We finally arrived in Lockerbie around nine p.m. After filling up (with petrol) at the Applegreen filling station, I rang our lodging to get directions, as it was a couple of miles outside town. Once we had the directions, we set off in search of the Bishopcleugh Guest House. Unfortunately, the road to the house was under work, so I had to drive very slowly due to loose chippings.
There is something to be said about booking a guest house/B&B/hotel sight unseen. Despite what you read or see on the internet, you never know what you're going to find once you get there. The Bishopcleugh certainly met and exceeded our expectations. Our room was beautiful, and the gardens appeared to be beautiful as well, from what we could see in the dark. After we had settled in, we realised that we were a bit peckish, as we had only shared a Meal Deal in Largs almost five hours earlier. So back in to town we went, crawling along on the loose chippings at 10 m.p.h. When we arrived back in Lockerbie, we had a choice of Chinese, fish and chips, or a Meal Deal at the local Tesco. If you guessed that we had the Meal Deal, you are absolutely correct!
Saturday, July 20th.: After an excellent breakfast at the Bishopcleugh, and some time taking in the beautiful surroundings of the house, we returned to Lockerbie to fulfill our reason for being there. On December 21st., 1988, a terrorist's bomb exploded in the hold of PanAm Flight 103, killing all of the 259 passengers and crew on board, plus 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie. There are several memorial sites in and around Lockerbie, and we had decided to visit each of them to pay our respects.
The main site is the Garden of Remembrance at Dryfesdale Cemetery, where there are memorials and headstones for most of the passengers and locals. While we were there, we met a student from Syracuse University, who was attending Syracuse on a scholarship set up by the parents of one of the 35 Syracuse students who were killed in the crash. He had come to Lockerbie to pay his respects, as had we. The Memorial Garden is very moving, especially when you realise that those students would now be in their 50s.
After we left Dryfesdale Cemetery, we visited the memorial site on Rosebank Crescent, where part of the plane's fuselage came down, killing most of the eleven residents of the town. Those houses have never been rebuilt. We next went to the other, much smaller, memorial site at 30 Rosewood Crescent. Finally, we drove out to the Tundergarth Parish Church, where there is a Remembrance Room with photographs of all of the passengers, crew, and local residents who died that day, and flags representing the nationalities of those victims. The history of Lockerbie will forever be linked to to tragic events of December 21st., and these memorials will always provide a place for visitors to reflect and remember those who died.
Although we were glad that we had visited Lockerbie to pay our respects, it was time to get back on the road, as friends in Muirhead, near Glasgow, had invited us for dinner. We headed back north, by motorway for the most part, and checked in to our final Premier Inn of the trip before visiting our friends. We hadn't seen them since 2022, so we had a grand time talking about old times (we had known most of these folks since 1979) and mutual friends who were no longer with us. Late in the evening, we returned to our lodging to plan for the next day's adventure.
Sunday, July 21st.: I had the bright idea of visiting the part of the Antonine Wall near Croy, and the Roman Fort. It was one of those dreich days for which Scotland is so well known. We had breakfast at the Courtyard Cafe in the Regent Centre in Kirkintilloch, then set off for Croy, and what we (I) hoped would be an exploration of the second century Roman intrusion in to North Britain. Well...
Yes, there's more to come...