Wizards Used to Live Here

This week's Saturday Adventure took place on Sunday instead!  After last weekend's inter-city trip to Glasgow, we thought we'd do something a little closer to home.  Thus, we headed off to Lauriston Castle which was a rather recent addition to my master To-Do List for Edinburgh. It took us awhile to figure out how to get out to Lauriston, as it is quite a ways away from the city center.  But, an hour later, we ended up close enough to at least walk to our destination!  I've mentioned before how crazy it is to me that I can board a city bus, be on it for half an hour, and feel like I'm in the middle of nowhere.  For those of you who know me well, and assume that I am using hyperbole to make my point about the city feeling small, I challenge you to look one of the sheep we saw upon getting off the bus in the eye and say that!!!  Seriously...field of sheep.

So, after we walk around that, we find the entrance to the castle, which is, appropriately, guarded by two Sphinx statues.  Well, more accurately, just one because the other's head was off, but thanks to Alyssa, we remedied that grievous error.

 
Before and After

The castle grounds were spectacular and I get frustrated trying to describe how strong the sense of history is in the places I go.  Once you step foot into the grounds of Lauriston, you are immediately swept up in the fantasy of living hundreds of years ago.  The house (because it's actually a fortified house and not a castle - though the pictures beg to differ. I mean...turrets. Nuff said) was built in the 16th century and has had over 30 different owners over the years.  The original owners, however, were my favorites immediately because they were brave astrologers and astronomers.  They loved the stars and math and all that stuff which just SCREAMS witchcraft.  So the townspeople thought they were wizards.  The little plaques shown below prove as much.  The darker one was a horoscope stone, showing what the constellations would've looked like at the time of the birth of the eldest son.  The lighter beige plaque was added by the new owners to affirm their belief in god and is actually an annagram of their names rearranged to say something akin to "Whoop Whoop! We love the lord. There ain't no wizards here!" Or something more elegant...but you get the point.

 
 

What makes Lauriston rather unique in terms of other "castles" we've been to so far, is that the inside has been preserved and is actually a museum now.  The last owners, who passed away in 1926, left the house and grounds to Scotland, ensuring that it would continue on and teach us commoners of the future what it was like to live back then.  So, the interior is all done in Edwardian style and the Reid's, the final owners, appear to be total ballers.  The husband was an interior designer and furniture maker while the wife came from a family of sanitation engineers, resulting in some super weird decorating choices.  However, they were one of the first homes in the area to have central heating and electricity.  Plus, the heating that was installed in the 1920's is still going strong today!  Quick shout-outs to the hidden door in Mr. Reid's office and in the library (classic Wizard shiz) and to the random-ass gong in the hallway.  They were big collectors and had a number of super weird things in their place - making me only like them more, naturally!  My favorite interior thing was the chair pictured below in the library. It's a "reading chair" - only for men, of course - and they sit on it backwards, using the attachment for their book or for writing. Hidden compartments contain space for an inkwell on the right arm, glasses in the left arm, and a book in the seat.

 

 

Another kick-ass thing about Lauriston is the Edinburgh-Kyoto Friendship Garden which was built in 2002 by a Japanese designer named Takashi Sawano.  From both the garden and the larger grounds you can see the Firth and, to all of our surprise, Cramond Island!  What?  Yeah, we were SUPER close to this castle when we came to visit Cramond and had no idea!  So that was cool.  As you can see, we had a good deal of fun roaming the grounds and being outrageous.  Hope you enjoyed the pics!