Isle of Bute
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-> Isle of Bute
Thanks to its consistently mild climate and its ferry link with Wemyss Bay, the island of Bute has been a popular holiday and convalescence spot for Clydesiders - particularly the elderly - for over a century. Even considering the island's small size (fifteen miles long and five miles wide) you can find peace and quiet; most of its inhabitants are centred on the two wide bays on the east coast of the island.
Bute's only town, ROTHESAY, is a handsome Victorian resort set in a wide sweeping bay, backed by green hills, with a classic palm-tree promenade and 1920s pagoda-style Winter Gardens. It creates a much better general impression than Dunoon, with its period architecture and the occasional flourishes of wrought-ironwork. Even if you're just passing through, you should pay a visit to the ornate Victorian toilets (daily: Easter-Oct 8am-9pm; Nov-Easter 9am-5pm; 10p) on the pier, which were built by Twyfords in 1899 and have since been declared a national treasure. Men have the best time, since the porcelain urinals steal the show, but women can ask for a guided tour. Rothesay also boasts the militarily useless, but architecturally impressive, moated ruins of Rothesay Castle (April-Sept daily 9.30am-6.30pm; Oct-March Mon-Wed 9.30am-4.30pm, Thurs 9.30am-noon, Sat 9.30am-4.30pm, Sun 2-4.30pm; HS; £2), hidden amid the town's backstreets but signposted from the pier. Built around the twelfth century, it was twice captured by the Vikings in the 1200s; such vulnerability was the reasoning behind the unusual, almost circular curtain wall, with its four big drum towers, only one of which remains fully intact.
A very good reason for coming to Bute is to visit Mount Stuart (May-Sept Mon, Wed & Fri-Sun 11am-5pm; £6.50, gardens only £3), three miles south of Rothesay. Seat of the fantastically wealthy seventh Marquis of Bute, the mansion was built for the third marquis between 1879 and World War II, as an incredible High Gothic fancy, drawing architectural inspiration from all over Europe. The sumptuous interior was decked out by craftsmen who worked with William Burges on the marquis's earlier medieval concoctions at Cardiff Castle. The gardens, established in the eighteenth century by the third Earl of Bute, who had a hand in London's Kew Gardens, are equally lovely.
For the best overall view of the island, take a walk up Canada Hill above the freshwater Loch Fad, which all but divides Bute in two. The northern half of the island is hilly, uninhabited and little visited, while the southern half is made up of Lowland-style farmland. The early monastic history of the island is recalled at St Blane's Chapel, a twelfth-century ruin beautifully situated in open countryside on the west coast, close to the very southernmost tip. Bute's finest sandy beach is Scalpsie Bay, further up the west coast, beyond which lies St Ninian's Point, where the ruins of a sixth-century chapel overlook another fine sandy strand and the deserted island of Inchmarnock.
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