Filmed at Crichope Linn and Gilchristland:
To play this short film please click here or on the image above.
Music credit: Take Me I’m Yours – an acoustic cover by Amelia Street
A poem about inscriptions carved into the sandstone of Crichope Linn.
LANDSCAPES HELD US
‘Antiquary’ since childhood
I ‘began’ in a churchyard
That had no church.
Aged seven years
asked by my father to find namesakes:
Peter Gordons’ inscribed on tombstones –
all, of course, dead!
‘Sixty years since’
my friend; makar and scriever
told me how ‘Old Mortality’
had been written into Crichup Linn.
Centuries and more of flowing water
has carved Crichup into fantastical whimsical shapes –
inviting generations on pilgrimage.
James and William –
that ‘SUMMER EXCURSION’ of 1879,
from the Commercial Hotel to Crichup Linn.
A memorable trip back to the parish of your birth,
your childhood!
The inscriptions you carved that day
into the red Crichup sandstone
not only survive, but remain easily read.
Oh, the nearness of distance!
James, when you died, a newspaper stated:
‘he took no part in public life’,
and William, that you had been:
‘an enthusiastic bowler’.
Landscapes held us.
♥️