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Wait, didn't I literally get this bus last Tuesday? I don't know about you, but while this can be classed as a duplicate upload of 15809, it is a better shot in every way - minus the glare on the destination board.
Seen here actually operating a Hull Fair route this time, Stagecoach Lincolnshire RoadCar's 15809, a 2012 ADL Enviro 400 in 'InterConnect' livery, however lacking in actual 'InterConnect' fleetnames, is seen here heading straight through the Hull Interchange roundabout en-route on an extended route 10 to Hull Fair.
InterConnect liveried Enviro 400 MMC 10897 arrives at Lincoln bus station on 7.6.23 with a 354 school service from Gainsborough.
With a very neat looking destination blind, fully InterConnect liveried Enviro 400 19194 arrives at Lincoln bus station on 22.9.22 with a 55 from Skegness, and is seen just about to make the turn from Norman Street into the bus station.
What I've seen from the 56s since I've returned to Lincoln spotting is that various E400s are most common at the moment, with ADL ones in Local or InterConnect livery and Scanias in Beachball or InterConnect, and then in the evening an Eclipse sometimes shows up. Not many Geminis though, which is disappointing.
Here's the upstairs interior of InterConnect purple liveried E400 19197 while it was sat in Lincoln bus station, showing that although it has the regular Stagecoach seat type, they are covered in a blue vinyl rather than the Beachball fabric. Some of the purple E400s do have the fabric moquette though, like 19203. I've been on three of these and two had vinyl and one fabric.
I already went on about how remarkably pleasant this bus was to be on, for a 15/16 year old E400 on a 30+ mile route, but look how spotless the interior is, not just because it's 7am and not had time to get mucky, but the fact it looks almost brand new inside; just a bit of paint chipped off some of the poles and a small strip hanging from one of the windows, but no damaged seats or graffiti etc.
The only disappointing thing here is the same issue as on the outside; no branding. Those cove panels are crying out for diagrammatic maps of routes 56/57/59, promotion of the wider InterConnect network, adverts for the Seasiders, Skegness day/week/group ticket information, "download our app" and so-on. I don't know if the fully branded InterConnects have anything like that, or the older ones, but most of these E400s got the half-arsed job with a livery and no branding.
19.5.23
Sister vehicle 16912 also spent the day off the InterConnect network - and spent the day as part of a once again varied set of allocations on the 44/66!
It's seen here waiting for time at the Round Shops on Moorland Avenue, working the 1600 44A from Birchwood to Lincoln.
Painted in Lincolnshire InterConnect livery.
Stagecoach East Midlands
Scania N230UD/ADL Enviro400
OU10BGK (15615)
Boston bus station
17 June 2021
19196 on the back of a tow lorry at Blyth , North Notts. Enviro 400 last tracked in may at Cleethorpes. 6/6/25
Once I figured out 10738 was a regular performer on the 56, the next step was to spot it on the Sunday 18 working that uses a vehicle from the 56. I was in luck, as on 31.1.21 it did just that and I was able to find it heading down down Lindum Road on its way back into the city centre, having completed its lap of the housing areas to the north. So here we see the unlikely sight of a Hull motor on loan to Skegness, in a completely different city working a route normally run by a Lincoln vehicle. While probably not 'working of the year' it's definitely an interesting one!
I thought only one turn on the 18 was run by the Skeggy vehicle, but here the driver has put the outward blind on again, complete with typo ('e' missing from Broxholme). If it only does the one trip then he's put this up just for me, in which case "thanks".
As one of the showpiece main rooms of Billilla mansion when male guests came to call, the billiard room is one of the grandest rooms in the house. With an interconnecting door between it and the adjoining dining room, whilst the women retired to the feminine surrounds of the drawing room, the men could retreat to this strictly male preserve with their brandy and cigars and discuss business over a game or two of billiards.
Although part of the original 1878 house and featuring some High Victorian detailing, the billiard room did not escape the 1907 redecoration, and as a result it also features some very fine Art Nouveau detailing.
The Billilla billiards room is also one of the most intact rooms in the whole house, as it still features its original and ornate Victorian carpet and the original walnut Alcock and Company billiard table and scoreboard.
A very masculine oriented room, the walls feature Victorian era dark wood dado panelling about a third of the way up the walls. Above that the walls are simply painted, and even to this day they still feature marks where chalked cues once rested. Original ornate Victorian gasoliers that could be swiveled into position still jut from the walls above the dado panelling. With their original fluted glass shades remaining in place, the gasoliers still have functioning taps to increase or decrease the gas supply.
The room is heated by a large fireplace featuring an insert of beautiful tube lined Art Nouveau peacock feathers, once again quietly underlining the fact that this is a man's room.
The Victorian era carpet of the billiard room is still bright and in remarkably good condition for its age. It is thick and dyed in bright colours in a pattern designed to imitate ornate floor tiles.
The ceiling of the billiard room is decorated with ornate stylised foliate Art Nouveau patterns and mouldings of leaves. Whilst Art Nouveau is often referred to as a feminine style, the ceiling of the billiard room shows how when applied in a particular way it could also be very strong and masculine.
Suspended over the walnut Alcock and Company billiard table the gleaming polished brass foliate style gasolier has subsequently been electrified and features five of its six green glass shades.
One of the few more feminine touches to what is otherwise a very masculine room are the stained glass lunettes over the billiard room's three windows. In keeping with other original windows of the house, they feature a single flower, in this case a red tulip.
Alcock and Company Manufacturers was established in 1853 when Melbourne was still a very new city of less than twenty years old. they still manufacture billiard tables from their Malvern establishment today.
Built in High Victorian style in 1878 for successful gold miner Robert Wright, Billilla mansion was originally a thirteen room mansion erected on seven and a half acres of land.
When economic boom turned to bust in the 1880s, the property was purchased in 1888 by wealthy New South Wales pastoralist William Weatherly who named it Billilla after his land holdings and established a home there for his wife Jeannie and their children Violet, Gladys and Lionel.
The house was substantially altered by architect Walter Richmond Butler in 1907, extending the house beyond its original thirteen rooms and adding the Art Nouveau façade seen today.
