Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
Preface
Map of Scotland
Counties of Scotland
ABERDEENSHIRE
ANGUS
ARGYLL
AYRSHIRE
BANFFSHIRE
BERWICKSHIRE
BUTESHIRE
CAITHNESS
CLACKMANNANSHIRE
DUMFRIESSHIRE
DUNBARTONSHIRE
EAST LOTHIAN
FIFE
THE HEBRIDES
INVERNESS-SHIRE
KINCARDINESHIRE
KINROSS-SHIRE
KIRKCUDBRIGHTSHIRE
LANARKSHIRE
MIDLOTHIAN
MORAYSHIRE
NAIRNSHIRE
ORKNEY
PEEBLESSHIRE
PERTHSHIRE
RENFREWSHIRE
ROSS AND CROMARTY
ROXBURGHSHIRE
SELKIRKSHIRE
SHETLAND
STIRLINGSHIRE
SUTHERLAND
WEST LOTHIAN
WIGTOWNSHIRE
Gazetteer
Index of People
Index of Places
Acknowledgements
Copyright
For Mum and Dad
Perkill Castle, Ayrshire
Preface
‘… I feel a sort of reverence in going over these scenes in this most beautiful country …’ So wrote Queen Victoria in 1873 while travelling through Scotland on a visit to her beloved Balmoral. For many people, and for every Scot, Scotland is without doubt the most beautiful country in the world.
There is greater variety and contrast in Scotland than almost anywhere, from the glorious gold and purple heather moorlands of the Borders to the quiet blue and green rivers and woods of the southwest. From the brooding grandeur of Britain’s highest mountains, magnificent and stark, to Britain’s furthest west and furthest north, the bleak splendour and golden beaches of Scotland’s islands, mystical and remote.
Then there are the cities: Edinburgh, ‘Athens of the North’, home of the world’s largest arts festival; Glasgow, workshop of the world and city of culture; Aberdeen, the Granite City, sparkling and oil rich.
The images, the sights and sounds of Scotland are more instantly recognisable and distinctive than those of anywhere else on earth, from tartan and kilts to whisky and bagpipes, Edinburgh Castle and Eilean Donan. Scotland’s history is more savage and romantic, her legends and her heroes more colourful and more tragic. William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, Mary Queen of Scots, Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Scottish engineering and ingenuity have built the world. Thomas Blake Glover, the ‘Scottish Samurai’, drove the industrial development of modern Japan. Major-General Lachlan Macquarie, the ‘Father of Australia’, turned that land from a penal colony into a nation. Nine Governors of the original 13 American states were Scots. Canada is the true ‘Nova Scotia’. Engineers such as Thomas Telford, the Stevensons, William Arrol and John Loudon McAdam created roads and bridges and harbours. Scottish inventors gave the world the telephone, the bicycle, television, the pneumatic tyre, radar, steam engines, penicillin, savings banks, logarithms and radar.
Scotland bestrides the world of literature; Walter Scott, Robert Burns, James Barrie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, JK Rowling, John Buchan, Alastair Maclean.
Scotland may not be big, but her heart, like her landscapes, is mighty. So many different worlds in one small but captivating country. To explore and to discover all of these bewitching and unexpected Scotlands is truly an adventure and a delight.
The Counties of Scotland
I Never Knew That About Scotland is divided into the 33 counties that existed between 1889 and 1974, before the Local Government (Scotland) Act of 1973, which introduced new administrative regions, districts and islands. These vast new units, designed by bureaucrats for their own convenience, mean nothing in terms of history, tradition, loyalties or geographical orientation and hence are of no relevance to a book such as this, which takes its flavour from all of these considerations. The pre-1975 counties grew organically from ancient kingdoms and parishes, are instantly recognisable to most people in Scotland, and are of a manageable and human size.
At various times over the years, some counties took the name of their county town. Angus, for example, was for a while known as Forfarshire, from its county town of Forfar. However, the ancient name of Angus, by which the area had been known for generations, soon re-established itself.
I have also bent the rules slightly when dealing with Scottish islands. Scotland has 787 islands, all of them distinctive and all very different from the mainland. For this reason I have removed the Western Isles from their parent counties and grouped them together in a chapter called The Hebrides. This chapter features stories from Lewis, which belongs to Ross and Cromarty, Skye, Harris, Eriskay, South Uist, Barra and St Kilda, all from Inverness-shire, and Mull, Iona, Jura, Islay and Staffa from Argyll.
The island groups that make up Orkney and Shetland are counties in their own right. Arran, Bute, Great Cumbrae and Little Cumbrae, Inchmarnock and Pladda together make up the county of Buteshire.
ABERDEENSHIRE
COUNTY TOWN: ABERDEEN
Aber Don – ‘At the mouth of the Don’
(Celtic or Old British)
Drum Castle, with one of the three oldest tower house keeps in Scotland, is the oldest intact building in the care of the National Trust for Scotland
Aberdeen
‘The one haunting and exasperatingly lovable city in Scotland’
LEWIS GRASSIC GIBBON
ABERDEEN, THE GRANITE City, is the old county town, SCOTLAND’S THIRD LARGEST CITY AND SECOND LARGEST FISHING PORT, a holiday resort and the CAPITAL OF EUROPE’S OIL INDUSTRY. When the sun shines after it rains, the whole city glistens like silver as the granite buildings, flecked with mica, sparkle in the light. The pale grey of the granite is agreeably softened with myriad green spaces and glorious displays of flowers – DUTHIE PARK WINTER GARDENS are THE LARGEST IN EUROPE and Aberdeen has won the Britain in Bloom contest a record ten times.
Aberdeen has been a royal burgh since the reign of David I in the 12th century and the burgh records, dating from 1398, are the oldest in Scotland. There has also been an important harbour here since that time, and Aberdeen’s Harbour Board, established in 1136, is THE OLDEST RECORDED BUSINESS IN BRITAIN. Aberdeen is also the home of THE WORLD’S OLDEST DOCUMENTED TRANSPORT COMPANY, The Shore Porters Society of Aberdeen, which was founded in 1498 and is still trading today. Aberdeen now has SCOTLAND’S LARGEST FISH MARKET.
