Why Queen didn’t release this at the time of the Works I have no idea – its absolutely superb – and Freddie’s voice is at its peerless best.
Have a listen: http://vimeo.com/106916906
Author: Dixon-Spain
Our Sunday Project: Flying Bassett mural in the office.
The girls had a blast creating the mural – their first commission! It adorns the office wall and will amuse me as I work at and on Dunans.
” … thanks to the IPCC, no one will ever be able to say they weren’t warned.”
… about Climate Change. This is one of the reasons why I joined the Scottish Greens. And the IPCC report is by its very nature conservative according to Bill McKibben who I quote in the title of this post.
What are you going to do?
In time for Christmas! Our new Lambswool Dunans Rising Tartan range is now online!
We’ve finally managed to get our range of gorgeous lambswool items online and looking lovely. Find it here!
There’s a scarf, a stole, a blanket and a serape – all 100% pure New Wool in the Dunans Rising tartan – all in time for Christmas! But there’s limited stock!
Topographical Survey at Dunans: GMGeomatics completes a detailed scan of the grounds around the castle.
This weekend the final survey at Dunans was completed – an accurate survey of the ground around the castle is absolutely key when planning drainage, access and outbuildings. Gregor from GM Geomatics spent the day with multiple yellow tripods and lasers, and we should see the results shortly!
Note the tripod and tallest tree leaning slightly to the right – more about the cameraman than the surveyor!
This is the area surveyed:
The final element of the detailed survey work is an interior dimensional survey of the castle – which requires clearance of the interior spaces.
Adorning one’s one square foot: delightful model castle with draw-bridge and two turrets
We have had lots of great moments with Lairds and Ladies when they come to visit their plot of land. Often they will want to leave a marker, or tribute, or ‘development’: we’ve had the flags of most nationalities, we’ve had farmyard animals, we’ve even had a red Monopoly hotel – but today we had one of the most creative …
If you are a Laird or Lady and want to take the tour and visit your plot of land, please click here for more details!
Dunans and the Seaplane: Loch Lomond Seaplanes fly us over Dunans on a perfect day for photos!
Today we had a marvellous outing courtesy of Sadie. For my birthday last year my darling wife gave me a jaunt in the Loch Lomond Seaplane. Well, today we finally got to go. It was a truly brilliant day out, and the highlight was of course circling Dunans in the morning sunlight before going off for lunch at Loch Voil. We thoroughly recommend this as a great way of seeing Argyll and especially Cowal which on the right day is spectacular!
Scottish Laird Calendar for 2015 is published!
For everyone who has entered our competition to vote for all the photos included in this gorgeous calendar, it is now for sale at the Scottish Laird website!
I’m really very proud of this – not least because it uses photographs from both myself and our redoubtable in-house professional photographer, Jean Donaldson (powan.co.uk). We do have one archive shot, not used before, to show what Dunans was like c. 1930. …. And we couldn’t resist a shot of the Scotties too, looking delightful in the frost this January.
I wonder if you can guess which are Jean’s and which are mine? Confirmation when you buy the calendar and look at the credits at the end!
Who knew? Its our flag at the end of the rainbow – not a pot of gold!
Need say no more than look at this great pic taken by Sue this afternoon!
Investigating Dunans Bridge: Checking the underlying structure of our Thomas Telford-designed A-listed structure
This week the bridge is being investigated – carefully, slowly and with due regard for its age, possible infirmaties and status.
Our structural engineer, Steve Wood (David Narro Associates) , Heritage Consolidation, the contractors, our QS Gordon Brown (Brown & Wallace), our Planning advisor, John Paton (Paton Planning & Development) and of course our architect, Robin Kent (Robin Kent Architecture & Conservation), along with the scaffolders had a day working on and planning for the bridge – as well as the rest of the site.
Of course we took lots of photos, see below, and the initial conclusions were very interesting.
In the second trench (this sounds SO like Time Team) we discovered an extraordinary structural indicator that would, if confirmed by historical experts, mean that Thomas Telford did indeed design and build the bridge (there’s no extant paperwork). Needless to say Architect, Structural Engineer, Heritage Consolidation and ScottishLaird are all very, very excited.
We’ll post more via our Lairds and Ladies newsletter later next week!