In the late afternoon sunshine

HistoryEdit

My last blip from Loretto School.

One of those kind of days. Walked the dogs on the beach. Into town to meet #1 son for my most challenging book event on Love in the Time of Cholera. Nearly there when son phoned to say it was cancelled. We decided to have lunch and a very pleasant chat. Picked up Lucas after school. Did the homework, made a snack and watched Tom and Jerry. Lucas went off to a Fringe event with Brazilian dancers. Janet was waiting to know that #2 son was en route home from Corfu so that dogs could be left in Muselburgh. Corfu said it was delayed so brought the dogs here. Arrived to find that Corfu still saying it was delayed while Newcastle had said it had arrived. It had. I took the dogs back home. When I got there I saw the South Wing bathed I late afternoon sunshine, so here it is.

Pinkie was formerly the country seat of the abbots of Dunfermline, and the tower house was built some time in the 16th century on the site of the Battle of Pinkie.[1] In 1597, following the Reformation, it passed to Alexander Seton. He served as James VI's chancellor, and was created Earl of Dunfermline in 1605. The young Prince Charles, later Charles I, lived here as a boy, after his father's move to London at the Union of the Crowns in 1603. He slept in what is still known as "The King's Room".

In 1607 Seton married his third wife, Margaret Hay of Yester, and from 1613 set about expanding the house, adding a long wing to the south, and decorating the interior:

ALEXANDER SETONIUS VILLAM HORTOS ET HÆC SUBURBANA ÆDIFICIA FUNDAVIT EXSTRUXIT ORNAVIT … AMOENITATEM OMNIA AD CORDEM ANIMUMQUE HONESTE OBLECTANDUM COMPOSUIT
(Alexander Seton has planted, raised and decorated a country house … He has brought together everything that might afford decent pleasures of heart and mind.)