In 1337, Aberdeen was burned to the ground by Edward III. When it was rebuilt it was divided into Old Aberdeen, around the cathedral precincts, and ‘New’ Aberdeen with the harbour and commerce.
Union Street, the main thoroughfare, runs for one mile (1.6 km) east to west over a series of viaducts above numerous deep watercourses. It was laid out in 1805 to link the north and south of the city and the name commemorates the union of Britain and Ireland in 1801. Although thronged with shops, Union Street has a pleasing uniformity to it thanks to the consistent use of granite and the restrained Georgian design of most of the buildings, and compares favourably with Edinburgh’s Prince’s Street.
Midway along Union Street is Union Bridge, which takes the road across the Denburn. It was built in 1805 and, with a span of 130 ft (40 m), is THE LARGEST SINGLE-SPAN GRANITE ARCH IN THE WORLD.
Housed in the Old Tolbooth on the north side of Union Street at its eastern end is the infamous Aberdeen Maiden, prototype for the French guillotine. This was used in 1562 to execute Sir John Gordon, a younger son of the 4th Earl of Huntly, in front of a weeping Mary, Queen of Scots.
Further east is the Mercat Cross, regarded as THE FINEST OF ITS KIND IN SCOTLAND. It was put up in 1686 in the market-place on the site of the now vanished city castle. This was destroyed in 1308 by supporters of Robert the Bruce as they ejected the English garrison of Edward I. Their rallying cry of ‘Bon Accord’ is now Aberdeen’s motto.
A noted Aberdeen landmark is the slender granite spire of ST NICHOLAS KIRK, which soars 195 ft (59 m) into the sky above Union Street. This replaced a wooden one burned down in 1874 and the tower beneath houses A CARILLON OF 48 BELLS, THE LARGEST IN BRITAIN. There has been a church here since at least as far back as the 12th century and St Nicholas was once THE BIGGEST PARISH KIRK IN SCOTLAND but was divided in two, East and West, at the Reformation. The West church was rebuilt in 1763 by James Gibbs, the East in the 19th century. Inside the East Church, in the south transept, is SCOTLAND’S ONLY MEDIEVAL BRASS, bearing an inscription to Sir Alexander de Irwyn, who died in 1457.
The granite from which most of Aberdeen is built comes from the RUBISLAW QUARRY, off Queen’s Road to the west of the city. With a depth of 465 ft (142 m) this was THE DEEPEST QUARRY IN BRITAIN and one of the biggest man-made holes in all of Europe. Granite from here went to make the Forth Bridge, Waterloo Bridge and the terraces of the Houses of Parliament in London, the docks at Southampton and Portsmouth and, further afield, Sebastopol docks and a temple in Japan. Rubislaw closed in 1970 and is now fenced off and partially flooded to a depth of 180 ft (55 m).
ABERDEEN FIRSTS
BRITAIN’S FIRST CHAIR OF MEDICINE was established at the University of Aberdeen in 1497.
In 1784, in Aberdeen’s St Andrew’s Cathedral, SAMUEL SEABURY was consecrated as AMERICA’S FIRST EPISCOPALIAN BISHOP and THE FIRST ANGLICAN BISHOP OF A DIOCESE OUTSIDE THE BRITISH ISLES. St Andrew’s is the Mother Church of the Episcopalian Communion in America.
In 1825, JOHN MOIR of Aberdeen produced THE FIRST CANNED SALMON.
In 1868, Thermopylae, THE FASTEST SAILING BOAT EVER BUILT, was launched at Aberdeen.
While on tour in Aberdeen in 1897, MINNIE PALMER became BRITAIN’S FIRST WOMAN CAR OWNER AND DRIVER, when she took possession of a French Rougement.
The maze in Hazlehead Park was planted in 1935 and is THE OLDEST IN SCOTLAND.
In the 1970s, Aberdeen Football Club’s Pittodrie became BRITAIN’S FIRST ALLSEATER STADIUM. It was also THE FIRST STADIUM TO INTRODUCE DUG-OUTS.
Thanks to the oil industry, and the need to travel between the city and the oil rigs out in the North Sea, Aberdeen has THE WORLD’S BIGGEST AND BUSIEST CIVILIAN HELIPORT.
BORN IN ABERDEEN
GEORGE JAMESONE (1588–1644), BRITAIN’S FIRST PORTRAIT PAINTER. His father Alexander built Aberdeen’s oldest residential building, PROVOST ROSS’S HOUSE, in 1594.
Robert Davidson (1804–94), chemist and electrical pioneer, educated at Marischal College. In 1839 Davidson built BRITAIN’S FIRST PRACTICAL ELECTRIC MOTORS, used to power a lathe and a small printing machine. He also designed an electric railway locomotive that ran for nearly two miles (3.2 km) at a speed of 4 mph (6.4 kph) on a stretch of the Edinburgh to Glasgow line in 1842, nearly 40 years before the first effective electric railway demonstration by Seimens in 1879.
SIR DAVID GILL (1843–1914), Astronomer Royal for Scotland, educated at Marischal College. In 1868 he took THE FIRST-EVER PHOTOGRAPH OF THE MOON.
‘SCOTTY’, the engineer from the first Star Trek series who spawned the much-quoted catch-phrase ‘Beam me up, Scotty’, claimed to be a native of Aberdeen in one episode.
Old Aberdeen
A Granite Cathedral, a Medieval Bridge and a Crown Spire
AFTER THE BUSTLE and activity of ‘New’ Aberdeen, the narrow cobbled streets and winding alleyways of OLD ABERDEEN, a mile to the north, seem eerily quiet, almost comatose. A pleasant walk past elegant 18th-century houses with high stone walls and scented trees leads to ST MACHAR’S, THE ONLY GRANITE MEDIEVAL CATHEDRAL IN THE WORLD, teetering on the edge of a small hill above a park.
