June 22- Flight over uneventful, though I did get a whole row to layout on and sleep which was nice as we were on a redeye. Found our way to the rental car and had a car reserved in manchester New Hampshire, not Manchester England which was not very helpful. Got the reservation moved to England without to much trouble. We added everyone on but Mom as a driver. Dad has been driving like a bat out of hell. He took out some poor guys rear view mirror while skirting a narrow side street. Had to stop and negotiate terms with a local. Had the chance to visit Bury Parish Church. It was beautiful. The sidewalks are lined with old headstones and we found a few Livsey names out there. The s and f are interchangeable in old English for some reason. Livfey is as common as Livsey. Also, or alto is also common. Very odd. Made our way to the Black Bull Pub for dinner. It was a fun family run establishment with a friendly pub owner. Dad chatted him up on which way he was voting today. I guess they have a big decision in their polls today. He also explained no left turn on a red light to us. We pulled into the hotel and ran over a bit of the curb on the way into our parking stall. After all the road mishaps along the way it sent us all into a laughing fit. I was laughing tears. Good trip thus far. I dreamt all night of rushing through the street at mad rates in the car. I hope I can somehow drive today.
Thursday June 23 - St Luke’s church, Heywood Cemetery, Rochdale Cemetery, Preston Temple,
Ate a delicious hotel breakfast of Eggs Benedict. This Best Western Bolholt Country Road is treating us right. Really nice hotel restaurant with complimentary breakfast included. Gathered ourselves together after a little planning session and headed off to St. Lukes Church. This would have been the chapel our relatives in the area worshiped at. The building was there but it was locked. Also, all the graves had been moved to the Heywood Cemetery. We headed off to the Heywood Cemetery. I drove today and Deborah was lead navigator. Worked out well. The cemetery had two beautiful chapel/office buildings. One on each side of the highest road. Then it sloped down toward the graves. We asked a preacher who had finished up services and he pointed us toward the men in green shirts. Deb and Sonja walked down, I drove the parents around to the bottom and met up with them. They found a green shirted man who showed us where the St Lukes graves were. Unfortunately they were all buried in a mass grave situation without headstone markers. I guess they needed the cemetery plot space for new developments. We are still trying to track down if the St Luke names are recorded anywhere. We checked at the Rochdale Cemetery but they only have the names from the Heywood neighborhoods not St Lukes. We did look through the Heywood listings of deaths and found a few possible leads. Maybe the names aren’t where we think they are….that’s why we can’t find them. Spent the better part of the day working through this quandary.
Headed off to the pub around 3:00. Ate at the Baum Pub. My Pumpkin Tortellini was delicious. Red sauce full of chunky vegetables. Swung back around the hotel to change into temple clothes. Didn’t really have enough time to do a session and get Dad back home in time for his 8:00 call about the Quinney genealogy. He was a good sport and made his calls front he temple while we went in for a session. The Preston England Temple is gorgeous. The grounds are very formal English Garden style with trees in hedge rows and hedges in hedge rows and roses in arches. Very pretty. Two ponds out front with lilies floating in them. The interior is equally as beautiful with lots of white marble and local landscapes. We went through with family names Deborah had prepared. Betty Booth wife of Peter Livsey, (death date of 1795 I think) is who I took through. It is cool she got to get her Endowments taken out in her home temple. We were too tired to eat out so we stopped at a little co-op market and everyone grabbed snacks for dinner. I ate cheddar and chive chips, a chocolate eclair and ice cream. Perfect meal. Off to bed, we are all very tired it’s 1am.
Friday June 24 -Chatsworth House Hadden Hall
Today was all about a movie I can’t even remember seeing. I guess Pride and prejudice was filled at Pemberley Hall which is really called Chatsworth Hall. It is the home of the 12th Duke of Devonshire. It didn’t start so grand but it certainly is grand now. We drove an hour and a half south to the town of Bakewell and found the house. They have an extensive collection or art, sculptures, chinese furniture and vases, etc. We saw a Rembrant and the most gorgeous painting of an artists little dutch daughter. That was my favorite. The home was extravagant and gorgeous at the same time. I loved the tour. We pushed mom around the house and the gardens. They had awesome fountains and gorgeous English garden topiaries and a rose garden. Loads of green houses but my favorite was the vinery which had grapes growing up from the middle to the ceilings and down the walls. Looked amazing. Very large lemons that I thought must be grapefruit but the sign said lemons, and regular size limes. There was also a grotto with a large waterfall, ponds and amazing rock scapes. Lovely, as the british would say.
