My planned trek for today was to go to the woods at Tyninghame taking a different route as I was looking at old maps & spotted a foot bridge which crosses the river Tyne, so packing my backpack with the usual necessities of puncture repair tools, inner tube & food for fuel etc, I made off on my way admiring all the rusty colours of autumn...
Deciding along the way to take in some hilly country trails & scenery before dropping down to the coast.
Bypassing the ancient monument of Doonhill & climbing a little further to the Trig point that looks over the ever expanding town of Dunbar (top picture) & looking westward (bottom picture).
A zoomed in photo of where I am heading for, the trees of Tyninghame on the other side of the river Tyne.
Following a footpath around the Spott estate.
From Pitcox there is a 'private' entrance into the Biel estate where my friend lives in a lodge house in the grounds of the estate, so a wee visit for a blether, a nice hot cup of tea & a choccy biscuit to look forward to on this nippy cold day.
Every season has it's plus points from the first buds on the tree's in spring, the flora & fauna of summer to the frosts & snow in winter but for me I think the rusty autumn colours take a bit of beating with the different shades of the leaves.
Some history from within Biel estate, archaeologists from Glasgow university found remains of a small farmstead over 2000 years old, possibly with a palisade surrounding a roundhouse.
Biel House itself is a 16th century listed building formerly owned by the Earls of Belhaven, William Atkinson extended it in 1814-1818 & in the early 20th century further interior alterations were made.
The grounds of the estate include a chapel, rock garden, pigeon doocot, summerhouse, gatepiers, deer park, woodland, arboretum, kitchen garden & glasshouse.
Unfortunately I never got a frontal photo of the house ! But...
(Top)- A rear view of the house nowadays.
(Middle & Bottom)- Pictures from the front & rear of the house from I have no idea when, but as you can see the house is considerably larger than the top present day picture.
Cycling up the driveway enjoying autumn smells & colours, nearly at my friends house at the west lodge of the estate grounds, so get the kettle on !
Disappointed my friend was not at home so no mug of tea or choccy biscuit, so onwards it is.
Now only a stones throw from Tyninghame across the river Tyne, Cycling along 'Buist's Embankment' which is an earth wall built to reclaim the salt greens, a tidal marsh for agriculture around 1850.
Some views across the Tyne river looking towards Tyninghame where I'm heading for.
The stunning Tyninghame House over the other side. There was a manor at Tyninghame in 1094 & it was later the property of the Lauder of the Bass family. In the 17th century it was sold to the Earl of Haddington . The present building dates from 1829 when the 9th Earl of Haddington employed William Burn to greatly enlarge the house in the Baronial style. In 1987 the contents of the house were sold & the house was divided into flats.
This time I never got the chance to take a front view photo of the house so the above 3 pictures are from Google images.
Arriving at the old footbridge that I spotted on an old map, finding the wood flooring was a bit worse for wear I carefully crossed making sure that I stepped on the metal cross sections only to be really disheartened when arriving at the gate midway across to find that it was chained & padlocked !
Standing at the gate on the bridge blocked in my path what else to do other than grab a couple of pictures of the river Tyne.
Cutting my ride short & heading homewards, brambles & old WWII defensive blocks on the path towards John Muir country park.
A trip down memory lane when I saw this old marker post as I entered the John Muir country park, I remember these all over the park when I was young, they were placed as an indication of where you could & could not walk restricting certain areas of the park for nature to be left alone.
As the tide had recently gone out the sand was firm enough to cycle along which was a nice change from the bumpy coastal path, I can see why fat bikes are becoming so popular down this area as we have so much sand around our coastline.
The middle picture is what's left of the anti glider poles dating back from WWII when the threat of a German invasion was a reality.
Bottom picture shows how the sea is slowly eating away at the land with these tree's slipping down onto the beach.
Travelling through the country park I came across this poster for a race around the woods, which I'll have to come down for a nose as I am interested to see what sort of race it is with dogs ?
An old building again from WWII I'm not sure of the purpose of this building.
Nice to see someone has done a bit of beach cleaning, amazing what gets washed up.
'Bullet Hill' a place where my friends & I spent hours as kids looking for old rounds from WWII which were fired into the above banking as target practice & even after 30+ years when me & my friends foraged there are still loads to be found, I found these in only a few minutes, great memories.
Riding through the woods I came across the Gruffalo's house !
2 pots of gold maybe.
A new play park for kids at the John Muir country park with the addition of these brilliant tree sculptures.
Popping into my daughters for a coffee then heading off down the dump road passing the Biel burn & now heading along to Belhaven.
The Bass rock & how it was when it was a volcano, it must of been some size. The other 2 volcanoes were Traprain Law & North Berwick Law.
The 'Bridge to nowhere' which gets cut off when the tide is in, & an information panel telling of the days when Belhaven was a busy harbour.
Despite the efforts the erosive power of the sea will eventually win.
Around the edge of Winterfield golf coarse, a nice view to take a seat & admire.
More defensive blocks around the golf coarse.
The low autumn sun highlighting the red rock of the cliffs.
Looking around the cliff top promenade towards Dunbar harbour & looking over to the Bass Rock.
A surprise find, this memorial bench was as it turns out to be my old primary school headmaster & what a cracking view in his honour, a decent man & if only I had listened & paid more attention to his teachings !
More views around the promenade.
Dunbar castle & an information board telling of Black Agnes.
Dunbar harbour.
The low sun starting to go down behind the hills & found this little fluorescent badge along the cycle path nearing the cement works.
Taking the commute route past my work of LaFarge cement stopping to take a photo of a sign which informs of the species of wildlife which has now habited the old quarry site after quarrying ceased in this part of the works.
Sea Buckthorn with it's pale green leaves & vibrant orange berries.
From quarry to kiln, the conveyor that brings the crushed limestone to the factory to be produced into cement.
Nearly home now & one more thing to do on the way...
...& that's check on my lonely brussels sprout plant that's coming along nicely plumping up for Christmas dinner.
Anyway time to sign off for now hope you enjoyed the
'Rusty ride in autumn'
bye for now.
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