The somewhat truncated building we see today is the nave and west end of a 15th-century structure. The great west window, consisting of seven lancets of equal height, is spectacular and unique. Flanking the window are two towers with spires added in 1532. If you are lucky enough to find the cathedral open and awake, the interior is delightfully Romanesque in appearance, with lots of rounded pillars and arches. The colourfully painted heraldic ceiling is unexpected and in striking contrast to the slightly gloomy grandeur.
St Machar was a disciple of St Columba, and was told by God in a dream to leave Iona, go east, and found a church by a river shaped like a bishop’s crook, precisely the shape of the River Don at this point. A short walk north through woods, beside the curve of the river, takes you to THE LOVELIEST MEDIEVAL ARCH IN SCOTLAND, the BRIG O’ BALGOWNIE, completed in the early 14th century on the orders of Robert the Bruce.
Back in the heart of Old Aberdeen, the area around King’s College, established in 1494 as Scotland’s third university, is slightly more lively. Now united with Marischal College as the University of Aberdeen, King’s College was founded by the Chancellor of Scotland, Bishop William Elphinstone, who produced SCOTLAND’S FIRST BOOK OF LITURGY, the Aberdeen Breviary, in 1510. The only original building remaining is the Chapel, distinguished by a delicate crown spire, erected in the 17th century in honour of James VI. The interior is a splendid display of SCOTLAND’S FINEST SURVIVING MEDIEVAL WOODWORK, with a great oak screen, choir stalls, misericords, a pulpit out of St Machar’s and a magnificent vaulted wooden roof.
Royal Deeside
‘Every year my heart becomes more fixed on this dear paradise’
QUEEN VICTORIA
THE RIVER DEE flows for 85 miles (137 km) from the Cairngorms to the North Sea at Aberdeen and is SCOTLAND’S FIFTH LONGEST RIVER. It is also SCOTLAND’S FASTEST-FLOWING RIVER and its source, the Wells of Dee is, at 4,000 ft (1,216 m), THE HIGHEST SOURCE OF ANY RIVER IN BRITAIN.
Queen Victoria first came to the area in 1848 and fell in love with the countryside. Prince Albert purchased the Balmoral estate for her and they made it into their summer home. The Royal Family have been coming ever since, hence the name ‘Royal’ Deeside.
Kincardine O’Neil
Kincardine O’Neil is THE OLDEST VILLAGE ON DEESIDE. It was here, in 1057, that Malcolm III ‘Canmore’ was handed the head of Macbeth, his father Duncan’s killer, on a plate, after defeating him in battle near Lumphanan, just up the road. On a farmland slope just north of Lumphanan, there is a cairn ringed with trees which is said to mark the spot where Macbeth fell. It is a cold and sorrowful spot, hard to reach, and steeped in melancholy.
Ballater
Ballater is a lovely, small, stone town set amongst hills of pine trees and birch, mostly a 19th-century creation and benefiting as a resort from the nearby springs at Pananich and the presence of royalty at Balmoral. The station at Ballater used to be one of the most recognised in Britain, the backdrop to many a royal arrival or departure. Queen Victoria insisted that the railway should stop here and not be extended further west to Braemar, past Balmoral. The railway line is now closed, but the specially built Victorian wooden station, painted red and cream, must be the prettiest station in Britain, and has been beautifully preserved.
Birkhall
Two miles to the south of Ballater, hidden amongst trees on the west bank of the River Muick, is Birkhall, home of the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay, as Prince Charles and his wife are styled when in Scotland. Built in 1715, it was described by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother as ‘a small big house or a big small house’. Prince Albert bought Birkhall from the Gordon of Abergeldie family in 1849 as somewhere for the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, to stay while his parents were up the road at Balmoral. While Prince Edward was still young, the house was let to the Queen’s physician Sir James Clark, who invited Florence Nightingale to come and stay. It was while at Birkhall that Florence, encouraged by Queen Victoria, planned her strategy to go and nurse the troops in the Crimea. Birkhall has been the scene of many royal honeymoons, including that of Prince Charles and Camilla in 2005.
Lochnagar
Views from Ballater are dominated by the three peaks of ‘dark Lochnagar’, which rises to a height of 3,786 ft (1,154 m) and is now part of the Balmoral estate.
England, thy beauties are tame and domestic
To one who has roamed over mountains afar
Oh! for the crags that are wild and majestic,
The steep frowning glories of dark Lochnagar.
Lord Byron whose mother was a Gordon spent school holidays at a farm called Ballaterich, to the east of Ballater, while he was a child growing up in Aberdeen. The words of his famous poem attest to his love of the place. Written in 1807, ‘Dark Lochnagar’ was set to music by Beethoven, and Queen Victoria was heard to say that she was inspired to come to Deeside after reading Byron’s poem.
Balmoral
The Balmoral estate was leased by Queen Victoria in 1848 after the previous owner of the lease, Sir Robert Gordon, brother of the Prime Minister the 4th Earl of Aberdeen, died choking on a fish bone. The Queen bought the estate outright in 1853 and rebuilt the castle to a design heavily influenced by Prince Albert and carried out by William Smith. Today the present Queen spends most of August at Balmoral and, by tradition, invites the Prime Minister of the day to join her for some of that time – being invited to Balmoral can be something of an ordeal for those not suited to hearty outdoor pursuits. The grounds and the castle ballroom can be visited when the Royal Family is not in residence.
Crathie
A short walk away from Balmoral, across the River Dee, is CRATHIE CHURCH, where the Royal Family attend Sunday service. So familiar from a million news-reels, it is much more substantial than it appears on the television.
There has been a centre of worship in Crathie since the 6th century, and the remains of a 14th-century church can be seen across the road in the water-meadows. In the old graveyard next to it are buried many local people who served at Balmoral, including Queen Victoria’s ghillie (highland servant) and confidant John Brown (1826–83).