The hand painted wallpaper with birds was impressive and the beds were massive with draperies galore.
Deborah drove us there which was good and I drove us home which was also good. We needed up detouring down this lane type road with shrubbery growing up both sides. We could barely fit through. Problem was it was a two lane road. When you come to another car someone has to back up to an outpost. Luckily we only had to back up once and the shoulder wasn’t too far back. I don’t know who would live down those roads but people do. Crazy! We stopped at a pub named Lantern Pike Inn and had another great meal. I ate chicken curry. My stomach is grumbling now but it sure tasted good going down.
We drove by Haddon Hall on our way out of town but it was closed. The gentlemen at the gate let us walk in and view the Hall from the roadway. It looked impressive, like a castle but we missed that one as we spent the whole day in Chatsworth.
Tomorrow we head for the Lakes district which sounds awesome. More fun ahead.
June 25 - Saturday - Lakes District, Bowness on Windermere, Ambleside, Keswick, Castlerigg Stone Circle, cell battery issues,
Woke early to head off to the Lake District. It is a nation park of sorts in England. Drove through gorgeous countryside, listened to Dad “baaaaa” like a very loud sheep while we drove along. I drove in the morning and Deborah took over in the evening. The freeway is nowhere near our hotel so we have about a twenty minute drive through the country before we get to a freeway. We took M6 north skirted Preston and Lancaster. Made our way up to Bowness on Windermere. It is a beautiful town with a seaside feel. Church bells were ringing for at least fifteen maybe twenty minutes. Finally we figured out there was a wedding at the church and they were waiting for the bride. The Belsfield Hotel down by the Lake was apparently designed by Laura Ashley and looks very impressive! Mom tried on welliesin a little shop but they weren’t very comfy so she left them behind. We ate lunch at the flying pig pub. Deborah and Sonja tried the fish and chips but weren’t overly impressed. I had a lamb burger and it was alright. I would stick with ground beef in the future. Ordering from the Flying Pig’s menu was the most confusing English menu I’ve ever seen. I had to ask to have at least half the words described. Oh, that means cheese, oh that is ham, oh that is beef. Seriously! If was fun though being tricked by my own language. We headed off North to drive to Keswick. Passed two or three lakes along the way. The photographs look like blurry trees or blurry trees with Dad’s nose in them. Hard to photograph from the middle seat while moving. Mom did a good job trying to use my camera as hers has fallen out of the back seat and smashed the glass lens. As we were charting our course out of Keswick, which by the way was a cute little English country town I noticed a stone circle on the map. We quickly redirected and made our way over to where we thought the circle was. Somehow I got headed down the narrowest lane of my life, which I thought happened yesterday. We ended up doing a zillion point turn to turn around in a farmers field. So sorry farmer. We got off this tiny should be one way lane just in time for a red car to come zooming along the other direction. Anyhow, finally got parked and made our way to the stone circle. I loved it! The stone circle was phenomenal. There were sheep grazing around in the field with us and the sun came out and warmed up the place and cast gorgeous shadows around. A couple came and did a bit of drumming and chanting which added to the mood. Deborah, Sonja and Mom found a few locals to chat it up with and had a fun time talking genealogy. They gave us some advice on how to drive back to Bury which is always helpful. I circled the rocks as they were playing the drum and the girls were chatting and noticed people were tucking things under them. I found a couple of sea shells and a note under one rock and I found twenty pence and a piece of white rock under another plus a piece of bubble gum. I wonder what their intentions were when they placed items under the stone circles. We don’t really know what they were used for so it’s hard to imagine what kind of power people thing the rocks may have.
We stopped in Grasmere as instructed but missed the famous gingerbread. It was too late already. We did catch an outdoor concert and a brownie. The best part though was the bathroom. I had been holding it since we got to the Stone Circle. Deborah took over driving after the Stone Circle turnaround incident and did a great job. We have been having cell phone battery charging issues and while we bought a charger yesterday the USB plug we brought with us today had a short in it and has made it difficult to use anyones phone. We ran through Deborahs whole batter, Sonja’s battery and Mom’s battery before we pulled into the hotel.We tried to eat at the Black Bull Pub again but they stop serving food at 8pm. Our hotel was nice enough to feed us even though they were serving a big wedding party. We were all so tired I think we could have gone to bed without dinner but we ordered and spent two hours in the restaurant at the hotel eating dinner. We are headed to Scotland in the morning. Highlight of the day was the Stone Circle, so glad we didn't miss it.
I love a good stone circle. We managed to keep Dad out of a church long enough to find this one.
