Stretch target of £25K reached and surpassed. Well done, everyone! 👏

Revisited Old Slains today, the castle that inspired me growing up in a nearby village. It's the remains of Francis Hay, 9th Earl of Erroll's castle, which was blown up with gunpowder by King James VI's army in 1594 for the Earl's persistent support of Catholicism. They did eventually make peace!

Visited twelve different castles - each with uniquely interesting histories - this weekend with members of the Scottish Castles Association, on our 2-day autumn tour of Aberdeenshire. Hugely enjoyable, although I'm completely shattered. Will need a few days to process everything I have just seen.

There are four days left to help buy the land for the Big Broch! The money raised will demonstrate the level of public support for the project and encourage larger funding bodies to finance the rest of the site purchase. Can you help them reach their stretch target of £25K?

Really looking forward to seeing this. HILLFORT UNDER ATTACK: THE BURNSWARK VR EXPERIENCE www.trimontium.co.uk/events/hillf...

Calling all Project Officers! Our members Scottish Historic Buildings Trust have two exciting new opportunities to join their team working on their Bernat Klein Studio and Leith Custom House projects. More details can be found on our website: heritagetrustnetwork.org.uk/jobs/

Culsh Earth House, or souterrain near Tarland, Aberdeenshire, and one of my cutaway reconstruction drawings showing a souterrain in context with a typical Iron Age hut or roundhouse above it (late first-century AD/Pictish period). Spot the Roman amphorae. Were they stolen, abandoned, or traded?

Stone circle-bothering in rural Aberdeenshire again. I must revisit this place in the winter when the light is more dramatic. Tomnaverie recumbent stone circle near Tarland. Aberdeenshire HER - NJ40SE0001 online.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/smrpub/maste... Trove: www.trove.scot/place/17006

As both a cyclist and advocate for better public transport networks, I am really torn over whether I should support the proposed Edinburgh tram extension, when it potentially means losing an important greenspace, wildlife corridor, and essential route for walkers and wheelers. No easy answers.

Scotland’s Castles: Use Them or Lose Them - Conference 9 Oct. The Scottish Castles Association Conference in Stirling explores planning, restoration, climate challenges and community benefits, with experts from HES, NTS, Landmark Trust, King’s Foundation & more. scotlandscastles.org/event/sca-co...

Old Crathie Church, Aberdeenshire. The 15th-century church, dedicated to St Manir (Monire), survived the Reformation but was eventually replaced in 1805. Its churchyard is the resting place of John Brown (d.1883), personal attendant and friend of Queen Victoria. More details in ALT text. 📷 My own.

Yes! The Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Organ returns! I hope the revival of this much-loved show from my childhood stays true to traditional animation techniques, though. I'm saying that as a digital guy.

Booked. Looks fun! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/carved-in-...

Not far off £20K raised now! 👏 The money that we can collectively raise to demonstrate the level of local (and wider) support this project has will encourage larger funding bodies to make up the rest of the site purchase. Every £ helps ;) www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/buy-the-br...

Funny that this should pop up in my timeline. It's exactly a year to the day since I visited Muness Castle on Unst, Shetland, along with the replica Viking longhouse and longship, the Skíðblaðnir, near Haroldswick. We got as far north as SaxaVord where they are building a new spaceport!

Can any of you fine folks suggest or recommend a quiet pub or restaurant serving good food in the York, Micklegate area? No Wetherspoons, or the usual high street franchises, please.

Returning to freelance work this week after a much-needed summer sabbatical. It's been nice to switch off a little, although I've been busy meeting a lot of folk and preparing the way for forthcoming projects. Unable to say much about those for NDA reasons, but looking forward to being busy again.

Barnes Castle 🏰 and vaults, from today's 🚴 ride via a very busy Haddington farmers market in East Lothian. It's a quadrangular castle with a courtyard built towards the end of the sixteenth century, although it was never completed following the death of its owner, John Seton, Lord Barns.

This is pretty much why I wear earplugs or noise-cancelling headphones whenever I am on public transport and don't speak to anyone these days. Anyone else? 😣

Wow! Over £10K has been raised in less than two days to help buy the broch site. Keep it going, folks, this is magnificent support! 👍 #brochs www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/buy-the-br...

Talking of Brochs, unbelievably it's a year ago already since my visit to the Broch of Mousa in Shetland. Such a brilliant day, and a memorable boat trip out to the island, too. #brochs #Shetland

If you, like me, would love to see the first broch built in Scotland in over two thousand years, please help out by making a donation. www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/buy-the-br... Learn more about the Caithness Broch Project at www.thebrochproject.co.uk/the-big-broc...

