Balmoral Castle 1 of 4

bow morale the royal families holiday home in Scotland it is the most private of the Queen's residences a romantic retreat as far from the formality of steak as it could possibly be it is here that the royal family enjoy Balmoral traditions their ancestors created from kilts to hunting picnics to porridge this retreat is key to the idea of monarchy more than any other royal residence Balmoral has become a proving ground of those who take the test not everyone falls in love with Balmoral if you do not like walking in the hills we do not like fishing who do not like shooting Balmoral is not the ideal place is totally ill designed for reject set while morale is critical to the royal family uniting a diverse Kingdom it is rugged outdoors and in its own way Scottish it was Scottish nurse Scottish nurse it was a tribute to Scottish nurse in excess with Balmoral start envision the royal family have helped to create Scotland the historic myth in turn Balmoral has become a sanctuary from modern Britain where the monarchy can enjoy an ancient world of royalty the Highland Gathering at Braemar Aberdeen sure the music is Scottish the dancing is Scottish the event is steeped in Scottish tradition amidst this display the royal family arrived none of them was born in Scotland yet they determinately attend every year dressed in kilts for then these Scottish ceremonies have become a crucial part of being royal ever since Queen Victoria there has been a strong fiscal link almost between the royal family and the Scottish background they were always convinced for there was a very special relationship at the heart of this relationship is Balmoral Castle created as a romantic holiday home it has come to symbolize much more Balmoral celebrates deep-rooted values which have come to define the very essence of the British monarchy yet at the beginning of the 19th century the monarchy didn't care to visit Scotland let alone live in the highlands the family love affair with Scotland began with Queen Victoria in 1842 she planned an exotic holiday with Prince Albert it was their first trip north of the border Scotland wasn't part of the mass Victorian tourism and in those days so Victoria was very much a fail avant-garde and going there with Albert and once they arrived there people were absolutely delighted to see them it was like I like a monarch going to hosts of hidden part of China today there people were just delighted to see them they'd never seen people in London before let alone the Queen the times declaimed from Edinburgh nothing is now spoken of but the Queen's visit to her ancient kingdom of Scotland it has superseded all other topics of the day Victoria and Albert were received by thousands of welcoming Scots with a theatrical display of fireworks balls and exaggerated Scottish nurse at Drummond Castle medieval heraldry was even hired for the visit she's also welcomed by a hundred tenants who are carrying Lochaber axes which is the the traditional weapon of the country that's a that's an axe on a pole usually about ten feet high those hadn't been used in battle since the very beginning of the 18th century and even then they're an outmoded weapon they showed the immemorial past they are the the highlands of the location of the Fae the extraordinary are the supernatural a strange survival herds strayed into the modern age Green Victoria noted it seemed as if a great chieftain in olden feudal times was receiving his sovereign it was princely and romantic Victoria was greeted by Scotland at its romantic best there was tartan and she said they were maidens dressed in their long gowns with flowers in their hair it was a beautiful theme park and even it seemed as if though the stuff ordinary humble people lived in far more beauty than them anyone ever could Victoria immersed herself in every aspect of Scottish ness much to the delight of the Scots she had her first taste of porridge which she found very good as for Albert the Scottish mountains and forests reminded him of his native Germany for the royal couple Scotland was pure romance shipping the shopping so potent saw irresistible a boat Halen Scott from the special in terms of its sentimentalized version it strikes all the senses and emotions it strikes the sense of thematic history it strikes the human sense and awareness of grandeur of scenery this is one of the last true wilderness 'iz of Europe which is if you like an alternative to the evils and excesses of urbanism I mean I feel a still today going up there after to further trips Victoria and Albert was so seduced by Scotland but they purchased a holiday home in Aberdeenshire Balmoral Castle they quickly found it wasn't large enough for the entourage in 1852 they began to build an entirely new castle with a new design Balmoral gave Albert the opportunity to create his own vision of beauty and perfection it was a vision that stemmed from a German upbringing to me this term Vermont looks very much like a German castle and having paintings of mighty German castles like and it looks very much like the castles you grew up in it has the towers it has a fairytale element to it it's like the Brothers Grimm bar morals interior to was a romantic adventure the decked with tartan this is a sitting room with tartan carpet and upholstery the ballroom was graced with Gothic