Dunnet is a village in Caithness, in the Highland area of Scotland. It is within the Parish of Dunnet.[1]
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Village[edit]![]()
Apk untuk mengubah format file. The village centres on the A836–B855 road junction. The A836 leads towards John o' Groats in the east and toward Thurso and Tongue in the west. (At the junction however the road's alignment is much more north-south than east-west.) The B855 leads toward Brough and Dunnet Head point in the north.
The Northern Sands Hotel is located on the A836, adjacent to the village church. It is a small hotel with 12 bedrooms, a large dining room, a large car park and 2 bars. It was originally called The Golf Links Hotel, there being a links course between Dunnet and Castletown that fell into disuse during World War II. It was taken over by the RAF during WW2 & used to station pilots from the nearby RAF Thurdistoft fighter station. It is locally owned and in 2017 undertook a major renovation.
The village has a hall, The Britannia Hall, which is run by a committee, and which is used for a variety of activities including a children's nursery, an indoor bowling club, a badminton club and the Post Office, which visits twice a week, on Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays.Its main fund raising activity each year for the upkeep of the hall is the Marymas Fair, held in late August on a nearby farm field, it has the usual attractions such as Highland dancing, a display of vintage and classic cars and motorcycles, bonniest baby, home baking, tossing the wheatsheaf, line dancing, face painting, raffles and tug of war.
Dunnet is at the north/northeast end of Dunnet Beach, which extends across three miles (5 km) towards Castletown. Dunnet Forest is south of the village and east of the here southward A836. St John's Loch, known also as Dunnet Loch, is north-east of the village. Situated about two miles north of Dunnet is the village of Brough (ND2283 7404), the.
House of the Northern Gate[edit]
The House of the Northern Gate (sometimes called Dwarick House) sits in a commanding position on Dunnet Head, overlooking the west side of the village.It was built between 1895 - 1908 by Admiral Alexander Sinclair who also owned Freswick, Keiss & Dunbeath Estates.Admiral Sinclair died in 1945 & the estate was broken up, the last croft to be bought by its tenant was by Mary Ann & James Calder, now a museum. The estate was bought in 1948 by Commander Clair Vyner and his wife Lady Doris Vyner. They used it as a summer residence and ran the local salmon station. Lady Doris was a close friend of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and invited her to stay at the house in 1953. During her stay, she looked east out of one of the upper floor windows and spied the tower of the recently vacated Barrogill Castle, 6 miles (9.7 km) away. Upon enquiring about the castle, a visit was arranged to view it. It was owned by Captain and Mrs Imbert-Terry, an eccentric couple whose family reputedly owned Terry's chocolate factory in York. A deal was struck to buy the rather dilapidated castle and Longoe Mains farm for a reported £6,000. The Queen Mother renamed it the Castle of Mey, its original name.
The House of the Northern Gate was run as a hotel by Bill Dodd from 1967 until 1974 and then owned by a Mr Divanian Gold from 1974 until around 1984/5, a flamboyant Jewish fashion clothes manufacturer from Manchester, who used it as a summer home. He later tried to sell building plots on its land, but the council vetoed the project on grounds of drainage and sewerage difficulties, because the land is flow country or blanket bog.
In 1974 when it came on the market, the rock band Led Zeppelin viewed it several times with a view to making it into a recording studio. A possible reason for this may be that guitarist Jimmy Page already owned Boleskin House, for many years the home of notorious occultist and white witch Aleister Crowley, near Foyers on the south bank of Loch Ness, and was a frequent visitor to Caithness.Also Woody, of the band The Bay City Rollers, looked into buying the house as a country retreat. His uncle worked at Dounreay at the time and Woody was a frequent visitor to Caithness in the mid '70s.
During this period, scenes from a horror film were recorded using the outside of the house as a backdrop. The house was empty until 1984/5, when a family from Kent bought it and made it into a private residence again. It has 1,800 acres (7.3 km2) of land, 6 lochs and a small beach, the Peedie Sannie ('Small Beach').
Church[edit]
Dunnet Church is near the road junction and has documented history dating from 1230.
Gunshop[edit]
CH Haygarth & Sons, Gun and Rifle Makers, are situated on the A836 on the eastern side of the village. It is Scotland's oldest practicing gunmakers and the only full-time gunshop North of Inverness.[citation needed] The business was started in nearby Thurso by Colin Haygarth in April 1957. They are unusual in that it is still family owned and run by Colin's second son, Ross, marking the business's third generation of ownership by the Haygarth family. They were the Queen Mother's Gunsmiths from 1965 until her death in 2002. The building was the site of the original village shop and petrol pump, and was owned by the Begg family. It closed in the mid-1950s. The property was built in 1899.