After William Weatherly's death in 1914, his wife, who was much younger, remained living there until her own death in 1933. She bequeathed the property to her daughter, Violet, who maintained the home with reduced staff until her own death in 1972.
The property was purchased in 1973 by the Bayside Council who subsequently used Billilla as a historical house with guided tours, a wedding and events venue, a school and finally in 2009 as an artist's precinct in the property's outbuildings. Billilla is a beautiful heritage property retaining many of its original features thanks to its long private ownership still incorporating a stately formal garden and the magnificent historic house.
Billilla, at 26 Halifax Street, Brighton, is one of Melbourne’s few remaining significant homesteads, built on land which had originally been owned by Nicholas Were. The house has a mixture of architectural styles, featuring a Victorian design with Art Nouveau features and has exquisite formal gardens, which retain much of their original Nineteenth Century layout.
Billilla retains many original Victorian elements and a number of outbuildings still stand to the rear of the property including the butler’s quarters, dairy, meat house, stable garden store and coach house.
Billilla was opened to the general public as part of the Melbourne Open House weekend 2022.
Billilla was used as a backdrop in the 1980 Australian Channel 10 miniseries adaptation of Sumner Locke Elliott's "Water Under the Bridge". It was used at the Sydney harbourside home of Luigi, Honor and Carrie Mazzini.
Stagecoach Lincolnshire 27794, a 2012 ADL Enviro 300, was seen at Boston operating a service 57 to Skegness. New to Stagecoach Hull, this mainly saw use as the "spare Park and RIde".
To quote Morrissey from The Smiths, "This is the last night of the fair". Cheap reference, I know, but on the last night of Hull Fair, having sacked off the Lincoln Enviro 200 I had missed too many times to count, I was determined to get this when I saw it on bustimes.org just as I was about to leave. This ex-Oxford vehicle bound for somewhere in Lincolnshire by tomorrow is about as close to a Stagecoach Gold service as we're ever going to get, so I hope we've cherished it while we can here. Thank God nobody slashed the seats this year...
An ex-Stagecoach Oxford 'Gold' vehicle bound for somewhere in Lincolnshire, freshly painted in the MMC-style variation of the 'InterConnect' livery, Stagecoach Lincolnshire RoadCar 15612, a 2010 ADL Enviro 400 new to Stagecoach Oxford for the S1/S2 services there, is seen here spending some of its last hours on loan to Stagecoach in Hull starting an extended 11 service to the largest travelling fair in Europe.
Unusually, on 4.2.23, Gainsborough based Enviro 300 27795 was working a 100 in place of the usual Enviro 400 MMC. Here it is in Lincoln bus station, having just reversed off the stand to begin its lengthy journey to Scunthorpe.
About half the time I'm going to the bus station it's for at least one special thing and on 19.6.21 it was for this. A Grimsby-based Eclipse hitherto unspotted by me running in with a 53 - and a Beachball one at that! I do prefer this livery to InterConnect purple/white on an Eclipse.
21266 searches for a place to park after arriving at Lincoln bus station with a 53. I was very lucky here as the driver was parking up in one of the 'outside' layover bays at the back, facing away from the sun, but he spotted a better spot over by the island and drove around to reach it, meaning I could get a good photo!
Grimsby weren't the only depot wheeling out the Eclipses for their typically double deck InterConnect routes, as only fifteen minutes later a second 09 plate Eclipse rocked up on a 56 from Skegness. Unfortunately, the blind didn't come out in the photos, but it was showing "Horncastle, then Skegness" ready for the return trip.
Over the past couple of months the 56 has been doing this thing where it will be all deckers for a week or two, then it'll spend another week being a mix of deckers and saloons, and then go back to being solid deckers for another week. I don't know why the allocations have been happening exactly like that, but Skeg depot did have a bunch of Eclipses reinstated for the winter, boosting the number of operational vehicles and explaining why appearances on the 56 have become more common.
21257 is yet another Eclipse which is a new spot for me, meaning I didn't get to see this one in Beachball, but it's still another 09 plate to cross off nonetheless. It's pictured here winding its way along Pelham Street, a minute or-so away from arriving at Lincoln bus station on 5.11.22
Stagecoach Lincolnshire 19203, a 2007 ADL Enviro 400, was seen in Skegness Bus Station, whilst operating a service 56 to Skegness. New to Stagecoach North East.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and Hippolyta. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors, who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world.
" Love does not see with eyes, but with the imagination [] love in its imagination has no taste of the judgment(sentence). [] and we say that love is a child because it is so often deceived in its choice. As the roguish youngs which by laughing break their word, the child Love is faithless everywhere. "WS
Hermia and Helena by Washington Allston, 1818
The play features three interconnecting plots, connected by a celebration of the wedding of Theseus of Athens and the Amazon queen, Hippolyta, which is set simultaneously in the woodland and in the realm of Fairyland, under the light of the moon.
In the opening scene, Hermia refuses to follow her father Egeus' instructions to marry Demetrius, whom he has chosen for her, because she wishes to marry another man named Lysander. In response, Egeus invokes before Theseus an ancient Athenian law whereby a daughter must marry the suitor chosen by her father, or else face death. Theseus offers her another choice: lifelong chastity while worshipping the goddess Diana as a nun.
At that same time, Peter Quince and his fellow players gather to produce a stage play, "the most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe", for the Duke and the Duchess. Quince reads the names of characters and bestows them to the players. Nick Bottom, who is playing the main role of Pyramus, is over-enthusiastic and wants to dominate others by suggesting himself for the characters of Thisbe, the Lion, and Pyramus at the same time. He would also rather be a tyrant and recites some lines of Ercles. Quince ends the meeting with "at the Duke's oak we meet".
Meanwhile, Oberon, king of the fairies, and his queen, Titania, have come to the forest outside Athens. Titania tells Oberon that she plans to stay there until she has attended Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding. Oberon and Titania are estranged because Titania refuses to give her Indian changeling to Oberon for use as his "knight" or "henchman," since the child's mother was one of Titania's worshippers. Oberon seeks to punish Titania's disobedience, so he calls for his mischievous court jester Puck or "Robin Goodfellow" to help him concoct a magical juice derived from a flower called "love-in-idleness", which turns from white to purple when struck by Cupid's arrow. When the concoction is applied to the eyelids of a sleeping person, that person, upon waking, falls in love with the first living thing they perceive. He instructs Puck to retrieve the flower with the hope that he might make Titania fall in love with an animal of the forest and thereby shame her into giving up the little Indian boy. He says, "And ere I take this charm from off her sight, / As I can take it with another herb, / I'll make her render up her page to me."
