St. Anthony's Chapel Ruins

Continuing our quest for riveting blog material, we packed up our lunch and headed out to Holyrood Park (also called Queen's Park, as it is situated just behind the Royal Palace) after church. The park is just at the east end of the city centre and is home to a wide open green space, as well as a set of hills formed by a now extinct volcano. Set among these hills are various lochs (lakes or ponds) and vista points, as well as several interesting geological structures.

The idea for this excursion came after I saw a pond while riding in the car with a coworker earlier in the week. The pond was noticeable because it was full of swans. Really, I've never seen anything like it. It was just covered with them. We were driving at the time though so I didn't get a good look (and, I resisted the urge to ask my colleague for a picture-taking stop for hopefully obvious reasons). In my research to determine just what this little loch was, I discovered that it is situated just underneath the ruins of an old chapel. Perfect, I thought. This little adventure will provide Joe with what interests him most (ruins of religious structures) and me with what interests me most (water and scenic views). (I should note, Joe also really like graves of theologians, but there aren't any in Edinburgh, to my knowledge).

Turns out the loch is called St. Margaret's Loch and is home to a "significant population of swans, geese, and ducks." I personally think this should be renamed to Swan Lake, but surprisingly, no one asked me.



After enjoying the birds, we made the trek up to the ruins. Though not at a very high altitude, the walk up is directly up and a bit of an energy-zapper. Fortunately, the views are well worth the effort.



St. Anthony's Chapel Ruins are the remains of a chapel that possibly dates back to the early 1300s. Although not much is known about the Chapel, it appears that it fell out of use in the 1560s, following the Reformation. It is thought that the chapel consisted of a three-story tower and a three roomed chapel, at one point in time.






Sadly, we are having major camera issues, so were not able to get great pictures of all the sights, nor were we able to get a picture of the two of us together. But, rest assured, we were both there.

Again, another lovely day spent enjoying our new surroundings. Thanks for reading the blog and giving us an excuse to go exploring. Not that we really need an excuse, but it's good motivation, just the same.