Great Drives and Destinations: Manchester, England to Edinburgh, Scotland

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

If you can handle weather there’s never a bad time to come to Britain. Our dentist went on a golf tour in Scotland recently; it was raining but he was determined to play so he put on his waterproof clothing, grabbed his golf umbrella and placed a plastic cover over his bag and clubs. Up came his caddie wearing a tweed suit who said, “Get rid of the oilskins, leave your umbrella and club cover at the clubhouse and let’s play golf. It’s only going to rain for four hours.” The caddie pointed out the local golfers ahead of them. Most were simply wearing jerseys.

So you probably will have some wet days to add to the mystique of the ubiquitous roundabouts and the charm of driving on the left. Strangely you may have better weather in the spring or fall. The summer often has thunderstorms that leave you forever turning your windshield wipers on and off as you remove then replace your sunglasses.

The ideal time to come might be the fall; you can have glorious color in the trees and purple heather in the hills -- plus school children will be back in school and the roads quieter.

The common sense rules of car rental for Americans might include paying extra for automatic (as it can be hard enough driving on the left without having to change gear with your left hand) and getting a car big enough for your passengers and luggage -- but no bigger, as parking spots can be tight and gas is expensive. That said, this is a land of both motorways and rural roads and there’s something wonderful about driving those country lanes in an enthusiast’s car with superb suspension, silken performance and magnificent brakes. Indeed this is the land of Jaguar Cars, now owned by the Indian conglomerate Tata Motors. Tata paid Ford $2.3 billion for its acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover. The increasing prosperity in the Indian subcontinent (tomorrow’s global giant perhaps more so than China -- despite the anger of fundamentalist Islam) and the resources of the Tata Group should allow Jaguar to improve its sales figures and go even more up-market.

The Car

The Jaguar XJ has had a very successful run at Jaguar and its classic lines continue to please. It looks even better when you approach it in person. It often appears fore-shortened in photographs so the camera does not do it justice. Its coefficient of drag is a very rewarding 0.32. The R, the supercharged version of the XJ, sits low on the ground due to its slender performance tires but its external dimensions are the same. The maximum width at the external mirrors is 83 inches, a figure that might haunt US drivers, sitting for the first time on the right side as they nudge into parking spots, the car’s electronics chirping away to warn how close you could be to losing some paint.

But, of course, this is not a car you want to leave in a parking spot; this is a car for the open road. And this is a car that’s completely at home in any variation you might find when you pull out of Manchester airport into the dementia that is the British Motorway system. Expect the previously-polite British motorists who are now used to the bedlam of the European Union to roar past you like undisciplined Italians. Expect Motorway exit signs to be so complicated they sometimes defy comprehension at first reading. Expect trees and bushes to obliterate country road signs on occasion and for your exit from the infamous roundabouts to be marked on early road signs but not always visible there at the rotary when you are going round and round in futile circles.

And expect, on back roads, to be enjoying the smooth acceleration of the supercharged Eaton 4.2 liter V8 (that gives you 400 hp compared to the 300 hp of the normally aspirated XJ) when suddenly a hairpin bend comes up from nowhere. And then expect Jaguar to solve the problem for you with its Teves 4-channel anti-lock brake system and magnificent R performance discs, descendants of the brakes Jaguar brought to Le Mans in the very early 1950s that forever destroyed Briggs Cunningham’s hopes of victory there in an American car driven by an American driver. Or more likely on sudden corners you’ll slow down by slipping into a lower gear with Randle’s Handle, the J-gate shifter named after the Jaguar engineer, Jim Randle who first designed it. The ZF automatic transmission is now 6-speed so engine braking by manual change is not so dramatic unless you move quickly down the lower gears.

One reason the car stops so readily is because the aluminum shell is 40 percent lighter than an equivalent steel body which, paradoxically, makes it 60 percent stiffer than the previous model. The XJ corners very flat with almost no lean or roll. It has a solid feel. The R weighs 3946 lbs versus 3770 lbs for the normally aspirated XJ yet its stats give the figure 0 to 60 MPH in an incredible 5 seconds.