Hermia and Lysander have escaped to the same forest in hopes of eloping. Helena, desperate to reclaim Demetrius's love, tells Demetrius about the plan and he follows them in hopes of killing Lysander. Helena continually makes advances towards Demetrius, promising to love him more than Hermia. However, he rebuffs her with cruel insults against her. Observing this, Oberon orders Puck to spread some of the magical juice from the flower on the eyelids of the young Athenian man. Instead, Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius, not having actually seen either before, and administers the juice to the sleeping Lysander. Helena, coming across him, wakes him while attempting to determine whether he is dead or asleep. Upon this happening, Lysander immediately falls in love with Helena. Oberon sees Demetrius still following Hermia and is enraged. When Demetrius decides to go to sleep, Oberon sends Puck to get Helena while he charms Demetrius' eyes. Upon waking up, he sees Helena. Now, both men are in pursuit of Helena. However, she is convinced that her two suitors are mocking her, as neither loved her originally. Hermia is at a loss to see why her lover has abandoned her, and accuses Helena of stealing Lysander away from her. The four quarrel with each other until Lysander and Demetrius become so enraged that they seek a place to duel each other to prove whose love for Helena is the greatest. Oberon orders Puck to keep Lysander and Demetrius from catching up with one another and to remove the charm from Lysander. Lysander returns to loving Hermia, while Demetrius continues to love Helena.
The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania by Joseph Noel Paton
Meanwhile, Quince and his band of six labourers ("rude mechanicals", as they are described by Puck) have arranged to perform their play about Pyramus and Thisbe for Theseus' wedding and venture into the forest, near Titania's bower, for their rehearsal. Bottom is spotted by Puck, who (taking his name to be another word for a jackass) transforms his head into that of a donkey. When Bottom returns for his next lines, the other workmen run screaming in terror, much to Bottom's confusion, since he hasn't felt a thing during the transformation. Determined to wait for his friends, he begins to sing to himself. Titania is awakened by Bottom's singing and immediately falls in love with him. She lavishes him with attention and presumably makes love to him. While she is in this state of devotion, Oberon takes the changeling. Having achieved his goals, Oberon releases Titania, orders Puck to remove the donkey's head from Bottom, and arranges everything so that Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius, and Helena will believe that they have been dreaming when they awaken.
The fairies then disappear, and Theseus and Hippolyta arrive on the scene, during an early morning hunt. They wake the lovers and, since Demetrius does not love Hermia any more, Theseus overrules Egeus's demands and arranges a group wedding. The lovers decide that the night's events must have been a dream. After they all exit, Bottom awakes, and he too decides that he must have experienced a dream "past the wit of man". In Athens, Theseus, Hippolyta and the lovers watch the six workmen perform Pyramus and Thisbe. Given a lack of preparation, the performers are so terrible playing their roles to the point where the guests laugh as if it were meant to be a comedy, and afterward everyone retires to bed. Afterward, Oberon, Titania, Puck, and other fairies enter, and bless the house and its occupants with good fortune. After all other characters leave, Puck "restores amends" and suggests to the audience that what they just experienced might be nothing but a dream (hence the name of the play).
「真夏の夜の夢」はこの項目へ転送されています。その他の用法については「真夏の夜の夢 (曖昧さ回避)」をご覧ください。
『夏の夜の夢』（なつのよるのゆめ、原題：A Midsummer Night's Dream）は、ウィリアム・シェイクスピアによって1590年代中頃に書かれた喜劇形式の戯曲。全5幕からなる。アテネ近郊の森に脚を踏み入れた貴族や職人、森に住む妖精たちが登場する。人間の男女は結婚に関する問題を抱えており、妖精の王と女王は養子を巡りけんかをしている。しかし、妖精の王の画策や妖精のひとりパックの活躍によって最終的には円満な結末を迎える。
幾度か映画化もされている。他にも後世に作られた同名の作品が複数ある。坪内逍遥訳をはじめ古い翻訳では『真夏の夜の夢』（まなつのよのゆめ）と訳されることが多かった（日本語訳タイトルの節を参照）。
رویای شب نیمه تابستان نمایشنامهای کمدی اثر ویلیام شکسپیر است که در حدود سالهای ۱۵۹۶-۱۵۹۴ نوشته شدهاست.
ماخذ نمایشنامه[ویرایش]
برای این نمایشنامه ماخذ واحدی شناسایی نشدهاست، اما عناصر گوناگون تشکیل دهنده اش موضوعات شناخته شدهای هستند. داستان مرکزی شاه و ملکه پریان تسوس و هیپولیتا در «حکایت شوالیه» اثر چاسر؛ همچنین در «زندگیها» اثر پلوتارک وجود دارد. طرح اصلی عاشقانه (مسیر ناهموار عشق واقعی) از شیوه نمایشی عصر الیزابت پیروی میکند. عنصر پری و فرشته نیز به فولکلور و هم به ادبیات افسانههای دیرین برمیگردد. سرانجام، «کمدی/ تراژدی» پیراموس و تیسبی نیز وجهی از حکایت کلاسیک و معروف «مسخره بازیهای اوید» است که در «حماسه زنان خوب» اثر چاسر نیز بازگو شدهاست.[۱]
شخصیتهای نمایش[ویرایش]
این نمایش در ۵ پرده تدوین شده و دارای ۲۱ شخصیت و تعدادی سیاهی لشکر است. شخصیتهای اصلی نمایشنامه عبارت اند از:
تسوس: دوک حکمران آتن.
هیپولیتا: شاهزاده خانم خوب؛ نامزد تسوس که: تسوس او را به ضرب شمشیر به دست آورده است.
اژئوس: یک آتنی، شهروندی ساده و کله شق، پدر هرمیا.
لیساندر و دیمیتریوس: دو جوان آتنی، عاشقان هرمیا.