The present church was designed by Marshall Mackenzie, the architect of the Marischal College in Aberdeen. Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone in 1893. The interior is noble indeed for a country Scottish church, with soaring pillars of pale grey granite, beautifully carved woodwork, a fine apse and numerous features donated by various members of the Royal Family over the years. Pride of place goes to the magnificent communion table of white Iona marble given by George V in memory of Edward VII. A cross is cleverly picked out in the light green veining on the central panel.
Braemar
Braemar sits at a height of 1,100 feet (335 m) and is officially THE COLDEST PLACE IN BRITAIN, on two occasions the site of THE LOWEST TEMPERATURE EVER RECORDED IN BRITAIN – minus 27.2°C (minus 17°F ) in 1895 and 1982, and with an average temperature of 6.4°C (43°F ).
Malcolm Canmore camped at Braemar in 1057 before his defeat of Macbeth at Lumphanan, and is thought to have held the first Braemar Games as a means of determining which were his most accomplished soldiers. In 1715, the Braemar Gathering was used as a front by the 6th Earl of Mar to assemble his troops and raise the standard for the first Jacobite uprising. A stone commemorating the event stands opposite the Invercauld Arms Hotel at the entrance to the village which stands on the spot where the standard was raised. After the 1745 Jacobite uprising such gatherings were banned for a while, along with other Highland customs such as the speaking of Gaelic and the wearing of kilts. The Games were revived in their present form in 1832 by the Braemar Highland Society, SCOTLAND’S OLDEST FRIENDLY SOCIETY, and they gained royal approval in 1848 when Queen Victoria attended, a tradition maintained by Queen Elizabeth II to this day.
John Brown, Ghillie and Friend
John Brown was born on a farm at Crathie in 1826 and was already employed at Balmoral by the time it was purchased by Queen Victoria. After Prince Albert died the Queen spent much of her time in mourning at Balmoral and came to rely heavily on the strength and sound common sense of Brown, one of the few people who could get through to her in her grief. This upset the somewhat stuffier element amongst her courtiers and politicians who heartily disliked their monarch being influenced by a ‘low-born’ servant. After the Queen’s death, Edward VII, who had been on the end of many a tongue-lashing from the upright ghillie, gained his revenge by expunging all memory of John Brown from Balmoral, destroying any photographs and trinkets he could find. The statue of Brown that Queen Victoria had erected in his memory outside the garden cottage where she would retire to write, was smuggled out of harm’s way to a remote part of the estate behind the dairy, where the King was unlikely to come across it. A pleasant hour or two can be had exploring the grounds of Balmoral trying to find it.
In the summer of 1881, ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON came to stay in a cottage to the south of Braemar and began writing Treasure Island.
Braemar boasts BRITAIN’S HIGHEST 18-HOLE GOLF COURSE and is THE HIGHEST PARISH IN BRITAIN, containing within its borders three mountains over 4,000 ft (1,216 m) and 24 Munros – a Munro being a Scottish mountain over 3,000 ft, or 914.4 m (see Angus).
Craigievar
Disney’s Inspiration
OUTSTANDING AMONG ABERDEENSHIRE’S many ravishing castles is Craigievar, regarded by many as the loveliest and most perfect castle in the world. Set in lush gardens on a hillside south of Alford, it was built all of a piece from 1600 to 1626 by William Forbes, a Baltic merchant trader known as ‘Danzig Willie’. The castle is as comfortable inside as it is satisfying outside, with twisting, narrow stairways leading to light, warm, wood-panelled rooms, all of a sensible size and all with wonderful views. Outside, the rough, pale pink walls are haphazardly pierced with deep-set windows, some tiny, some huge, and the eye is drawn ever upwards to where the stark, massive keep erupts into a joyous explosion of turrets and pinnacles, balustrades, gables and corbels. There is simply nowhere else like it, and if you think it looks like something out of a fairytale you are not alone – Walt Disney is said to have drawn the inspiration for his magical castles from Craigievar.
Fraserburgh
Scottish Samurai
FRASERBURGH, EUROPE’S BIGGEST shellfish port, sits on the Buchan coast at the northeast tip of Aberdeen-shire, where the Moray Firth meets the North Sea. It was founded in the 16th century by Sir Alexander Fraser. He constructed a harbour in 1546 and a castle on Kinnaird Head in 1572. In 1787 the castle was converted into SCOTLAND’S FIRST LIGHTHOUSE. Still a vital navigational aid today, the lighthouse is now operated automatically, but the keeper’s residence has been preserved as a home for the Museum of Scottish Lighthouses.
Fraserburgh’s most famous son is THOMAS BLAKE GLOVER (1838–1911), the ‘Scottish Samurai’. At the age of 21, while working for the Jardine Matheson trading company, he found himself in Japan, which was just emerging from 300 years of isolation from the West and eager to expand into an industrial power. Seizing his opportunity, Glover began selling arms and ships from Scotland to the Japanese, at the same time arranging for young Japanese to be smuggled out to Britain to be educated. He brought the first steam locomotive to Japan, developed coal mines and helped to found the Mitsubishi shipyards, the first of the great manufacturing concerns upon which industrial Japan is based. His picture still appears on the label of Kirin Beer, which grew out of a brewery he started. Thomas Blake Glover was a Founding Father of modern Japan and THE FIRST NON-JAPANESE PERSON TO BE AWARDED THE ORDER OF THE RISING SUN. He settled in Nagasaki and, in 1863, built himself a house overlooking the harbour. Glover House is still there and is the setting for Puccini’s Madame Butterfly – Glover married a Japanese girl called Tsura who wore kimonos decorated with butterflies, and the composer used the story of Glover’s life as his inspiration.
BORN IN ABERDEENSHIRE
ALEXANDER GARDEN (1730–91), the botanist after whom the flower Gardenia was named, was born at Birse. He lived most of his life in South Carolina, studying the flora and fauna of Cherokee country, and was responsible for introducing THE FIRST ELECTRIC EEL TO BRITAIN.