Preston Temple. We somehow managed to squeeze in a session. 
June 26 - Eccleshill, Livesey, Carlyle Castle, -border Scotland Glasgow, George’s Square, tobacco
Headed off this morning pretty early. We ate our breakfast and left our hotel friends behind by 9:00. We thought we were heading to Glasgow but had a little last minute detour. We detoured through a few little towns along the way. First we found Livesey and followed the sign to a tiny alley. Turned out to be a little neighborhood not much of a town. The lady in the yard pointed at a bit of hilly pasture and said that was Livesey long ago. So we found our town. We drove down a lane on the way our called Livesey Branch Road and were very happy to have a road named after the old family.
We found an area called Eccleshill and did a bit of photography for Dad’s book. Couldn’t exactly locate the hill but we found Eccleshill Gardens which were a little townhouse community. They took a few photos there for his book also. Decided that was enough town looking and then headed north for Scotland. Got distracted right near the border with Carlisle city. We found an old church, Carlisle was a town that Quinneys or Eccles were in. Found a few row houses built before the 1820s that we photographed. A guy there asked if we were with the insurance company since the entire street had been flooded in December and they were still trying to get everything sorted. He was happy to hear we were tourists just sight seeing on his street. The church was gorgeous as well. They sure knew how to build back then. We did a bit of research and Dad wasn't interested in the Carlisle cemetery or the cathedral but we did stop by the Carlisle Castle and they were actually doing a reenactment inside the fort. Dad slipped in and watched the Jacobites fighting with the Red Coats. He’s kind of a fan of the castle since he found out they filmed Outlanders there. I guess he likes the show, he mentions it all the time. I’ve not seen it yet. So we heard lots of gun-firing and general battle sounds while we waited in the car outside. He just wanted to have a peek inside and they let him without paying the entire entry fee. He did pick up a book on Carlisle Castle from the gift shop on his way out that I am sure he will enjoy reading. It said Queen Mary of Scots stayed there in the tower. She got around.
We managed to find a petrol station and a bathroom at the Staples and then googled where we could find a quick lunch. No more of this spending two hours in a pub trying to get service for us. We found a Burger King just across the border in Scotland. Deborah and I discussed how the border would go and we were both wrong. Nothing at the border you just drive through. I guess being the United Kingdom it doesn’t matter which country you are in. SO, no Scotland stamp in my passport, Boo.
It rained a bit today while we were driving but we have been really lucky with the weather. It has only really rained hard on us once while we were out walking a town. The drive into Glasgow was gorgeous. It feels like our hotel is in a bit of a dive neighborhood but the Hilton is just across the street so, hard to tell. Maybe it’s just old here and all things are a bit run down.
We had a marvelous time driving into Glasgow tonight. We are most definitely out of the countryside and back into the big city. The restaurants are open past 8:00pm and they are happy to see us coming at 8:30 or 9 for dinner. Thank goodness, we were struggling with finding a late evening meal in sleepy Bury. The hotel is nice though, Campanile, you know once you are inside. We somehow got a handicapped room and the bathroom is bizarro with no shower stalls or tub or anything. Just a bit time room with two sinks and a toilet. I showered tonight and did a little laundry in the shower and the water goes everywhere. Quite an interesting experience.
Back to Glasgow city. We found the train station where a young Quinney boy would come and sell his wares from England. He would jump on the train and ride to Queens Street Station and sell at the local hotels. He was doing this around 1858 at 8 years old. Crazy as it sounds most of the old hotels and pubs are still here. We took loads of photos. We got an awesome shot of the train tunnel and the tracks heading into the station. The station is unfortunately pretty new-age looking and ugly, not at all old looking. I did the best I could trying to photograph the new age look with the two hundred year building backdrop behind it. I hope they turn out cool. We found out there is a replica Statue of Liberty on top of their Chamber of Commerce building. That building wasn’t put in until 1880 so it wasn’t there for the Quinney boy but it looked amazing. The Statue of Liberty is small but impressive. There was a group of Scots and Muslims playing soccer in the Georges Square. They were having a good time. It got colder and colder and the light got dimmer and dimmer while we were out there but we really enjoyed ourselves. Running in and out of the buildings, asking if they had any information on when it was built. Most of them knew, some of them googled it for us. We gathered lots of good information quickly.
Headed back to the hotel for some food. They had a fantastic Italian restaurant in a circular building across the parking lot. I had the tomato basil soup. Delicious. When we asked the waitress what the soup of the day was her Scotish accent was so thick we could hardly tell what she was saying. She repeated it again and I finally figured it out. Tomao, all hard sounding vowels. Tricky speaking the same language and not feeling like you can even tell what they are saying. Over dinner we went through town names and figured out what villages Dad needs to go drive through.