هرمیا: دختر زیبای اژئوس، عاشق لیساندر، که حرف هیچکس را قبول ندارد، که وقتی عصبانی است باهوش تر و زبروزرنگ تر است.
هلنا: عاشق دیمیتریوس، زیبا و بلندبالا، اما ساده و بی دست و پا.
فیلوستراته: رئیس دربار دوک، سازمان دهنده تمام خوشگذرانیها.
Stagecoach East Midlands 10898 is operating Retford local service 47 to Ordsall. It is an Alexander Dennis Enviro400 MMC, new in November 2017 and painted in InterConnect livery.
Originally allocated to Gainsborough depot until transfer to Worksop in 2018 following a repaint into corporate 'beachball' style with removal of the high backed seating.
15511 then moved on to Skegness in the summer of '21 and received the new version of InterConnect in November '23.
The 'special attraction' for this afternoon's outing was Scunthorpe's Local liveried Wright Eclipse 21248, seen here setting off from Lincoln bus station with a 103 to its home via Kirton in Lindsey. It's been running on the 103 a few days in a row this week, so I'd be a fool to miss it. The more interesting thing to note about this one is that despite it not being one of the 2009 examples from the Chester P&R, it's still a former First vehicle! Wonder how this one made it into the Stagecoach fleet?
Formerly 69140 with First.
6.7.21
The River Helmsdale is one of the major east-flowing rivers of Sutherland in the Highlands of Scotland. It flows broadly southeastwards from Loch Badanloch down the Strath of Kildonan (otherwise known as Strath Ullie), gathering the waters of the Bannock Burn on its left and the Abhainn na Frithe on its right before discharging into the Moray Firth on the North Sea at the town of Helmsdale. Other significant tributaries of the Helmsdale include the left-bank Suisgill Burn and the right-bank Craggie Water. Loch Achnamoine which is just over 1 km in length, lies on the line of the river 1 mi / 1.5 km downstream of Loch Badanloch. Loch Badanloch is one of a complex of three interconnecting lochs - the other two being Loch nan Clàr and Loch Rimsdale which gather waters from the moors on the southern edge of the Flow Country via the Allt an Lòin Tharsuinn, Allt Lòn a' Chùil and Rimsdale Burn
The Highlands is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots language replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands. The term is also used for the area north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, although the exact boundaries are not clearly defined, particularly to the east. The Great Glen divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands. The Scottish Gaelic name of A' Ghàidhealtachd literally means "the place of the Gaels" and traditionally, from a Gaelic-speaking point of view, includes both the Western Isles and the Highlands.
The area is very sparsely populated, with many mountain ranges dominating the region, and includes the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben Nevis. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the population of the Highlands rose to around 300,000, but from c. 1841 and for the next 160 years, the natural increase in population was exceeded by emigration (mostly to Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and migration to the industrial cities of Scotland and England.) and passim The area is now one of the most sparsely populated in Europe. At 9.1/km2 (24/sq mi) in 2012, the population density in the Highlands and Islands is less than one seventh of Scotland's as a whole.
The Highland Council is the administrative body for much of the Highlands, with its administrative centre at Inverness. However, the Highlands also includes parts of the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Argyll and Bute, Moray, North Ayrshire, Perth and Kinross, Stirling and West Dunbartonshire.
The Scottish Highlands is the only area in the British Isles to have the taiga biome as it features concentrated populations of Scots pine forest: see Caledonian Forest. It is the most mountainous part of the United Kingdom.
Between the 15th century and the mid-20th century, the area differed from most of the Lowlands in terms of language. In Scottish Gaelic, the region is known as the Gàidhealtachd, because it was traditionally the Gaelic-speaking part of Scotland, although the language is now largely confined to The Hebrides. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably but have different meanings in their respective languages. Scottish English (in its Highland form) is the predominant language of the area today, though Highland English has been influenced by Gaelic speech to a significant extent. Historically, the "Highland line" distinguished the two Scottish cultures. While the Highland line broadly followed the geography of the Grampians in the south, it continued in the north, cutting off the north-eastern areas, that is Eastern Caithness, Orkney and Shetland, from the more Gaelic Highlands and Hebrides.
Historically, the major social unit of the Highlands was the clan. Scottish kings, particularly James VI, saw clans as a challenge to their authority; the Highlands was seen by many as a lawless region. The Scots of the Lowlands viewed the Highlanders as backward and more "Irish". The Highlands were seen as the overspill of Gaelic Ireland. They made this distinction by separating Germanic "Scots" English and the Gaelic by renaming it "Erse" a play on Eire. Following the Union of the Crowns, James VI had the military strength to back up any attempts to impose some control. The result was, in 1609, the Statutes of Iona which started the process of integrating clan leaders into Scottish society. The gradual changes continued into the 19th century, as clan chiefs thought of themselves less as patriarchal leaders of their people and more as commercial landlords. The first effect on the clansmen who were their tenants was the change to rents being payable in money rather than in kind. Later, rents were increased as Highland landowners sought to increase their income. This was followed, mostly in the period 1760–1850, by agricultural improvement that often (particularly in the Western Highlands) involved clearance of the population to make way for large scale sheep farms. Displaced tenants were set up in crofting communities in the process. The crofts were intended not to provide all the needs of their occupiers; they were expected to work in other industries such as kelping and fishing. Crofters came to rely substantially on seasonal migrant work, particularly in the Lowlands. This gave impetus to the learning of English, which was seen by many rural Gaelic speakers to be the essential "language of work".
Older historiography attributes the collapse of the clan system to the aftermath of the Jacobite risings. This is now thought less influential by historians. Following the Jacobite rising of 1745 the British government enacted a series of laws to try to suppress the clan system, including bans on the bearing of arms and the wearing of tartan, and limitations on the activities of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Most of this legislation was repealed by the end of the 18th century as the Jacobite threat subsided. There was soon a rehabilitation of Highland culture. Tartan was adopted for Highland regiments in the British Army, which poor Highlanders joined in large numbers in the era of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1790–1815). Tartan had largely been abandoned by the ordinary people of the region, but in the 1820s, tartan and the kilt were adopted by members of the social elite, not just in Scotland, but across Europe. The international craze for tartan, and for idealising a romanticised Highlands, was set off by the Ossian cycle, and further popularised by the works of Walter Scott. His "staging" of the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 and the king's wearing of tartan resulted in a massive upsurge in demand for kilts and tartans that could not be met by the Scottish woollen industry. Individual clan tartans were largely designated in this period and they became a major symbol of Scottish identity. This "Highlandism", by which all of Scotland was identified with the culture of the Highlands, was cemented by Queen Victoria's interest in the country, her adoption of Balmoral as a major royal retreat, and her interest in "tartenry".