Nearby[edit]
Archaeology[edit]
Brotchie’s steading, is a ruined croft house just to the West of Dunnet Church.[2] It originally became the focus of archaeological interest because structural members (cruck blades) in one of the rooms were known to have been formed from a pair of whale mandibles, probably from a fin or blue whale. These are presently housed in the Dunnet Bay Visitor Centre.
An excavation by Headland Archaeology was undertaken to examine the role of whale bones as a construction material in Caithness croft houses but it quickly became apparent that the 19th/20th century croft house sits on a much older and extensive archaeological site.
Brotchie's steading facing NE showing the depth of stratigraphy
Trial trenching has shown that the bank upon which Brotchie’s steading sits is largely man-made and part of an extensive settlement mound that possibly includes a ruined broch. The earliest deposits excavated were from an occupation surface and material from this provided a date in the range 390-170 BC. At the North end of the site a thick layer of stone rubble associated with a clay and stone-lined pit and two red deer antler picks was identified. Radiocarbon dating showed these to be from the 1st-3rd centuries AD The overlying strata supported by a sequence of radiocarbon dates and datable finds indicate that the site was also a focus of human activity in the 5th, 13th and 15th centuries up until the early 20th century. While the full extent of the site is currently unknown the knoll upon which Dunnet Church now sits would appear to form a part of a major archaeological site that has seen almost continuous, or at least regular, occupation for over two millennia.[3]
See also[edit]References[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dunnet&oldid=924161603'
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The Lymond Chronicles is a series of six novels written by Dorothy Dunnett and first published between 1961 and 1975. Set in mid-16th-century Europe and the Mediterranean area, the series tells the story of a young Scottish nobleman, Francis Crawford of Lymond, from 1547 through 1558.
Overview[edit]Francis Crawford of Lymond[edit]
The six volumes follow the life and career of the charismatic Francis Crawford of Lymond, the younger son of the Crawfords of Culter, members of the landed aristocracy of the Scottish Lowlands. Brought up according to the Renaissance ideal of an educated autodidact, he is a polyglot, knowledgeable in literature, philosophy, mathematics and the sciences, a practitioner of all the martial arts, a spell-binding musician, a talented thespian, and a master strategist with a genius for imaginative tactics.
An intensely private man with a very public persona, he is a non-conformist who is suspicious of political and religious causes. He is driven by his demanding personal code of behaviour and responsibility, regardless of society's expectations or rules. Though a cosmopolitan military leader, diplomat and spy, he has an abiding feeling for his home country of Scotland. Despite his reluctance to relinquish his cherished independence and align himself permanently with any nation's ruler, Lymond's professional reputation increasingly makes him a sought-after ally, or a foe to be avoided, by many of the crowned heads of Europe. Still, only for goals he believes in strongly will he deploy his glittering and commanding persona, quicksilver mind, talent for dissembling what he thinks or feels, and rapier tongue; and once he dedicates himself to a goal, his will is implacable.
In his personal life, Lymond has an unusual ability to inspire intense loyalty and even love in those who are attracted to him. But the Crawford family's history begins to produce more and more tensions, and these conflicts are exacerbated by the family's shared weaknesses: immense pride and a stubborn refusal to explain the reasons for their actions.
As a whole, the Lymond Chronicles tell how an arrogant, brilliant, but troubled individualist, though increasingly successful professionally, becomes alienated and isolated as a result of battles with forces he can't control, as well as with himself; and how he ultimately becomes reconciled with his country, his family and friends, and himself.
History in the Lymond Chronicles[edit]
Dunnett paints on a large historical canvas, with details based on meticulous research in hundreds of primary and secondary sources. In addition to their original characters, the novels feature a large number of historical figures, often in important roles.
The historical setting is the incessant jockeying for power through treaties, alliances of convenience, political marriages, wars, and even piracy, among the English Tudors, the Holy Roman Empire of the Habsburgs, the French Valois, the Ottoman Empire of Suleiman the Magnificent, and their respective secular and religious allies, including the Stewarts of Scotland, the Knights of St. John, the corsairs of North Africa, and Tsar Ivan the Terrible of Russia. Each of the six books has several locations with the exception of the first, The Game of Kings, which takes place almost exclusively in the Scottish Lowlands and the borders with England.
The novels examine the politics and culture of each court and its nobility as monarchies centralized their power; the intensifying controversies over the Reformation; implications of the Age of Discovery for political and economic power and knowledge; and the blurred boundaries between faith and reason in religion, esoterica such as alchemy and astrology, and science. In addition, the large number of women in positions of political power during this period (as rulers in their own name, as regents, as strong wives or mistresses of kings, or as heirs to thrones) affords an exploration of women's roles.