Sonja is charting out our course for tomorrow. We are going to visit the towns the Eccles worked and lived in while living in Scotland. Well, the ones near Glasgow. Tomorrow we will see the ones near Edinburgh and hopefully Stirling Castle as well. We shall see. Fun day.
June 27, Monday Kelvingrove Art Museum, Mitchell Library, lunch in cafe, Stirling Castle, Hermanns Restaurant, Old Kilpatrick, Paisley
Started the day looking for old photos of George Square. Checked the Kelvingrove Art Museum as that hotel staff had all said they would have stuff. They didn't but the guy there told us the Mitchell Library definitely would. We did browse the Glasgow Stories exhibit and I ran and peeked at the impressionist wing real quick like. I found my old friends Monet, Renoir, Vincent, and Pablo. They had some great paintings in there. Headed off to the Library and spent the rest of the morning looking through old books, maps and other assorted items. The five us ran four ladies ragged looking up stuff and making copies. I bet they haven’t worked so hard in months. Found lots of images Dad can use in his book. Verified the Queen Street Station was in existence when his Quinney kid was selling his goods up in Glasgow. Found photos of poor houses in Glasgow in the early 1850s. Dad was happy with what we got done at the library.
We ate lunch at the Cafe in the library which was surprisingly good, I had the brucheta and a side salad. Then off to Sterling Castle. It is north east from Glasgow about a half hour. So much fun at the castle. It is everything a castle should be. Awesome doors, large castle walls, canons, palaces, chapels, the whole nine yards. We had a great tour with a cute Scottish or maybe French guide and she gave us an amazing history on the castle. Sterling was a high point and a river crossing and whoever held Sterling held Scotland. It changed hands between the English and Scottish multiple times. Currently the queen of England funded the latest restoration of the castle so they fly the English flag in recognition of her donation though it is held by Scotland. William Wallace conquered the castle but was only able to hold onto it for a day. Queen Mary of Scots was born at this castle. Her father King James V married Mary de Guise and united two very large and influential kingdoms. James the V died when baby Mary was only six days old and she was made Queen at age 9 months. Someone had to hold her crown over her head during her coronation and she cried most of the time. She bore a son who became King of Scotland but was baptized catholic during a time when it was popular to be Protestant. He was then rebaptized protestant to keep the people happy. Mary was spent 15 years in prison and became a great embroiderer before she was beheaded. I bought a book to read up more on her history. Picked out some souvenirs at the gift shop for Byron and the kids. Hope they are excited about tartan ties! Found Ally a cool diary with silver gilded cover. It looks very Scottish. We stayed in the castle until closing at 6pm. I took tons of photos and fully enjoyed the time there.
We had three towns we wanted to visit for Dad’s research. We saw two of them tonight. Old Kilpatrick and Paisley. We blew into town at mock speed and raced about trying to find 1850s buildings, churches or cemeteries that would have been around at the time. We did find a great church in Old Kirlpatrick. Looked all over at the headstone and while it was gorgeous we couldn’t find any Eccles names among those marked. It does support the theory that they were poor as only rich could afford the awesome headstones. Looked around for an old part of Old Kilpatrick and aside from the church didn’t find much. Paisley was another story. We found an old train station which was there in the 1850s. Took tons of great photos in the city. At least three maybe four churches. I think we will go back tomorrow for more time in Paisley Museums. We have a lot to accomplish tomorrow but must go to sleep. We are all exhausted everyday when we come home.
I’ve been texting with Byron and Ally tonight. They are out shopping for a new suit for Byrons job interview in two days. Praying it goes well for him. This one is with a Utah bank.
