A few weekends ago we took a trip to see Callendar House in Falkirk (central Scotland). What we see today was largely built around 140 years ago, but elements of the building date back to the 14th century.
The main entrance is quite grand to look at. It is modelled on a French Chateau style, which is not that common here in Scotland. The owners at the time were certainly trying to impress their visitors by creating such a fantastic entrance.
The house is set in quite a large park. Both the house and the park are now owned and operated by the local government (Falirk Council). Its all free to visit.
The inside of the house is a real mix of some retained features of its former grandeur, like this lovely main staircase.
There are then other parts that have been turned into a museum about the local area, with exhibits not related to the house itself like this reconstruction of a printers office.
The house has an amazing cafe (which we were tipped off about). I didnt take a pic of the cafe, but this lovely wooden carving was on the fire place in there. I can however vouch for the cafe being particularly nice. We had a round of tea and cakes (cherry bakewell scones - which we'd never had before !).
Above is the main kitchen which is probably the most preserved room that we saw. Its quite famous as it has been used in the filming of Outlander, and as such the house does attract a lot of visitors for that reason. I've never seen outlander myself, but there are filming locations for it all over Scotland which I stumbled upon.
The lovely library above was also on display and now houses some local archives, which is pretty cool.
After we had seen the house we decided to take a walk around the grounds to work of the cakes. Above is a pic of the back of the house. Its still impressive, but not quite as nice as the front entrance. Its quite a long sprawling building as can be seen above.
The surrounding grounds were quite nice, and rather empty when we visited because it had been raining a little.
There was a large pond of to one side of the house which looked pretty cool because of the mist rising of the surface.
So we took a stroll around the pond.
At the far end we found this odd sculpture (maybe). I've no idea what it was meant to represent, and it was a shame to see that the local vandals had clearly had a crack at it.
There was also some quite impressive old trees around like the one above with its lumps and bumps.
And clearly the site is being actively managed which is good to see.
Above is what I assume to be an old stable block. Now boarded up due to the state of the building.
We were quite impressed with our visit there. We hadnt quite appreciated what was there, so it was quite a nice surprise. The house and its cafe were great, and we loved the park (even noting that we only saw a small part of it). Its certainly somewhere that we'd visit again, especially to explore the rest of the park. Well worth the visit !
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