Colour in historical reconstruction: The 60-30-10 rule and its key role in cinematic colour grading is my best guess as to why these productions elect to dial back the vibrant medieval polychromy. But it does look rather like the producers haven't bothered to consult experts for some guidance here.

A fine day to go castle-stalking in Royal Deeside. 🏰 Braemar castle from my early morning walk. #Aberdeenshire

I've been getting cycling wrong all these years.

Obligatory photo of the Tron located in the delightful East Lothian village of Stenton, while cycling through en route to Dunbar today. 🚴

The harvest is in! Labours of the Months: August. En vélo. 🚴

Anyone up for another great set of castles papers at Leeds next year? Send your best proposals for papers on time, castles, and everything in between. #CfP #castles Please share! @imc-leeds.bsky.social @castlestudies.bsky.social 🏰 🏯🏰🏯🏰🏯

Stayed up tonight to watch the Perseids from my back garden. Spotted plenty of satellites, but there's been a disappointing show of meteors so far. Might need darker skies to see them better, I suspect.

It's always the wrong sorts that have to spoil things for the responsible sorts. 😌 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Today's 2-wheeled urban adventure to Hopetoun House at Queensferry 🚴. Got slightly lost in Edinburgh's West End again. I can normally triangulate my exact location in Edinburgh going by the malting smell produced by the North British Distillery. But not today.

Absolutely my favourite website at the moment. www.freecycle.org Finding new uses for a lot of old furniture and homewares that aren't sellable, and can't be donated to charity, but are still useful to someone out there.

😠 Goodbye green space. Resistance is futile.

Think I'll give cycling a miss tomorrow afternoon.

Long 🚴 ride today in the Scottish Border hills. 100km and 5000ft of climbing in the legs. All great until I got stung in the mouth by a wasp. My face looks and feels like an old leather football that's been kicked around a concrete playground.

A promising possible future for Bernat Klein's studio near Selkirk. I cycle past this fabulous piece of architecture regularly, and always thought it rather sad that it had been left to decay. A-listed former textile studio sells for £279,000 www.bbc.com/news/article...

Apologies for the lack of reconstruction-related posts. There's been a lot of distractions this month with people to see, events to attend, contracts to negotiate, and I just haven't felt very inspired to create stuff recently. Once projects commence in the autumn, I should have my mojo back.

#TdF2025. 🇫🇷 What an epic finish! 🚴🚴🚴🚴🚴 👏👏

Is it 'hip' and clever to rebrand unimaginatively in this decade?

Phenomenal effort at Courchevel, Oscar Onley 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 #TdF2025 🚴

Loved watching all the sailing ships depart Aberdeen harbour this week. Phone memory ran out before I could video some of the larger boats leaving, but I managed to grab a few of them at least! Massive crowds, but it was such a happy event. #Tallships2025 #TallShipsAberdeen2025

Chilled out day at the harbour, just watching ships go by. #CuttySarkTallShipsRaces #TallShips2025 #TallShipsRace2025 #Aberdeen

Enjoyed some of the Tall Ships visit to Aberdeen today once the heavy rain had eased off by lunchtime. Huge crowds. Happy vibe. #CuttySarkTallShipsRaces #TallShips2025 #TallShipsRace2025 #Aberdeen

Apparently, 16-year-olds don't have enough 'life experience' necessary for them to make informed voting decisions. I couldn't disagree more. Many teenagers I know are wiser and more politics-savvy than many adults I know. And they're not even 16 yet!

An absolutely glorious morning at Dalkeith agricultural show in the grounds of Dalkeith Palace. Walked 12miles all the way there and back, too. I still yearn to own an old grey 'Fergie'.

I am lucky to live here with this great view looking over the Firth of Forth & Edinburgh, only a few minutes' walk away. Just a shame the viewpoint information board is a regular target for vandalism. It would suit a grand reconstruction of the events of 1547, but perhaps that would be too sombre.

Looking forward to seeing the finished reconstructions depicting the siege of Burnswark Hill. The effort that has gone into this project is exceptional. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Fellow digital creatives, what is your present strategy for backing up your projects? At the moment mine is to upload a build at the end of each day to the cloud, then every Friday I back-up my projects to to an external HDD using Goodsync software. What do you do for long-term storage, though?

Repost with the five TV shows you'd happily watch for the rest of time as your sole TV diet: Tomorrow's World Time Team Red Dwarf Blackadder X-Files

Happy #PortfolioDay! I'm an Architectural Illustrator and 3D Reconstruction Artist from Edinburgh. I enjoy a bit of time travel! My work involves many months of meticulous research, guided by archaeology, measured survey data, and close collaboration with historians. Website: bobmarshall.co.uk