June 28 Tuesday -Back to Paisley Library and Museum, churches, music store, outskirts of Edinburg: Lasswade, Rosewell, Newbattle, Tranent, Edinburg for dinner
Headed off early for Kilmarnock- Agnes Stuart was born there from the Eccles line. Looked around at old churches and graveyard stones to see if we could find any Stuart’s in the graveyard. No luck but it was beautiful.Found a church that wasn’t particularly old but the dancing group practicing there sent us off in the right direction toward Laigh Kirk church. The dancing class took a vote and decided it was the oldest church in Kilmarnock. It was first put up in 1400s or so but was torn down after they had an incident there involving falling plaster and a trampling when the people couldn’t get out. They rebuilt in the 1800s. There was a group of school children in the church when we got there. The stained glass is beautiful in Laigh Kirk. There is a Maddona and child glass that I just love. I talked with a man who wanted to send me home with every flier. He was so excited I was in there asking questions. Lots of free information. Their church was mentioned by Robert Burns in a poem and he was particularly happy to tell me about that. When we got to Paisley the first shop we saw was the equivalent of our tuxedo rental places for wedding but they were renting or selling Kilts. It was fun to go in and see all the patterns they have and the different methods of tying ties and such. They had a great collection of old scottish knives that the men put in their sock when they are all dressed up. We looked into buying a few but they were 55 pounds each- $70+dollars. Too much! Dad spent the day in the Paisley library. We were there for four or five hours while he looked through books and made photo copies for his book he is writing. We did go hunting for a few old books for him at the local book store but they unfortunately were no longer selling them. He got a lot of good research done. Luckily there is an art museum right next door so we wandered through it while he worked. We were helping him but soon discovered we were being less than helpful and dismissed ourselves to let him at it. The museums art show was in transition but we went through the Paisley Looming exhibit and had a man show us his loom work he had done. He explained how the weaving of the color is put in and how they trim off the excess so it’s nice and flat. It was really interesting to see. They have plates of code they use to know where to put what colors so the design comes out right. In their heyday Paisley scarves and shawls were highly sought after and they were the best in the business. We snagged lunch in the little corner shop across the street from the library. We walked up and down the library street and ran into a tourist worker who wanted to know what we were doing in Paisley and how he could bring more tourists to Paisley. He filmed us to put on his website talking about what great things there are to do in Paisley. So we are now famous. You’ll probably see us on Scotish TV soon.
We were off to Lasswade next. The next four towns were close to Edinburg. We found a little graveyard and awesome skull and crossbones headstones in it. We did not find Helen Leitch born in 1780 but got pretty pictures of her birthtown.
Next onto Rosewell. Found a Catholic church there and also an older church of Scotland church called Rosell Parish Church . Looked through a cemetery behind the Catholic church for William John Kerr born 1773 in the town of Rosell. Did not find any Kerr’s in the cemetery there. Took photos of the old train bridge that ran across the town. Then off to Newbattle.
Seriously these were whirlwind tours of the towns. We would try to find Church Street or anything that looked like the old center of town. Scan the horizon for steeples or watch for historic district signs. No prior research had been done so we didn’t know what size the town would be or what was even there. Sometimes we’d talk to a parish preacher and he’d tell us about another church in town or send us off to a cemetery. All really fly by the seat of our pants business. Deborah drove at mock speed ahead getting us from place to place. I was navigating with my hair flying in the wind. Crazy day. One of the churches in Newbattle was founded in 1063. That is seriously old folks. I’m not sure if it is the original structure or not but that church has been praising God in that spot for lots of years. The catholic priest we talked to was from the Philipines and had lived in Scotland for nine years.
Tranent was our last stop for the whirlwind tour of churches. We did find a headstone with the right last name in this cemetery. Score! We were looking for a John Kerr Stoddard who was born in this town in 1736. We found an Alexander Stoddart. Pretty dang close. Maybe it was his father. This cemetery also had skull and cross bones headstones. We did see a headstone in Kilmarnock earlier in the day that talked about the couple being beheaded for converting to another church and refusing to give up their new religion. How noble of them but the headstone also said they put their heads up on a stake for all to see. Yikes! Happy to have found some physical evidence we headed on our way. By this time we were all a bit grouchy, hungry and cold. Plus we smelled like wet grass from the cemeteries. Dad said the car was giving him hayfever. We found another guy in a cript and he had a spooky stone carving done of himself lying on the ground with his arms crossed. It was starting to get dark out at this last cemetery so it all seemed a bit eerier. Glad to be done for the night.
It took four phones working at max power to locate a place to eat dinner. Bluerapa was the ONLY place we could find open in all of Scorland, well Edinburg at least. It was 10:00 when we got in there and they closed at 10:30 so we were happy they would still seat us. I ordered Masaman Curry and was so happy to get some food in my body. They also had delicious coconut flavored rice to put it on. Filling, satisfying and seriously delicious. Five star! Plus they had a bathroom.
I drove home from Edinburg. Deborah was done with all the helpful and excited backseat drivers for the day. It can be hairy in the car at times. We are driving on the wrong side of the road which causes extra stress. The more frustrated she got the faster she went. We really zipped about. Home safe and sound now and heading off to bed at 1:21am. We sleep in tomorrow-breakfast at 9.
SO...a little flat tire. New rental!
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