#larbert

April 27th 1794 saw the death of James Bruce, the  explorer at Larbert.

At six feet four inches in height, James Bruce was an impressive figure. An explorer, archaeologist and brilliant linguist, he travelled across North Africa, Crete, Syria, Egypt and Ethiopia He is best known for his exploration of the sources of the Nile, reaching the headstream of the Blue Nile in 1770.

Some historians believe that Bruce, while being recognised for finding the source of the Nile, he was actually in Africa on a secret personal mission to Ethiopia to locate a sacred religious relic, the Ark of the Covenant.

The explorer apparently charmed and gifted his way through a land usually hostile to foreigners. On his black horse Mizra, Persian for ‘scholar’,  he trekked across treacherous terrain and Ethiopia’s flat-topped mountains. He brought a telescope so large it required six men to carry it.

Bruce arrived at Ethiopia’s imperial capital Gondar during a smallpox epidemic. His knowledge of medicine gained him entry to the court – where he would remain for almost a year.

James Bruce had relationships with many women in Ethiopia, including the Princess Esther. He later described this period as “one of the happiest moments of my life”.

At court, Bruce boasted of his own lineage, declaring:

“My ancestors were the kings of the country in which I was born, and to be ranked among the greatest and most glorious that ever bore the title of king.”

This was not just him boasting, his family were indeed descendants to King Robert. 

On returning to London Bruce’s tales of Ethiopia, recounted at dinner parties and gossiped about in letters, were met with disbelief. He became a figure of ridicule, mocked by contemporaries such as Samuel Johnson and James Boswell. Ultimately, he would be laughed out of London.

There were, perhaps, ulterior motives for Bruce’s rejection by ‘polite’ society. In her book Plotting To Stop the British Slave Trade: James Bruce and His Secret Mission to Africa, Jane Aptekar Reeve reveals that Bruce belonged to a secret network of British slave trade abolitionists.

The Scottish cartoonist Issac Cruikshank made James Bruce a caricature, depicting his story of the “Abyssinian Breakfast”, in disbelief of Bruce’s claims that Ethiopians took live cuts of meat from cattle. This was later proven to be true, as indeed were his other stories that saw him ridiculed.

For a man who must have been in grave dangers during his adventures in Africa, he had an inglorious death, he fell down some stairs in 1793 and died at his home in Kinnaird, and is buried in a graveyard I visit now and them at Larbert Old churchyard near Falkirk.

Pics are of the cartoon I mentioned, and his rather unusual memorial at Larbert, which I read last year id due to be restored soon, hopefully. 

Tappoch Broch, Tor Wood.

The Blue Pool, Torwood.

This mysterious pool has been on my radar for a while and is part of my charity steps challenge for Maggie’s Cancer Centres, the total steps today are 28,362, which equates to about 22.3 km or almost 14 miles. My running total is 253,791, about 86 miles.

20-feet in diameter and filled with a varying level of what was once, surprisingly blue water, the colour has changed over the years to more of, what I would describe as turquoise. 

The most likely origin of the pool is that it was an open air shaft leading to a mine that had been covered, although alternate theories such as it being used as an industrial dye vat were also proposed.

The last time I tried to find this there was nobody else around to ask, but lockdown means everyone is a walker, I asked a few folk in passing and found it quite easily.

The path is uneven, muddy, and at times, I popped over the small wall that runs for most of the track and found a way along without having to get stuck in the mud, I eventually found a clearing over the wall, but was still not sure if this was it as the pool is not visible from the track. I saw two lassies lying a distance away and thought that it must be what I was looking for.

I spoke to the lassies and they said it was drinkable, I laughed and one went over and cupped some water in her hands and started drinking it, they said had been visiting it for years and drunk it many times. I gave it a try and it is very drinkable, no real tastes, just normal good Scottish water!  It's not one of those supposed bottomless pools and bottoms out at about 12 foot.

Tappoch Broch.

Tappoch broch occupies the summit of a rocky knoll in the middle of Tor Wood. It is surrounded by a pair of concentric banks which would originally have been boulder-faced walls with rubble cores.

When the site was first excavated in 1864 it took the form of a large mound, and the excavators – led by Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Dundas of Carron Hall and nearby Torwood Castle – removed around 200 tons of boulders and other material from the centre of the broch, exposing the original natural rock surface floor. 

They also opened up the entrance on the south-east side, which is around 0.8m wide and has a heavy stone lintel above it, the pictures show the approach I made from the south and into the broch itself.

Inside the broch, the inner walls have several small chambers built into them, possibly for storage. To the south, just to the left of the entrance as you enter, is a doorway which gives access to an intra-mural staircase, pics of which I will post tomorrow. 

The staircase would originally have led to either intra-mural chambers or an upper level, but climbing it today just takes you onto the top of the walls that remain, and give you a view down into the broch as you see in my last pic.

 The central courtyard/room had a rock floor with a large hearth in the middle.  Finds included saddle and rotary querns, two hollowed pebbles, a stone cup, stone balls and spindle whorls.

The dates differ widely in articles I have looked at, some say between 2BC to 2 AD, but one source says it could be as early as 500 BC, which I am more inclined to go for,  this is because there was little or no signs of the Romans in any of the excavations carried out. 

It’s a fascinating place and although I couldn’t locate it on a previous visit in 2017, but my  focus then was Torwood Castle and I got totally caught up with that, by the time I had finished there the light was fading as I entered the woods, it was January and if I had wasted any more time it would have been pitch black in no time.