Glamis Castle
Originally uploaded by clarkalastair

Went here with my dad, sister, Miao and uncle’s family. According to the tour guide around the castle it’s still a private residence for some of the British Royal Family. A search on wikipedia reveals that it is the home of Earl and Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne. Also apparently famously the childhood home of the Queen Mom, and Princess Margaret was born there.

We drove through the gate and down the long drive way, to be presented with a checkpoint where we paid and then parked up. Visited the castle tour guide starting point to see when the guides start, and decided to have a walk around first. The grounds were large and pretty, and there were a nominal amount of tourists going around taking photos. We also saw a couple who were taking wedding photos, the man in full kilty outfit and their bridesmaids and entourage following.

Of particular interest was the family pet cemetery, with proper grave stones, and a pair of decorative defensive towers. Which reminds me, Glamis wasn’t built as a functional castle but as a residence.

Having walked around we returned to the castle and had a look around some of the non-tour exhibits. Much was said about the Queen mum, whiskey, cheese and a castle redevelopment project. Curiosity satisfied, we moved into the tour waiting area, and were the first in line. We enquired about a Chinese language version of the blurb, the man on the service desk didn’t know whether they had one or not and had to look hard to find one, finally we were given one sheet of paper, where the German, Spanish and French versions were big booklets of information.

The first room where the tour started was a large dining area with wooden panelled walls, a big fireplace, and a large beautifully polished wooden table. Over the entirety of the tour we saw Royal bedrooms, living rooms, dressing rooms, fireplaces, paintings, pianos, libraries, and from my memory what looked like a dungeon and seemed to act as an armoury of sorts for people to leave their weapons while they were visiting the castle. There were rooms (note the plural) devoted to displaying the Royal plate collection, with a significant proportion being from China. We saw paintings of some significance being the oldest recorded image of somebody famous, I think it was the Queen mom at a very young age. The tour guide, as they usually do, told us lots of interesting information about the architecture, the history, the people associated, and the items in the rooms.

When we were finished, we walked over to the shop, bought some overpriced little gifty things for taking back to China and giving to people and then drove back home to Forfar.

To find out more read the wiki entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glamis_Castle