PETER WILLIAMSON, or ‘Indian Peter’ (1730–99), was born at Hirnley farm, near Aboyne on Royal Deeside. While visiting his aunt in Aberdeen he was kidnapped and shipped off to America, a fate that was not uncommon for unwary children in the 18th century. He settled down and made a life for himself in America but, in 1754, he was again kidnapped, this time by Cherokee Indians. Impressed by his physique they did not kill him, as was customary, but kept him as a slave. After many adventures, including capture by the French, he finally escaped back to Scotland and settled in Edinburgh. He soon became something of a local legend, often to be seen walking the streets in full Cherokee garb. In 1770 he introduced the first ‘penny post’ to Edinburgh, and the knowledge gained from providing this service enabled him to produce the first Edinburgh Street Directory. Indian Peter’s story served as inspiration for the 1970 film A Man Called Horse, starring Richard Harris.
BERTIE CHARLES FORBES (1880–1954), the financial journalist and publisher who founded Forbes Magazine in 1917, was born in New Deer and emigrated to New York in 1904. Originally buried in New Jersey, his body was brought back to Scotland in 1988 by his son Malcolm and reinterred in the churchyard at New Deer. Bertie Forbes’s grandson Steve Forbes ran for President of the United States in 1996 and 2000 on a flat tax platform.
Well, I never knew this
ABOUT
ABERDEENSHIRE
BUCHAN NESS, a rocky peninsula with a lighthouse, off the village of Boddam, 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Peterhead, is SCOTLAND’S MOST EASTERLY POINT.
The great treasure of MONYMUSK PRIORY is a small, 8th-century wooden box, covered in silver, bronze and precious stones, and containing a bone relic of St Columba. Known as the Monymusk Reliquary, it was a powerful talisman for Scotland’s royal armies and was paraded in front of Robert the Bruce’s troops before the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. It can now be seen at the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
The picturesque conservation fishing village of PENNAN, on Aberdeenshire’s north coast, found fame in 1983 as the setting for Bill Forsyth’s cult film Local Hero, starring Burt Lancaster. The iconic red telephone box used in the film was only a prop, but the village does possess its own red telephone box, located not far from where the prop stood, and fans of the film seem quite happy to take photographs of this.
The BP pipeline for transferring North Sea Oil from Cruden Bay to Grange-mouth, was opened in 1975 as BRITAIN’S FIRST OIL PIPELINE. Today some 2.5 million gallons of oil are pumped ashore every day through the pipeline, that runs unseen for 130 miles (209 km) under the golden sands of the bay.
Aberdeen’s MARISCHAL COLLEGE is THE SECOND LARGEST GRANITE BUILDING IN THE WORLD, after the Escorial in Madrid.
BRAM STOKER began writing Dracula while staying at Cruden Bay in 1895 and is said to have got the inspiration for Dracula’s Castle when he visited the bleak ruins of SLAINS CASTLE just up the coast.
The first genetically modified crops in Scotland were secretly planted on a farm in DAVIOT, a small village some 20 miles (32 km) northwest of Aberdeen, some time in 1999 or 2000.
ELVIS PRESLEY, ‘The King’, has Aberdeen roots. His ancestor, blacksmith Andrew Presley, from Lonmay near Fraserburgh, emigrated to North Carolina in 1745. A number of Presleys lived in the Buchan area of northeast Aberdeenshire during the 18th and 19th centuries, around Lonmay, Old Deer and Tarves.
ANGUS
COUNTY TOWN: FORFAR
Land of Angus, 8th King of the Picts
Glamis Castle – the most haunted castle in the world?
Dundee
Jute, Jam and Journalism
THE TWO TAY bridges provide an exhilarating approach to Scotland’s fourth largest city, but DUNDEE can best be appreciated from the summit of Dundee Law, a volcanic rock plug, topped with an ancient hill fort, that rises out of the heart of the city. Dundee is not pretty, most of its old buildings having been destroyed by squabbling between the English and the Scots, but its situation is magnificent, set between the Sidlaw hills and the broad River Tay. Dundee is THE ONLY CITY IN SCOTLAND THAT FACES SOUTH and, as such, claims, slightly cheekily, to be THE COUNTRY’S SUNNIEST CITY.
It is frequently said that Dundee’s prosperity is based on Jute, Jam and Journalism. The biggest of these industries was jute, an inexpensive natural fibre that grows mainly in India. Dundee had a large whaling fleet and thus a plentiful supply of the whale oil necessary for processing the jute, which could be easily imported from the Indian subcontinent through Dundee docks. BROUGHTY FERRY, a suburb to the east of Dundee, became known as ‘THE RICHEST SQUARE MILE IN EUROPE’ thanks to the vast seaside residences built there by the wealthy jute ‘barons’. In the 20th century the industry declined when it became cheaper to produce the cloth in India itself, and the last jute mill closed in 1968. The VERDANT WORKS, a museum housed in a former jute mill, now tells the story of Dundee’s jute trade.
Jam refers to KEILLER’S DUNDEE ORANGE MARMALADE, invented in 1797 by thrifty grocer’s wife Janet Keiller, when she insisted on boiling up a crate of bitter Seville oranges that her husband was about to throw away. She had long been using the ample fruits of the fertile Carse of Gowrie, west of Dundee, to make jams, and it was through her use of the same technique on the oranges that Dundee orange marmalade was born. Keillers also developed the famous Dundee fruit cake topped with blanched almonds, so that their expanded work-force had something to do while the oranges were out of season.
Journalism came to Dundee in 1905 with the founding of D.C. Thomson & Co., best known for their children’s comics, the Dandy and the Beano, home of beloved characters such as Desperate Dan, Dennis the Menace and Korky the Cat.
