Melrose Abbey, Borders, Scotland

The Scottish Borders area is full of abbeys so here is one of the best known of them. Various hill wanderings have taken me to Melrose and this photo comes from a Sunday in July that was too warm for walking. Spending a few hours around one of Scotland's more iconic abbeys seemed best given the tempearatures and there was plenty to see too. The ruins are remarkably well preserved with comical gargoyles surviving too; one features a pig playing bagpipes for some reason. Many of the remains that are preserved to this day date from the fourteenth century when a war necessitated a rebuild of the main church. The abbey was founded before then though (1136, in fact) and associations with St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert. It was a long distance trail named after the latter that drew me to Melrose on the weekend when I captured the above scene.