The series and The House of Niccolò[edit]
The six books together form a single story, told in chronological order. However, the first two books can be read as self-contained novels. The endings of the third and fifth novels have no real resolution, but lead directly to the story taken up in the fourth and sixth novels.
Meanwhile, the six books of the Lymond Chronicles are part of what Dunnett viewed as a larger 14-volume work, together with the eight novels of The House of Niccolò series. The House of Niccolò, written after the Lymond Chronicles, tells the tale of Lymond's ancestors in the previous century and alludes to events in the Lymond Chronicles. Dunnett recommended readers begin with the Lymond Chronicles and then read The House of Niccolò[citation needed]. As with the Lymond Chronicles, The House of Niccolò features a number of historical figures as important characters. Both the historical and fictional characters are, however, taken from a wider variety of occupations and social classes than in the Lymond Chronicles. There are significant differences in narrative approach and writing style between the series, reflecting in part the very different personal journey taken by the central character in each.
The six novels in the Lymond series are as follows:
The Game of Kings (1961)[edit]
Living mostly by his wits and his sword-arm in 16th-century Scotland, Francis Crawford of Lymond is a charismatic figure: polyglot scholar, soldier, musician, master of disguises, nobleman—and accused outlaw. After five years in exile, Lymond has recently returned to Scotland, in defiance of Scottish charges against him for pro-English treason and murder. He has assembled a band of mercenaries and ruffians who follow his ruthless leadership. The reader gradually learns that Lymond has returned with the goal of proving his innocence and restoring his name. To do so, he must find the man who framed him and condemned him to two years as a French galley slave before he managed to escape. His family, the Crawfords, also cannot avoid becoming entangled in the complex politics between England and Scotland, including the Anglo-Scottish wars, Scotland's alliance with France, and skirmishes in the Borders region.
The novel is constructed as an intricate mystery, punctuated by set pieces of adventure, high comedy, and intense drama. Will Lymond prove himself innocent, die in the attempt, or be captured and hanged? Moreover, who is Lymond, and what are his motives and his true relationships with the other characters? Lymond leaves no one indifferent to him: some of the key characters—such as Richard Crawford, third Baron Culter and Lymond's older brother, and Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox—are one-time friends or intimates who become his mortal enemies. Betrayals and double-crosses, both potential and actual, abound. The pieces of the mystery only fit together late in the story as revelations at a trial.
A number of historical persons appear in the novel, many as important characters. They include members of the Scott clan including Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch, his wife, Janet Beaton, and his son William Scott of Kincurd, who becomes Lymond's second-in-command in his band of outlaws; Mary of Guise, the Queen Dowager of Scotland and her young daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots; and members of the Douglas family including Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, his brother Sir George Douglas, his daughter Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox (niece of Henry VIII), and Margaret's husband Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, a potential claimant to the Scottish throne if the young Mary, Queen of Scots, died. The English military leaders responsible for prosecuting the war of The Rough Wooing, Sir William Grey and Lord Thomas Wharton, also have prominent, and often comedic, roles.
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Queens' Play (1964)[edit]
Having cleared his name in Scotland, Lymond takes on an alias in order to infiltrate the French court and protect the young Mary, Queen of Scots from her would-be assassins. But in Europe's most decadent and reckless court, he finds it increasingly difficult to remember where play-acting ends and self-destructive excess begins.
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The Disorderly Knights (1966)[edit]
His reputation freshly restored after his actions in France, Lymond travels to the Isle of Malta, home to the Crusading Order of Knights Hospitaller of St John, just before the Ottoman Turks lay siege to it. There he becomes embroiled in a contest of wits with a man who may or may not be a living saint, and discovers a secret that transforms that intellectual contest into a visceral struggle for his native Scotland.
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Pawn in Frankincense (1969)[edit]
Lymond embarks upon a hunt for the child who may or may not be his, crossing Europe and North Africa following the trail of clues his malevolent adversary has laid for him. Reaching the glittering court of the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, Lymond must summon all of his courage and willpower to win freedom for himself, his child and his companions.
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The Ringed Castle (1971)[edit]
Lymond arrives at the semi-barbaric court of the Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible, and begins the difficult task of transforming this backward country into a modern state. But circumstances may not intend for Lymond to end his days as the Voivoda of all Russia, and he must return to his homeland one last time. There he faces the family he has rejected, and the woman who calls herself his wife.
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Checkmate (1975)[edit]
Checkmate takes place in 1557, and Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny is once again in France, leading an army against England. But even as he succeeds brilliantly on the battlefield, his haunted past becomes a subject of intense interest to forces on both sides. Meanwhile, Mary Queen of Scots prepares to marry the French Dauphin.
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Reading aids[edit]
Dunnett has not received extended critical attention, but there are some academic studies of her work:
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lymond_Chronicles&oldid=905716607'
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