

Two former students of architecture at the Glasgow School of Art were admitted:

• David Theodore Fyfe (1899/1900), who became architect to the excavations at Knossos.
  
• Frank G. Orr (1905/06).

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