In 1922, jute and journalism combined to put Dundee’s most famous MP in something of a jam. For 14 years from 1908 until 1922, the ‘greatest Briton of all time’, Winston Churchill, was Dundee’s Member of Parliament, and throughout that time he fought a running battle with David Coupar Thomson’s newspapers the Courier and the Advertiser. Dundee and Churchill did not get on, and in a famous incident during the 1922 general election Churchill’s oratory was drowned out and ultimately defeated by Annie Maloney’s bell. Annie Maloney was a worker from one of the jute mills and a celebrated heckler – during Churchill’s speeches she would ring her bell incessantly until the exasperated candidate was reduced to silence. He lost the seat and never set foot in Dundee again.
Shipbuilding has always been important in Dundee, which even today has over 35 acres of docks. In 1901, RSS Discovery, THE LAST WOODEN THREE-MASTED SHIP TO BE BUILT IN BRITAIN, was launched from Dundee, as a scientific research ship for Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their first Antarctic Expedition. Discovery is now the centrepiece of the new Discovery Point and is open as a museum. The American Space Shuttle Discovery is the latest in a distinguished line of vessels to bear the name, including those of Captain Cook and Captain George Vancouver.
Moored in City Quay is the 46-gun frigate Unicorn, THE OLDEST BRITISH SHIP STILL AFLOAT. She was launched from Chatham in 1824 and is now refurbished as a museum.
Tay Bridge
A Disaster Waiting to Happen
ON 31 MAY 1878, the TAY BRIDGE, at 3,450 yards or 1.96 miles (3.15 km) THE LONGEST BRIDGE EVER BUILT IN BRITAIN UP TO THAT TIME, was declared open. The bridge, constructed of steel girders, had 85 arches, higher in the middle to allow tall-masted ships to pass underneath, and followed a wide curve at the south end. It all looked frighteningly fragile and there were some who predicted disaster. Passengers complained of uncomfortable vibrations from the high girders, especially when the trains exceeded their 25 mph (40 kph) speed limit, and many felt safer going back on the ferry. Nonetheless, in the summer of 1879 Queen Victoria travelled across the Tay Bridge and the man who designed it, Thomas Bouche, was knighted. A few months later, at 07.20 on the morning of 28 December 1879, in the midst of a violent storm, the 05.20 from Burntisland to Dundee rumbled on to the bridge. In the gloom, the driver failed to see that over 3,000 ft (914 m) of the high bridge had been swept away, and as a result the engine, all five carriages and the guard’s van plunged over the edge 90 ft (27 m) into the freezing water below. All 75 people on board died. Only 46 bodies were recovered, along with the steam engine. Sir Thomas Bouche lost the contract to build the new Forth Railway Bridge and retired to Moffat a broken man. He died shortly afterwards.
Perhaps the most poignant memorial to the Tay Bridge disaster was written by Dundee’s favourite poet William McGonagall.
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
It is easy to see why McGonagall is known as the world’s worst poet, but somehow these simple, clumsy words seem to express the sorrow and shock felt by the people of Dundee on that frightful night.
Alongside the new railway bridge, the stumps of the old Tay bridge can still be seen, a constant, grim reminder. The second Tay Railway Bridge, opened in 1887, is THE LONGEST RAILWAY BRIDGE IN BRITAIN, with an overall length of 11,653 ft or 2.2 miles (3,552 m), 90 per cent of which is over water.
Arbroath
It is not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.
from THE DECLARATION OF ARBROATH
ARBROATH HAS A special place in the hearts of all Scotsmen as the place where Scotland’s ‘Declaration of Independence’, the Declaration of Arbroath, was signed in 1320. The Pope refused to recognise Scottish independence because the Scottish King, Robert the Bruce, had been excommunicated for killing John Comyn at Dumfries in 1306. The Declaration was written by the Abbot, who was also the Chancellor of Scotland, and signed by 8 earls and 31 barons. It was a statement putting the case, in unequivocal terms, for the recognition of Scotland as an independent nation, and for swearing loyalty to Robert the Bruce only as long as he continued to defend Scotland against the English.
The abbey where the declaration was signed dominates Arbroath and was founded in 1178 as the only personal foundation of King William the Lion, who was buried within the precincts in 1214. William was an admirer of Thomas à Becket and dedicated the abbey to him as a tribute, after the Archbishop’s murder in 1170. The high Gothic design of Arbroath Abbey is modelled on that of Canterbury Cathedral. The extensive ruins include a great rose window in the south transept known as the ‘O of Arbroath’, which used to be lit up at night as a beacon for the fishermen out at sea. In 1951, the Stone of Destiny, also known as the Stone of Scone, was discovered beneath the altar, having been symbolically placed there by nationalist students who had stolen it from Westminster Abbey.
The history of Arbroath, short for Aberbrothock, is told in a museum housed in the old signal tower of the Bell Rock lighthouse. THE BELL ROCK LIGHT-HOUSE, 118 ft (36 m) high, and situated 12 miles (19 km) off the Angus coast, is THE WORLD’S OLDEST SURVIVING OFFSHORE LIGHTHOUSE. It was erected between 1807 and 1810 by Robert Stevenson, grandfather of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson. To build such a structure, in the middle of the sea on a rock that was submerged by up to 16 ft (5 m) of water for much of the time, was a remarkable engineering achievement, and the Bell Rock lighthouse is regarded today as one of the wonders of the industrial world.
Arbroath is also known for the ARBROATH SMOKIE, a haddock smoked over a beech-wood fire of a type unique to Arbroath. According to legend the smokie originated in the small fishing village of Auchmithie, a little to the north, when a fisherman’s cottage burnt down and the fish which had been stored in the loft were found to taste delicious. Under the same EU law that applies to Champagne, only smokies that come from Arbroath may be called Arbroath Smokies.
In 1842, ALEXANDER SHANKS of Arbroath patented the first lawnmower that effectively cleared up the clippings as it went along. This was a considerable advance on Edwin Budding’s invention of 1830. A pony would pull the mower while the operator walked along behind – some say this is the origin of the phrase ‘on Shanks’s pony’, meaning on foot.
KERR’S MINIATURE RAILWAY, which runs along Arbroath on the West Links, was established in 1935 and is THE OLDEST MINIATURE RAILWAY IN SCOTLAND.
