Falkland Palace

Last day of my week off, so G and I decided to get out and visit a castle.  Actually, we headed into the Kingdom of Fife to the wee village of Falkland, where Falkland Palace stands amongst its beautiful gardens.

I'm not going to bore you with all the history, but the potted version is that it was built in the 1500's for James the IVth of Scotland , who was father of Mary Queen of Scots.  It was purely for pleasure; the Scottish court would decamp en-masse to a series of Scottish castles and palaces, from where they would hunt, fish, and play games all summer long.  It was kind of like Balmoral is today. 

Part of it was burned when Oliver Cromwell and his band of kill-joys were in town after Charles 1st had his head chopped off.  There is always a 'Keeper' of the Palace, whose job it is to keep it in good repair until the next time the Monarch comes to visit.  Back in the 1800's the Keeper was a good guy (well, I suppose it is all relative) with a passion for restoring ruined castles, and he put a huge amount of money and effort into renovating as much as possible. 

In the 1950's, the Keeper and his family actually moved into the Palace, and made some contemporary changes to allow them to live comfortably.  It's a bit disconcerting to be standing in a chamber with a 400-year old bed, and a built-in dressing table, covered in pink frilly chintz!

Anyway, you are not allowed to take pictures inside this National Trust curated building, but when you are outside in the glorious gardens you can snap away to your hearts content.  Personally, I found the outside much more pleasant than the inside, where we were basically ambushed and talked at!

My thing with historic buildings is to get the feel of the place by myself, and then to really connect with the fact that I am walking on the same floors as real people did hundreds of years before.

Anyway, the gardens were amazing (although I wouldn't like to be the one to have to weed those very long borders!), and there were some gorgeous planting schemes. 

I particularly liked the walled garden around the ponds, which were surrounded by Flagstaff Iris'.  And the enormous white framed glasshouses, where Pelargonium of every kind and colour were growing, and being potted up for the summer bedding I suppose.  There was even an enormous Brugmansia, such as we have seen growing in gardens in Greece, with its huge downward hanging trumpets of flowers pumping out the most amazingly power scent. 

But sweetest and simplest of all were the flowers on the Chives in the herb garden, where bees busied themselves as they must always have done, while all around we humans were enjoying ourselves. 

Lovely day out. 

So sorry I'm back to work tomorrow - I think I have somehow slipped into retirement mode this last week, and I know now that I like it fine!