Recurrent famine affected the Highlands for much of its history, with significant instances as late as 1817 in the Eastern Highlands and the early 1850s in the West. Over the 18th century, the region had developed a trade of black cattle into Lowland markets, and this was balanced by imports of meal into the area. There was a critical reliance on this trade to provide sufficient food, and it is seen as an essential prerequisite for the population growth that started in the 18th century. Most of the Highlands, particularly in the North and West was short of the arable land that was essential for the mixed, run rig based, communal farming that existed before agricultural improvement was introduced into the region.[a] Between the 1760s and the 1830s there was a substantial trade in unlicensed whisky that had been distilled in the Highlands. Lowland distillers (who were not able to avoid the heavy taxation of this product) complained that Highland whisky made up more than half the market. The development of the cattle trade is taken as evidence that the pre-improvement Highlands was not an immutable system, but did exploit the economic opportunities that came its way. The illicit whisky trade demonstrates the entrepreneurial ability of the peasant classes.
Agricultural improvement reached the Highlands mostly over the period 1760 to 1850. Agricultural advisors, factors, land surveyors and others educated in the thinking of Adam Smith were keen to put into practice the new ideas taught in Scottish universities. Highland landowners, many of whom were burdened with chronic debts, were generally receptive to the advice they offered and keen to increase the income from their land. In the East and South the resulting change was similar to that in the Lowlands, with the creation of larger farms with single tenants, enclosure of the old run rig fields, introduction of new crops (such as turnips), land drainage and, as a consequence of all this, eviction, as part of the Highland clearances, of many tenants and cottars. Some of those cleared found employment on the new, larger farms, others moved to the accessible towns of the Lowlands.
In the West and North, evicted tenants were usually given tenancies in newly created crofting communities, while their former holdings were converted into large sheep farms. Sheep farmers could pay substantially higher rents than the run rig farmers and were much less prone to falling into arrears. Each croft was limited in size so that the tenants would have to find work elsewhere. The major alternatives were fishing and the kelp industry. Landlords took control of the kelp shores, deducting the wages earned by their tenants from the rent due and retaining the large profits that could be earned at the high prices paid for the processed product during the Napoleonic wars.
When the Napoleonic wars finished in 1815, the Highland industries were affected by the return to a peacetime economy. The price of black cattle fell, nearly halving between 1810 and the 1830s. Kelp prices had peaked in 1810, but reduced from £9 a ton in 1823 to £3 13s 4d a ton in 1828. Wool prices were also badly affected. This worsened the financial problems of debt-encumbered landlords. Then, in 1846, potato blight arrived in the Highlands, wiping out the essential subsistence crop for the overcrowded crofting communities. As the famine struck, the government made clear to landlords that it was their responsibility to provide famine relief for their tenants. The result of the economic downturn had been that a large proportion of Highland estates were sold in the first half of the 19th century. T M Devine points out that in the region most affected by the potato famine, by 1846, 70 per cent of the landowners were new purchasers who had not owned Highland property before 1800. More landlords were obliged to sell due to the cost of famine relief. Those who were protected from the worst of the crisis were those with extensive rental income from sheep farms. Government loans were made available for drainage works, road building and other improvements and many crofters became temporary migrants – taking work in the Lowlands. When the potato famine ceased in 1856, this established a pattern of more extensive working away from the Highlands.
The unequal concentration of land ownership remained an emotional and controversial subject, of enormous importance to the Highland economy, and eventually became a cornerstone of liberal radicalism. The poor crofters were politically powerless, and many of them turned to religion. They embraced the popularly oriented, fervently evangelical Presbyterian revival after 1800. Most joined the breakaway "Free Church" after 1843. This evangelical movement was led by lay preachers who themselves came from the lower strata, and whose preaching was implicitly critical of the established order. The religious change energised the crofters and separated them from the landlords; it helped prepare them for their successful and violent challenge to the landlords in the 1880s through the Highland Land League. Violence erupted, starting on the Isle of Skye, when Highland landlords cleared their lands for sheep and deer parks. It was quietened when the government stepped in, passing the Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886 to reduce rents, guarantee fixity of tenure, and break up large estates to provide crofts for the homeless. This contrasted with the Irish Land War underway at the same time, where the Irish were intensely politicised through roots in Irish nationalism, while political dimensions were limited. In 1885 three Independent Crofter candidates were elected to Parliament, which listened to their pleas. The results included explicit security for the Scottish smallholders in the "crofting counties"; the legal right to bequeath tenancies to descendants; and the creation of a Crofting Commission. The Crofters as a political movement faded away by 1892, and the Liberal Party gained their votes.
Today, the Highlands are the largest of Scotland's whisky producing regions; the relevant area runs from Orkney to the Isle of Arran in the south and includes the northern isles and much of Inner and Outer Hebrides, Argyll, Stirlingshire, Arran, as well as sections of Perthshire and Aberdeenshire. (Other sources treat The Islands, except Islay, as a separate whisky producing region.) This massive area has over 30 distilleries, or 47 when the Islands sub-region is included in the count. According to one source, the top five are The Macallan, Glenfiddich, Aberlour, Glenfarclas and Balvenie. While Speyside is geographically within the Highlands, that region is specified as distinct in terms of whisky productions. Speyside single malt whiskies are produced by about 50 distilleries.
According to Visit Scotland, Highlands whisky is "fruity, sweet, spicy, malty". Another review states that Northern Highlands single malt is "sweet and full-bodied", the Eastern Highlands and Southern Highlands whiskies tend to be "lighter in texture" while the distilleries in the Western Highlands produce single malts with a "much peatier influence".