Brechin
A Very Small City
BRECHIN IS, IN fact, a city. It has a cathedral and a football club called Brechin City and therefore it must be. You could be forgiven for not realising, though, for this pretty, red sandstone place, on the side of a hill, has a population of less than 6,000 and exudes the friendly feel of a village.
The cathedral sits at the top of the town, surrounded by houses and not immediately apparent, which is maybe why it is so often overlooked. There has been a church here since at least as early as the 9th century, making Brechin ONE OF THE OLDEST SITES OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP STILL IN USE IN SCOTLAND. The present cathedral dates from the 12th century but has been heavily restored and from the outside looks like a handsome, but not particularly special, large church. Inside, though, it is gorgeous, with every window a dazzling example of Victorian and Edwardian stained glass, including work by Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris.
Incorporated, slightly reluctantly, into the southwest corner of the cathedral is Brechin’s jewel, a simple and utterly beautiful ROUND TOWER, one of only two in Scotland, the other being at Abernethy in Perthshire. Brechin’s round tower is the older of the two being built around AD 1000 and is 106 ft (32 m) high. Such towers are more commonplace in Ireland, and Brechin’s may have been the gift of Kenneth II’s Irish queen who endowed Brechin in the late 10th century. Round towers were used as watch-towers and places of refuge, which is why the doorway is six feet off the ground and reached by a ladder that could be hauled inside. The doorway at Brechin is unique in design and richly decorated.
Kirriemuir
Home of the Wendy House
KIRRIEMUIR WAS A very important weaving centre for 250 years, up until the First World War, and was the site of Britain’s last jute mill, at Marywell Works on the Gairie Burn at the edge of town. Kirriemuir’s most famous son was the offspring of a weaver. The ninth of ten children, JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE, the creator of Peter Pan and The Admirable Crichton, was born at No. 9 Brechin Road in 1860. His birthplace is now a museum. At the back of the house is the original ‘Wendy house’, the old wash-house that gave Barrie the idea for the little house the lost boys built for Wendy in Never-Never Land. When he was six, Barrie’s brother David died and Barrie kept alive his memory as the ‘boy who never grew up’. Barrie referred to Kirriemuir as ‘Thrums’ in his work and in later life donated a camera obscura to the town. ONE OF ONLY THREE IN SCOTLAND, this is located on a hill above Kirriemuir and is close to the New Church Cemetery where Barrie, created a Baronet in 1913 and appointed OM in 1922, was buried in 1937.
Kirriemuir was also the birthplace of BON SCOTT (1946–80), legendary lead singer and front man of the Australian hard rock band AC/DC. Scott died of alcoholic poisoning after a night out in London’s Camden Town at the age of 33. His grave in Fremantle Cemetery attracts so many fans that it has been decreed a classified heritage site by the National Trust of Australia.
The actor DAVID NIVEN (1910–83) always claimed to have been born in Kirriemuir – because he thought it sounded more romantic than being born in London.
SIR HUGH MUNRO (1856–1919) was brought up near Kirriemuir on his family estate of Lindertis. A founder member of the Scottish Mountaineering Club, in 1891 he produced a list of mountains in Scotland over 3,000 ft (914.4m) in height, and these became known as ‘Munros’. There were thought at one time to be only 30 such mountains, but Munro listed nearly 300 and it is now a popular pastime to try and climb them all. The first person known to have achieved this feat is the Revd A.E. Robertson in 1901. Sir Hugh himself never managed to complete the list.
Glamis Castle
‘Very singular and striking in appearance, like nothing I ever saw’
THOMAS GRAY
GLAMIS CASTLE IS indeed like nothing you ever saw. That first view of the castle, pink turreted and pinnacled, through the trees at the end of a long, wide, sloping driveway with the blue Angus hills behind is one that can never be forgotten. Glamis, family home of the Bowes Lyons, Earls of Strathmore and Kinghorne, is everything a Scottish castle is meant to be. The core of the present building dates from the 14th century, but most of what we see is 17th century.
Some say it is the most haunted castle in the world. In 1540, Janet Douglas, wife of the 6th Lord Glamis, was burned as a witch on trumped-up charges at the behest of James V, who was determined to wipe out all the Douglases. She was later found innocent, but her soul is said to haunt the chapel where she appears in one particular seat towards the back. Others talk of the dark secret of Glamis, known only to the Earl and his heir. Or of monsters and secret rooms and card games with the Devil. Whether all of these stories are true, or none of them, Glamis looks and feels like the sort of place where they could be true, and that is what makes it one of the most magical and alluring castles in Scotland.
Macbeth was Thane of Glamis, and Duncan’s Hall is supposed to have been built where he murdered Duncan, though several other castles claim that accolade, notably Cawdor and Inverness. Duncan’s grandfather Malcolm II certainly died at Glamis in 1034, but whether murdered or from a hunting accident is uncertain. His blood is said to seep up through the floor of Duncan’s Hall.
The Lyon family has been here since 1372, when Sir John Lyon was given the land by Robert II, first Stewart king and grandson of Robert the Bruce. In 1376 Sir John married the King’s daughter Joanna, the first in a long line of royal connections to Glamis. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother spent some of her childhood at Glamis, which was her grandfather’s and then her father’s home. In 1930, she gave birth to Princess Margaret at Glamis, in a comfortable bedroom of the Royal Apartments in the east wing. This was the last time that a Government minister was required to be present at a royal birth to prevent the baby being substituted (see Midlothian).
Of great interest to American visitors is the portrait in the billiard room of Frances Smith, wife of the 13th Earl of Strathmore and Queen Elizabeth II’s great-grandmother. By an almost direct, if slightly complicated line, through Frances Smith, the present Queen of England is one of the closest living relatives of America’s first President George Washington.
Glamis was the last household in Scotland to employ a jester.
Well, I never knew this
ABOUT
ANGUS
ZOAR, on the outskirts of Forfar, is THE ONLY VILLAGE NAME IN SCOTLAND BEGINNING WITH A ‘Z’. The name comes from the Bible, Zoar being the City of the Plain to where Lot escaped from Sodom and Gomorrah.
