The Greatest Bliss

You may remember that back in June I was one of the Guest Designers on the Artful Adventures, Stroll through the Hood project, initiated by Nathalie Kalbach to celebrate the publication of her book with the same name. There was a step-by-step tutorial from me for this project on her site but I wasn't able to share a picture of the entire page then. Enough time has passed to enable me to share it with you now.

For the Stroll we were given prompts and we could interpret them any way we wanted in photographs. I chose the Penicuik Estate for my "hood". The estate surrounds Penicuik House.  The house dates from the 1760s but sadly burned down in 1899 and only the walls were left standing. There was no money to restore the house and it remained in a ruined and dangerous state till 2007 when the Penicuik House Preservation Trust took on the huge project of stabilizing the house which is now finished. The Trust then started on a long term (till 2035) plan to restore the various built structures within the landscape of the estate.  One such structure is the Chinese Gates, as seen above, dating from 1758. These have now been fully restored as close as possible to the original structure. 

You come to the Gates from the Lime Walk extending from the side of the house and when you look into the far distance you see the Allan Ramsay Monument, erected in 1759 by Sir James Clerk, 3^rd Baronet of Penicuik, in commemoration of the Scottish poet Allan Ramsay (1684-1758). He has been called one of Scotland’s most important literary figures and is now mainly known as the author of Scotland’s first folk opera The Gentle Shepherd, set in the countryside around the nearby village of Carlops, that also has a lovely pub named after him.  The Gates and Monument were simply perfect for the prompts Fence, Sky, Sign, Pattern, View, Boundary, and especially Geometric which was the prompt on the day I posted my project  

 I used the L457 Santiago stencil designed by Nathalie Kalbach for Stencilgirl Products in the background and the L456 Buenos Aires one for the Monument. This last paper was done on a gelli plate and then cut to shape.

For the gates itself I used the Chicago art foamie, also designed by Nathalie and in the background I stamped with her Kaffee Klatsch rubber stamp set. Of course I had to include my constant strolling companion, the lovely Miss Flora. She was printed out to size from my computer. I used a quotation from Allan Ramsay himself to finish off the page.

I had a lot of fun making this project and in fact with the entire Stroll through the Hood. It helped me to pay even more attention to my surroundings and I have been keeping that up ever since.

Allan Ramsay Monument

 After climbing up to the opposite bank of the North Esk River in the Penicuik Estate yesterday there seemed no better way to keep those muscles lubricated than doing it all over again today. And this time we made it all the way to the Allan Ramsay monument. Hurray! I had hoped to do this during the Artful Adventures, Stroll through the Hood event but somehow that had not happened although I did feature it in some of the photographs. Although it looks a good day it was very windy but that meant it was also cooler and thus better for the exercise. It was great to finally make it up and I managed to make my way through the knee high weeds, fortunately with (hardly) any nettles, over a stile (Flora had to be lifted over as she wasn't keen on being left behind) to right underneath this impressive stone structure. It's on the long term 2015 2035 plan to be restored by the Penicuik Preservation Trust.

The views were stunning and very much worth the effort! I had brought the big camera today and so happy I did. Yes, I had to lug it around but the pictures paid off in dividends. There would have been no way for the phone to capture all this far away detail.

Inside the arch there are Latin inscriptions on both sides, describing that this monument was erected in honour of the Scottish poet Allan Ramsay by James Clerk of Penicuik House. Allan Ramsay was a frequent visitor to the house.

On the picture below you can see the Chinese Gates, the Lime Walk and the southern facade of the house, all of which are in a direct line from the Monument. You can see the tower of the stable block where the Clerk family still lives, as well as the Pentland Hills in the distance. It also gives you some idea of how high up we were on the Cauldshoulders Ridge

We had the entire ridge to ourselves apart from one horse rider. I envied her the magnificent ride but doing it on foot was also very rewarding.