The Scottish Reformation achieved partial success in the Highlands. Roman Catholicism remained strong in some areas, owing to remote locations and the efforts of Franciscan missionaries from Ireland, who regularly came to celebrate Mass. There remain significant Catholic strongholds within the Highlands and Islands such as Moidart and Morar on the mainland and South Uist and Barra in the southern Outer Hebrides. The remoteness of the region and the lack of a Gaelic-speaking clergy undermined the missionary efforts of the established church. The later 18th century saw somewhat greater success, owing to the efforts of the SSPCK missionaries and to the disruption of traditional society after the Battle of Culloden in 1746. In the 19th century, the evangelical Free Churches, which were more accepting of Gaelic language and culture, grew rapidly, appealing much more strongly than did the established church.
For the most part, however, the Highlands are considered predominantly Protestant, belonging to the Church of Scotland. In contrast to the Catholic southern islands, the northern Outer Hebrides islands (Lewis, Harris and North Uist) have an exceptionally high proportion of their population belonging to the Protestant Free Church of Scotland or the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Outer Hebrides have been described as the last bastion of Calvinism in Britain and the Sabbath remains widely observed. Inverness and the surrounding area has a majority Protestant population, with most locals belonging to either The Kirk or the Free Church of Scotland. The church maintains a noticeable presence within the area, with church attendance notably higher than in other parts of Scotland. Religion continues to play an important role in Highland culture, with Sabbath observance still widely practised, particularly in the Hebrides.
In traditional Scottish geography, the Highlands refers to that part of Scotland north-west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which crosses mainland Scotland in a near-straight line from Helensburgh to Stonehaven. However the flat coastal lands that occupy parts of the counties of Nairnshire, Morayshire, Banffshire and Aberdeenshire are often excluded as they do not share the distinctive geographical and cultural features of the rest of the Highlands. The north-east of Caithness, as well as Orkney and Shetland, are also often excluded from the Highlands, although the Hebrides are usually included. The Highland area, as so defined, differed from the Lowlands in language and tradition, having preserved Gaelic speech and customs centuries after the anglicisation of the latter; this led to a growing perception of a divide, with the cultural distinction between Highlander and Lowlander first noted towards the end of the 14th century. In Aberdeenshire, the boundary between the Highlands and the Lowlands is not well defined. There is a stone beside the A93 road near the village of Dinnet on Royal Deeside which states 'You are now in the Highlands', although there are areas of Highland character to the east of this point.
A much wider definition of the Highlands is that used by the Scotch whisky industry. Highland single malts are produced at distilleries north of an imaginary line between Dundee and Greenock, thus including all of Aberdeenshire and Angus.
Inverness is regarded as the Capital of the Highlands, although less so in the Highland parts of Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perthshire and Stirlingshire which look more to Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, and Stirling as their commercial centres.
The Highland Council area, created as one of the local government regions of Scotland, has been a unitary council area since 1996. The council area excludes a large area of the southern and eastern Highlands, and the Western Isles, but includes Caithness. Highlands is sometimes used, however, as a name for the council area, as in the former Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern is also used to refer to the area, as in the former Northern Constabulary. These former bodies both covered the Highland council area and the island council areas of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles.
Much of the Highlands area overlaps the Highlands and Islands area. An electoral region called Highlands and Islands is used in elections to the Scottish Parliament: this area includes Orkney and Shetland, as well as the Highland Council local government area, the Western Isles and most of the Argyll and Bute and Moray local government areas. Highlands and Islands has, however, different meanings in different contexts. It means Highland (the local government area), Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles in Highlands and Islands Fire and Rescue Service. Northern, as in Northern Constabulary, refers to the same area as that covered by the fire and rescue service.
There have been trackways from the Lowlands to the Highlands since prehistoric times. Many traverse the Mounth, a spur of mountainous land that extends from the higher inland range to the North Sea slightly north of Stonehaven. The most well-known and historically important trackways are the Causey Mounth, Elsick Mounth, Cryne Corse Mounth and Cairnamounth.
Although most of the Highlands is geographically on the British mainland, it is somewhat less accessible than the rest of Britain; thus most UK couriers categorise it separately, alongside Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and other offshore islands. They thus charge additional fees for delivery to the Highlands, or exclude the area entirely. While the physical remoteness from the largest population centres inevitably leads to higher transit cost, there is confusion and consternation over the scale of the fees charged and the effectiveness of their communication, and the use of the word Mainland in their justification. Since the charges are often based on postcode areas, many far less remote areas, including some which are traditionally considered part of the lowlands, are also subject to these charges. Royal Mail is the only delivery network bound by a Universal Service Obligation to charge a uniform tariff across the UK. This, however, applies only to mail items and not larger packages which are dealt with by its Parcelforce division.
The Highlands lie to the north and west of the Highland Boundary Fault, which runs from Arran to Stonehaven. This part of Scotland is largely composed of ancient rocks from the Cambrian and Precambrian periods which were uplifted during the later Caledonian Orogeny. Smaller formations of Lewisian gneiss in the northwest are up to 3 billion years old. The overlying rocks of the Torridon Sandstone form mountains in the Torridon Hills such as Liathach and Beinn Eighe in Wester Ross.
These foundations are interspersed with many igneous intrusions of a more recent age, the remnants of which have formed mountain massifs such as the Cairngorms and the Cuillin of Skye. A significant exception to the above are the fossil-bearing beds of Old Red Sandstone found principally along the Moray Firth coast and partially down the Highland Boundary Fault. The Jurassic beds found in isolated locations on Skye and Applecross reflect the complex underlying geology. They are the original source of much North Sea oil. The Great Glen is formed along a transform fault which divides the Grampian Mountains to the southeast from the Northwest Highlands.
The entire region was covered by ice sheets during the Pleistocene ice ages, save perhaps for a few nunataks. The complex geomorphology includes incised valleys and lochs carved by the action of mountain streams and ice, and a topography of irregularly distributed mountains whose summits have similar heights above sea-level, but whose bases depend upon the amount of denudation to which the plateau has been subjected in various places.
Climate
The region is much warmer than other areas at similar latitudes (such as Kamchatka in Russia, or Labrador in Canada) because of the Gulf Stream making it cool, damp and temperate. The Köppen climate classification is "Cfb" at low altitudes, then becoming "Cfc", "Dfc" and "ET" at higher altitudes.