MONTROSE has THE WIDEST HIGH STREET IN SCOTLAND.
MONTROSE AIR STATION was established by the Royal Flying Corps in 1912 and was BRITAIN’S FIRST OPERATIONAL MILITARY AIRFIELD. Used again in the Second World War, the airfield is now an aviation museum.
The wondrous Renaissance garden at EDZELL CASTLE, once home to the Lindsay family, Earls of Crawford, was laid out in 1604 by Sir David Lindsay, and is THE OLDEST AND BEST-PRESERVED WALLED GARDEN IN SCOTLAND. Called the Pleasance, the garden displays the fleur-de-lis, shamrock, rose and the thistle of France, Ireland, England and Scotland respectively. The garden and the castle ruins are cared for by Historic Scotland.
THE MILLS OBSERVATORY in Dundee’s Balgay Park is THE ONLY FULL-TIME PUBLIC OBSERVATORY IN BRITAIN.
CARNOUSTIE has hosted seven Open Championships, the last time in 2007. Founded in 1842, it is one of the ten oldest golf clubs in the world, and golf has been played at Carnoustie since the 15th century.
The dovecot or doocot at FINAVON, north of Forfar, is THE LARGEST DOVE-COT IN SCOTLAND.
JAMES CHALMERS (1782–1853), inventor of the adhesive postage stamp, was born in Arbroath. Although Rowland Hill got all the rewards and publicity for introducing the penny post in 1840, it was James Chalmers’s adhesive postage stamp, invented in 1834 and submitted to Parliament in 1837, that made the scheme viable. The first envelope ever posted bearing an adhesive postage stamp was sent by Chalmers to Lt-Col Moberly, Secretary of the GPO, on 2 October 1839. Chalmers is buried in Dundee, and ever since his death his family have fought for his contribution to the postal service to be properly recognised.
DAVID DUNBAR BUICK (1854–1929), engineer and inventor, was born at 26 Green Street, Arbroath. Buick’s parents emigrated to America when he was two. He started his career in the plumbing business and is credited with inventing a method for bonding enamel to iron which led to enamel baths and sinks. His interest, however, was always in cars, and in 1903 he formed the Buick Manufacturing Company to build cars and engines. Buick was absorbed by General Motors in 1908.
ARGYLL
COUNTY TOWN: INVERARAY
Earra Ghaidheal – ‘Coastline of the Gaels’ (Gaelic)
Inveraray Castle, the first major neo-Gothic castle to be built in Britain
Inveraray
A Model Town
INVERARAY, WITH A population of around 500, is one of Britain’s smallest county towns, yet capital of the third largest of Britain’s counties. It is a model new town, THE FIRST OF ITS KIND IN SCOTLAND, and was laid out in the mid 18th century by the 3rd Duke of Argyll to replace the original fishing village demolished to make way for the present Inveraray Castle.
It is an enchanting place, beautifully located beside Loch Fyne, with wide Georgian streets and some noble buildings, such as the restored town gaol which is now a major tourist attraction. The neo-classical church, put up in 1798, was divided into two sections to accommodate services in both Gaelic and English. A stiff climb up the detached bell tower of 1914 is rewarded with superb views, but beware the bells – the peel of ten bells is THE SECOND HEAVIEST IN THE WORLD after Liverpool Cathedral.
NEIL MUNRO (1863–1930), author of the ‘Para Handy’ books, was born in one of Inveraray’s ‘lands’, or apartment buildings, on the edge of the town.
Inveraray Castle is home to the chief of one of Scotland’s most powerful clans, the Campbells, Dukes of Argyll. The 2nd Duke was one of the British army’s first two field marshals. The 5th Duke was married to one of the ‘beautiful Miss Gunnings’, sisters from Co. Roscommon in Ireland who were considered to be the most beautiful women in Europe.
Inveraray was THE FIRST MAJOR NEO-GOTHIC CASTLE TO BE BUILT IN BRITAIN, and the State Dining Room is regarded as THE FINEST PAINTED ROOM IN BRITAIN. It was completed in 1784 and is the only surviving work anywhere of the French painters Girard and Guinard.
Ardkinglas
Tall Trees and Oysters
AT THE HEAD of Loch Fyne is ARDKINGLAS WOODLAND GARDEN, which boasts seven of the widest or tallest trees in Britain, including an Abies grandis fir tree, 210 ft (64 m) high, which is thought to be THE TALLEST TREE IN BRITAIN.
The woodland garden lies within the estate of Ardkinglas House, a delightful Scottish-style Edwardian shooting lodge built in 1906–7 by Robert Lorimer for Sir Andrew Noble, who was married to a Campbell.
Born in Greenock in 1831, Noble conducted ground-breaking experiments in explosives and gunnery and is responsible for much of what we know today about ballistics and gun design. He eventually became chairman of Armstrong’s, the armaments company.
Perhaps inspired by his former boss Lord Armstrong’s success in turning his own weekend retreat in the Northumberland moors, Cragside, into a modern country house, Noble gave Lorimer free rein to design the entire house but asked him ‘to get a move on’ as he, Sir Andrew, was already in his seventies. Cragside had been the first house in England to be lit by hydro-electricity, and Ardkinglas was very nearly the first house in Scotland to be lit by electricity, just beaten to it by Mount Stuart (see Buteshire).
A recent incumbent of Ardkinglas, John Noble, was responsible, along with local fisherman Andrew Lane, for founding the world-famous Loch Fyne Oyster Company in 1978. In 2004, the first Loch Fyne Oyster Bar, across the loch from Ardkinglas, gained notoriety as the scene of a clandestine summit between Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, to discuss who should be Prime Minister Blair’s successor. The meeting has since been dubbed the ‘Loch Fyne Accord’.
Strachur
Maclean, Fitzroy Maclean
JAMES BOND ISSIR FITZROY MACLEAN