I was born in Scotland and still recall the walk to school past the local Jaguar dealership in the early 1950s. My nose would leave a mark on the plate glass window as I stared in at the new XK120, the roadster that later took Hollywood by storm. The driver’s door was open and, lying on the seat, was an expensive pair of leather driving gloves. The sign on the car’s bonnet/hood said: “If you can’t buy her the car, at least buy her the gloves!”

With today’s world financial crises, the gloves may be all that some customers are buying. It may be a global market today but the Brits have always been intensely proud of Jaguar. I remember once flying into Heathrow in London and seeing the huge signs outside, “Welcome to Great Britain: Home of Jaguar Cars.”

The Flight

This time we flew from Chicago on bmi, the “second largest and most punctual of all British airlines.” The company that became bmi (British Midland Industries) began in 1938 as Air Schools Ltd. This organization was put together fast to specialize in Royal Air Force pilot training when Britain realized it would soon have to confront the might of Germany’s Luftwaffe. This is particularly ironic now Lufthansa has bought controlling interest in bmi. What the future holds for any airline is uncertain in these days of airline merger and depressed economy; this winter bmi has canceled its Chicago to Manchester flights even as it opens up new flights to Africa and Asia.

The Asian market is highly competitive and bmi’s long haul premium economy seats “with 11 inches more legroom than the competition” that recline to 50 degrees should be a huge advantage in marketing. We managed to get upgraded to those seats on our flight; it was like flying Business Class on some airlines. But not bmi Business Class transatlantic which now offers fully flat beds, 15 inch seat back screens and a dedicated on board chef! Now that would be a treat.

The Drive

Driving a Jaguar through Britain was a special treat also. The car seemed to belong whether in front of a piper at Blair Castle or a statue in Fife of the castaway Alexander Selkirk, the supposed inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.

We’re driving around an exit roundabout at Manchester airport heading for York but none of the signs are helpful nor is the small-scale Google map print out we brought with us nor the AAA driving map of the UK. First priority is to buy a larger scale map from the first gas station we come to. At about $16 it is the first indication that Britain will be expensive – but we knew that going in.

The ancient town of York with its magnificent church Yorkminster was one of the reasons we flew into Manchester, the others being how well bmi handles traffic there at its signature airport and what fun it would be to drive through the border areas between England and Scotland.

Yorkminster ( the name is derived from the Latin “monastarium” which means “place of learning,”) stands on a religious site that goes back to Roman times. Indeed in the year 306 AD Constantine was proclaimed Caesar here and the base of a pillar from the Roman fortress has been identified below the floor of this, the largest medieval cathedral in Britain. A statue of the Emperor Constantine stands beside the South Entrance.

The first minster, made of wood, was built in 627 AD. The present minster was commissioned in 1220. Nearly half of all the medieval stained glass in Britain is contained in Yorkminster’s 128 windows. Those windows are enormous and some guide books even suggest visitors bring binoculars to view them adequately. The Great East window, created by local artist John Thornton in 1405-1408, is the single largest window of medieval stained glass in the world. Many celebrities of their day are shown in carvings and statues all bent in devout prayer. Thornton wasn’t paid by a statue; he got real money. He was paid 56 pounds sterling for his three years work!

If you have time or inclination climb the 275 steps to the 200 foot high tower and among the gargoyles you’ll get a magnificent panoramic view of Yorkshire beyond the rooftops of the city.

York is a famous Middle Ages city, a delightful city to explore on foot. Parking is a problem but many park and ride locations surround the city -- like its ancient walls -- and it’s a quick bus trip into town.

Guy Fawkes, who tried to burn down London’s Houses of Parliament on November 5, 1605 was born and went to school here. Indeed, some locals regard him as a patriot not an anarchist.

Many roads lead to Scotland including the M1, one of the motorways which now resemble our interstates -- except the lane discipline is better and the passing lane is used for exactly that, passing. Europeans don’t hog the fast lane the way many drivers do in the United States and, as a result traffic, moves right along.