chandeliers and tartan curtains Albert let rip it was Scottish nurse Scottish nurse where it was a tribute to Scottish nurse INXS there was tartan everywhere everyone complained about the decor it was tasteless nothing matched it was all rather excessively a kind of pre Disney version of Scotland and Victoria and Albert thought it was marvellous Queen Victoria wrote the house is charming the rooms delightful the furniture papers everything perfection yet the Tartan paradise they had created was packed with irony tartan was associated with the Scottish royal line the Stewart's Victoria sees herself as she puts it as the air as the air of the Stewart's the air of that unhappy race horoscope on is a Scotland where she is the inheritor of a long-standing past despite declaring herself a Stuart it was Victoria's great great grandfather George the second who had massacred Stuart supporters the Jacobites at Columbia even made the wearing of Stuart symbols of the uprising such as tartan illegal one government commentator had it in 1747 when referring to the disarming act and particularly to the controls over traditional Highland dress this is an instrument for disarming and undressing those ruffians because these were regarded as if you like the sartorial manifestations the manifestations and dress of disaffection of rebellion of treason by the end of the 18th century as well as state oppression Highland people saw a massive agricultural change and brutal evictions from their land when you go to the Highlands today people always comment upon it as a beautiful wilderness but it's far from of useable wilderness it's a devil a derelict landscape and highland scotland because you didn't get industrialization because you didn't get an alternative tool and it eventually brought distress destitution mass emigration famine some Scots rejected the dereliction by romanticizing the old-world of the rebellious Jacobites no one did more to reinvent the past and glamorize Highland culture than the writer Sir Walter Scott author of Waverly Ivanhoe and Rob Roy there's plenty of passages that I think is utterly forgivable to lay your eye glide over ah there's some descriptions of hair that I don't think I've ever quite read through entirely well glistening streamers waved and danced The Wanderers I could barely view the summer heavens delicious blue so wondrous wild the whole might seem the scenery of a fairy dream Walter Scott himself remarked that what makes Scotland Scotland is fast disappearing I'm Henley Lord cool button the great intellectual lawyer this is the last truly scotch age so there was a hunt on if you like to retain a sense of cultural identity while at the same time retaining the Union by the early 1800s Scotland had become an intellectual and economic powerhouse but Walter Scott created an intoxicating image of pastoral romance in London the young Victoria had become obsessed by Scots vision the first novel she ever read was his bride of Lammermoor there's no question that's a Walter Scott sort of lit fire in Victoria's heart that developed into her great love of Scotland we think of this subtle dumpy little widow but that wasn't the young Queen at all you know she was passionate about everything and the moment she saw it she felt she'd come home I think so we'll just got created in her a curiosity to see Scotland that um you know led her there maybe the sooner her new husband Prince Albert also loved reading Scots novels in Germany editions had been pirated they were so popular throughout Europe a new Romanticism took hold one German composer Mendelssohn had fallen in love with Scotland and befriended Victoria and Albert Mendelssohn's Fingal's cave is a Fantasia on Scottish themes and I think that phrase a fantasy on Scottish themes summarizes the whole project that Scotland was going through in the 19th century from the wavelet novels to Balmoral these were Fantasia on Scottish themes by 1855 the newly built Balmoral was ready to be lived in by its royal owners amidst this Scottish fantasy Victoria's diary entry is lengthened reflecting her deep passion for Balmoral every year my heart becomes more fixed in this deer paradise and so much more so now that all has become my dearest Albert's own creation own work own building own laying out but not everyone thought it to be the Paradise she did lady-in-waiting or Gustav Bruce observed with reticence a certain absence of harmony of the whole well looking at old photographs Victorian Balmoral was slightly cluttered like all of Victoria's palaces and spaces it was full of um antlers and deers heads everywhere particularly in the hall and some of the rooms were terribly small so that people who had to stay there were sort of shoved into these tiny rooms particularly at the beginning um you get ministers complaining that have forced to write their dispatches on their bed because there's no desk in their room and you know there's just records it's as it's such a tiny space comparing it to another royal home politician Lord Rosebery observed the drawing-room at Osborne was the ugliest in the world until I saw the one at Balmoral

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Keywords: Balmoral, Castle

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Length: 14min 26sec (866 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 06 2010