A Bridge over an Esk.

Our U3A History group had arranged a tour of Newbattle Abbey this afternoon. The guide did say photography was verboten inside so I didn't take any pictures there. Maybe sometime when they’re not looking

The place has quite a history, for over 400 years it was the home of the Clan Kerr. Andrew Kerr (in the early 1500s) came up with the idea of paying his mercenary soldiers double wages if they could fight left handed; later, Napoleon taught his army to fight left handed (hence the reason why Brits drive on the left while the rest of Europe taught most of the rest of the world to drive on the right). Our right-handed knights used to ride on the left so that their sword arms were close to the oncoming traffic, Napoleon‘s left-handed army marched on the right to confuse the enemy. The story is too much to cover here at this time of night.

Anyway, Mr Kerr, having cornered the market in sinister, or left-handed soldiers, had the spiral staircases in his castles built the wrong way round as, traditionally, they were designed to be defended but dextrous, or right-handed men. This put his men at an advantage. We were even shown a stair the wrong way round, knowing a (very) little about the subject, I objected saying that it was the right way. There followed much discussion about this and our guide assured us that he and his colleagues had spent many happy working hours fighting on the stair (don't try this at home) to prove the point. When we arrived home I started researching the subject. While Google acknowledges the Kerr theory, it then gets very confused over both which is the normal design and what is the problem of using the wrong stair. It was all very baffling, I’ll have to do some research in the field.

The blip was taken while walking Merlin in the grounds afterwards.