The A68 branches off from the M1 after Darlington and winds its way north, undulating up the modest hills and through the moors of Yorkshire and Northumberland National Park into the sheep country of the Scottish Borders. Many of the small towns have been part of the woolen trade for centuries, several have outlet stores for cashmere – the quality is there but prices in America are likely to be better. It’s a bucolic scene, in some ways like driving in the ‘50s. Village pubs, monuments to the fallen in two world wars, abbeys destroyed by religious fanatics, this is not Southern California..

The ring road around Edinburgh comes up; we head west on it to bypass the city and head north for Dunkeld, one of the Holiday Towns that are the so-called Gateway to the Highlands. Dunkeld, too, has a ruined cathedral, vandalized as so many were during the Scottish Reformation. This event, infamous in Scotland’s history, followed the stand of Henry VIII of England against the influence of a foreign pope in his country. In 1560 Scotland the Protestant governing body, the Privy Council, shaking off the pervasive authority of Catholicism issued instructions to local landed gentry to “destroy images of idolatry.” Says a guide at Dunkeld Cathedral, “The local lairds interpreted this order freely as an excuse for widespread destruction of Catholic churches.” The ruined abbeys and cathedrals throughout Britain are indeed testimony to the thoroughness of religious fanaticism. During the Battle of Dunkeld in 1689 a fire further damaged the cathedral.

Our guide points out that as early as 570 AD this was called Holy Ground by Celtic missionaries who built a monastery on this spot. The cathedral itself was built over a period of more than 200 years from 1260 to 1501. A small museum within the cathedral exhibits its history: A cross slab and Pictish stone both from the 9^th century monastery guard the entrance of the museum and beyond, a marble statue of the 4^th Duke of Atholl, a church benefactor, stands proudly before a display of the heraldic crests of all the families linked with his, the Atholls of the renowned Blair Castle.

Blair Castle has been the baronial home of this family for more than 600 years. It’s about a 20 minute drive north of the cathedral, but it’s only a 10 minute walk to Dunkeld House, a country hotel now part of the Hilton group. British destination hotels usually offer Modified American Plan (MAP) which covers the stay, dinner and breakfast. You will find less expensive breakfasts in the village but you will really enjoy the dinner in this so serene a luxury hotel.

Easy day trips from Dunkeld would include:

Pitlochry another Holiday Town in the northern reaches of the county of Perthshire. Stirling with its castle and Wallace Monument if you curl south, or the land of Rob Roy if you head south west. The latter choices show the effect of movies on tourist attractions depends on how recently the movie was made. Tom Church’s depiction of Mel Gibson in his Braveheart role -- placed in the car park of the Wallace monument in 1997 -- was taken down in 2008 when its lease expired and no takers were found for the £350,000 statue. Similarly the Rob Roy Center in nearby Callander no longer is the source of information it became when the 1995 Liam Neeson encouraged interest.

Crieff, mentioned several times in the movie Rob Roy, is yet another (arguably the original) Holiday Town. These Scots seem to be on holiday a lot, that is when they’re not fighting the English. Crieff has the Famous Grouse Glenturret Centre, the oldest distillery in Scotland, three miles to the west and, three miles to the south, the manicured gardens of Drummond Castle. Scone Palace, the former site of the coronation of Scotland’s kings, lies 20 miles to the east.

Fife is an hour farther off with the timeless fishing villages of Crail and Anstruther, and the famed home of golf: St. Andrews with Scotland’s oldest university and its Cathedral, at one time Scotland’s largest building, now ruined, sacked in the Reformation of the 16^th Century.

Before you leave the so-called Kingdom of Fife heading for your final destination, Edinburgh the capital of Scotland, consider visiting either Fife’s medieval castle in Falkland or its unique 17^th Century village of Culross, near Dunfermline, a lived-in, working village so exquisite it is now owned by the National trust of Scotland.

But Edinburgh beckons, a city that makes the parking problems of other places seem trivial. It’s another story but it’s a city with great public transportation where you don’t need a car – but, even so, relinquishing the Jaguar is like seeing finally your youngest child going off to school and leaving the nest.