Places of interest
An Teallach
Aonach Mòr (Nevis Range ski centre)
Arrochar Alps
Balmoral Castle
Balquhidder
Battlefield of Culloden
Beinn Alligin
Beinn Eighe
Ben Cruachan hydro-electric power station
Ben Lomond
Ben Macdui (second highest mountain in Scotland and UK)
Ben Nevis (highest mountain in Scotland and UK)
Cairngorms National Park
Cairngorm Ski centre near Aviemore
Cairngorm Mountains
Caledonian Canal
Cape Wrath
Carrick Castle
Castle Stalker
Castle Tioram
Chanonry Point
Conic Hill
Culloden Moor
Dunadd
Duart Castle
Durness
Eilean Donan
Fingal's Cave (Staffa)
Fort George
Glen Coe
Glen Etive
Glen Kinglas
Glen Lyon
Glen Orchy
Glenshee Ski Centre
Glen Shiel
Glen Spean
Glenfinnan (and its railway station and viaduct)
Grampian Mountains
Hebrides
Highland Folk Museum – The first open-air museum in the UK.
Highland Wildlife Park
Inveraray Castle
Inveraray Jail
Inverness Castle
Inverewe Garden
Iona Abbey
Isle of Staffa
Kilchurn Castle
Kilmartin Glen
Liathach
Lecht Ski Centre
Loch Alsh
Loch Ard
Loch Awe
Loch Assynt
Loch Earn
Loch Etive
Loch Fyne
Loch Goil
Loch Katrine
Loch Leven
Loch Linnhe
Loch Lochy
Loch Lomond
Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park
Loch Lubnaig
Loch Maree
Loch Morar
Loch Morlich
Loch Ness
Loch Nevis
Loch Rannoch
Loch Tay
Lochranza
Luss
Meall a' Bhuiridh (Glencoe Ski Centre)
Scottish Sea Life Sanctuary at Loch Creran
Rannoch Moor
Red Cuillin
Rest and Be Thankful stretch of A83
River Carron, Wester Ross
River Spey
River Tay
Ross and Cromarty
Smoo Cave
Stob Coire a' Chàirn
Stac Polly
Strathspey Railway
Sutherland
Tor Castle
Torridon Hills
Urquhart Castle
West Highland Line (scenic railway)
West Highland Way (Long-distance footpath)
Wester Ross
This is my first ex Oxford Scania i've seen, which carries full InterConnect branding. And you know what, they look smart.
Stagecoach Lincolnshire 15616, a 2010 Scania N230UD ADL Enviro 400, was seen near the Lincoln Bus Station on a service 56 to Lincoln. New to Stagecoach Oxfordshire, this is based at the Long Sutton outbase, however from time to time goes to Skegness.
Stagecoach Grimsby-Cleethorpes 19009, a 2006 ADL Enviro 400, was seen at Grimsby Riverhead Exchange on a service 51 to Louth. New to Stagecoach Manchester in 2006.
Accompanying an InterConnect 100 Enviro 400 MMC from Lincoln bus station to the depot was Toyota van ND71 MXS.
Norman Street, Lincoln, 4.2.23
From previous observation, I'd figured that FastCat branded bus appearances on the 103 only happened a couple of times a year and I probably wouldn't see another one. New calculations show this is more like a couple of times a month!
Two weeks after the previous instance, a 103 board was once again being covered by an orange liveried Fast Cat E200 MMC, running in place of one of Scunthorpe's standard Enviro 300s. The group of E300s which tend to crop up on the 103 is quite small, which leads me to think Scunthorpe don't have that many, and when stretched for vehicles they end up having to use one of these MMCs off-route instead. Perhaps if I'm really lucky one day, we'll get a decker on it?!
6 cyl Enviro 200 MMC 26172 "Marmalade" sets off from Lincoln with a 103 to Kirton and Scunthorpe, and is pictured on Melville Street on 17.2.23
Sadly the cat on the side has had its legs chopped off, presumably in some sort of freak accident. Not that it seems to mind, given how happy it looks...
As one of the showpiece main rooms of Billilla mansion when male guests came to call, the billiard room is one of the grandest rooms in the house. With an interconnecting door between it and the adjoining dining room, whilst the women retired to the feminine surrounds of the drawing room, the men could retreat to this strictly male preserve with their brandy and cigars and discuss business over a game or two of billiards.
Although part of the original 1878 house and featuring some High Victorian detailing, the billiard room did not escape the 1907 redecoration, and as a result it also features some very fine Art Nouveau detailing.
The Billilla billiards room is also one of the most intact rooms in the whole house, as it still features its original and ornate Victorian carpet and the original walnut Alcock and Company billiard table and scoreboard.
A very masculine oriented room, the walls feature Victorian era dark wood dado panelling about a third of the way up the walls. Above that the walls are simply painted, and even to this day they still feature marks where chalked cues once rested. Original ornate Victorian gasoliers that could be swiveled into position still jut from the walls above the dado panelling. With their original fluted glass shades remaining in place, the gasoliers still have functioning taps to increase or decrease the gas supply.
The room is heated by a large fireplace featuring an insert of beautiful tube lined Art Nouveau peacock feathers, once again quietly underlining the fact that this is a man's room.
The Victorian era carpet of the billiard room is still bright and in remarkably good condition for its age. It is thick and dyed in bright colours in a pattern designed to imitate ornate floor tiles.
The ceiling of the billiard room is decorated with ornate stylised foliate Art Nouveau patterns and mouldings of leaves. Whilst Art Nouveau is often referred to as a feminine style, the ceiling of the billiard room shows how when applied in a particular way it could also be very strong and masculine.
Suspended over the walnut Alcock and Company billiard table the gleaming polished brass foliate style gasolier has subsequently been electrified and features five of its six green glass shades.
One of the few more feminine touches to what is otherwise a very masculine room are the stained glass lunettes over the billiard room's three windows. In keeping with other original windows of the house, they feature a single flower, in this case a red tulip.
Alcock and Company Manufacturers was established in 1853 when Melbourne was still a very new city of less than twenty years old. they still manufacture billiard tables from their Malvern establishment today.
