A bird

So today it rained, and rained, and rained, and rained and.. well I think you get the idea! As this is my 200th Blip I was determined to go out and get something interesting, but as I may have mentioned it rained... a lot!

But there is lots of interesting places in Edinburgh to visit out of the rain, one of the biggest and most interesting is the National Museum of Scotland and it has the advantage of a No. 35 bus stop immediately outside, and the 35 bus goes past my front door (well almost). So I managed to get to the museum without getting too wet.

I was hoping to find something relating to 200 but that's a lot harder than you would think! I was on the look out for something that was 200 years old or had the number of 200 on it. There is so much you would have thought I'd find something but I didn't.

I did turn a corner and come almost face to face with this brass eagle, it was a bit of a surprise as I was wandering around the Scottish history section of the museum. It may look like some out of Nazi Germany (or a WWII movie version of it anyway) but this was actually a lectern from a church, St Stephen's Church, St. Albans, Herefordshire, England although it is believed to originated from Holyrood Abbey and nicked by those pesky English back in 1544.

A nearby sign reads:

"Holyrood Abbey was sacked by an English army in 1544 and the lectern may have been carried off by Richard Lee, a military engineer. Lee was the patron of St Stephen's Church and it is known that he gave the brass font from Holyrood to St Albans Abbey."

"The lectern has inscription in Latin commemorating George Crichton, Bishop of Dunkeld. There are also engravings of his arms, and mitres and crosiers as symbols of his authority. Crichton was Bishop of Dunkeld from 1526 to 1544. Before that he was Abbot of Holyrood Abbey."

It is on loan from St Stephen's Church, St Albans.

(N.B. I forgot to read where the cross in the background came from.)