Built in High Victorian style in 1878 for successful gold miner Robert Wright, Billilla mansion was originally a thirteen room mansion erected on seven and a half acres of land.
When economic boom turned to bust in the 1880s, the property was purchased in 1888 by wealthy New South Wales pastoralist William Weatherly who named it Billilla after his land holdings and established a home there for his wife Jeannie and their children Violet, Gladys and Lionel.
The house was substantially altered by architect Walter Richmond Butler in 1907, extending the house beyond its original thirteen rooms and adding the Art Nouveau façade seen today.
After William Weatherly's death in 1914, his wife, who was much younger, remained living there until her own death in 1933. She bequeathed the property to her daughter, Violet, who maintained the home with reduced staff until her own death in 1972.
The property was purchased in 1973 by the Bayside Council who subsequently used Billilla as a historical house with guided tours, a wedding and events venue, a school and finally in 2009 as an artist's precinct in the property's outbuildings. Billilla is a beautiful heritage property retaining many of its original features thanks to its long private ownership still incorporating a stately formal garden and the magnificent historic house.
Billilla, at 26 Halifax Street, Brighton, is one of Melbourne’s few remaining significant homesteads, built on land which had originally been owned by Nicholas Were. The house has a mixture of architectural styles, featuring a Victorian design with Art Nouveau features and has exquisite formal gardens, which retain much of their original Nineteenth Century layout.
Billilla retains many original Victorian elements and a number of outbuildings still stand to the rear of the property including the butler’s quarters, dairy, meat house, stable garden store and coach house.
Billilla was opened to the general public as part of the Melbourne Open House weekend 2022.
Billilla was used as a backdrop in the 1980 Australian Channel 10 miniseries adaptation of Sumner Locke Elliott's "Water Under the Bridge". It was used at the Sydney harbourside home of Luigi, Honor and Carrie Mazzini.
Stagecoach Lincolnshire 19194, a 2007 ADL Enviro 400, was seen operating a service 1 to Skegness Interchange, despite the blind being blinded for Chapel St Leonards. New to Stagecoach North East.
The other service change on the 1st of April was the Saturday version of the InterConnect 5 changing from the Black Cat Travel B5 to the PC Coaches 55, between Coningsby and Lincoln. The Coningsby to Boston section, which was already PCC's, seems to have disappeared altogether so I don't know how you're supposed to travel between Boston and Coningsby/Lincoln on a Saturday now.
The change in number (again) brings it in line with some of the Stagecoach-operated InterConnect services, although the route itself mimics what Brylaine call the B5X on their Mon-Fri timetable. Within a year, the InterConnect 5 on Saturdays has been through four operators (Brylaine, then Stagecoach, then Black Cat and PC Coaches) and three route numbers (IC5, then B5, now 55) as well as its split/truncation at Coningsby. All as clear as mud, basically - woe betide anybody that unwittingly comes across any timetables or information that's even slightly out of date!
It was fun spotting whichever Dart Black Cat had churned out each week, although they mainly stuck to using the same couple. BCT never did run their Eclipse on it, sadly, although of the vehicles they did use on the B5 I must've photted all of them, or at least come very close. PC Coaches appear to be favouring PC71 PCC for their allocation, so nice to see it doing something other than 4s and 551s for once.
Without a programmed blind yet, the PC Coaches Scania Fencer is seen here on the first day of the 55 with the very classy A4 paper route number, departing Lincoln bus station right on time with the 15:30 departure on 1.4.23
Stagecoach Lincolnshire 27781, a 2012 ADL Enviro 300, was seen in Grimsby Town Centre on a service 53 to Market Rasen. New to Stagecoach Hull. The 53 is a split operation between Grimsby and Lincoln, this was the Grimsby offering on the 53 from the 31st of August 2021, with this being Grimsby allocated.
For a few days in a row there was a 'peak time' around 17:20 to 17:40 where several things would happen in a short space of time, with Stagecoach workings from other depots showing up (56, 100, 103, 107 and a NIS Gainsborough decker), the arrival of a Brylaine IC5, an Andrew's rail replacement, a JBT rail replacement, a couple of PC Coaches movements including one of their coaches over the flyover, two eastbound intermodal trains, an eastbound EMR unit plus all the variety that the standard Stagecoach Lincoln buses provided. I went out to get as much as I could each day, but with so much going on I never managed to get everything! Still, for the next couple of uploads I bring you what I caught amidst Lincoln's public transport 'rush hour'.
The two Gainsborough deckers that do a 107 and an out of service move are, typically, the Tridents that I've been trying to spot more of, so imagine my disappointment when not just one but both of them turned out to be MMCs on 17.3.21 - the same MMCs I've spotted time and time again on the 100 and sometimes the 107. Here's 10899 arriving with its blind already set for the 107 run, while identical vehicle 10898 is right behind it but just out of shot.
Returned to Skegness on March 26th 2019 after a fresh repaint at Lincoln depot was East Lancs bodied Vyking, number 16913. Seen here at Burgh le Marsh, looking resplendent in immaculate condition with the interconnect colours of the Stagecoach livery.
Departs Lincoln with a 107 InterConnect service for Gainsborough, looking very smart in its late application of beachball - prior to the group rebrand
Stagecoach East Midlands 16910, an InterConnect branded Volvo B7TL with East Lancs Vyking bodwork, is seen here in Grimsby between duties on route 53 to Market Rasen
15508 (FX09CZY) an Interconnect liveried Enviro400 bodied Scania N230UD pictured with Laughton in the background, april10
Once I figured out 10738 was a regular performer on the 56, the next step was to spot it on the Sunday 18 working that uses a vehicle from the 56. I was in luck, as on 31.1.21 it did just that and I was able to find it heading down down Lindum Road on its way back into the city centre, having completed its lap of the housing areas to the north. So here we see the unlikely sight of a Hull motor on loan to Skegness, in a completely different city working a route normally run by a Lincoln vehicle. While probably not 'working of the year' it's definitely an interesting one!
Here it is with City Bus Station blind, which is quite different to the usual Lincoln blind setup (which looks like this: www.flickr.com/photos/108834608@N06/50723855738/in/album-...)