HOW ARE THINGS IN BRIDGE OF ALVAH?

Another Spring and another trip away for the Dinosaurs. This time we went to Banff on the Aberdeenshire coast. This is not a part of the world that most of us had often been to before or that we knew very well, so it was going to be a bit of an adventure.

Pam had warned us beforehand that there were likely to be delays on the A96, due to the transport of wind turbines starting just as we would be leaving Inverness.

Being a bit geeky, I often notice ships coming and going to the harbour and usually photograph them and find out a bit about them. The ship below is the Gibraltar registered Shillig, carrying the said wind turbine tower parts into Inverness a couple of days before we were to leave. She had sailed from Ceuta. This is an autonomous Spanish city on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco. Ceuta is an important port and has long been described as a colony by Morocco and sovereignty of the city is disputed. 

This is the first time I have seen a ship come into Inverness from the African continent.

I feel I may have lost at least half of my readership already.

We were all due to meet up and play golf at Banff on the Friday, but Sharon and I were unable to make it at the last minute due to our youngest grandson breaking his femur. This involved us in a fair amount of additional babysitting and visits to Raigmore, so we missed the golf. I have no photos of the actual golf, but I do have some of the subsequent prize-giving. The prizes went to the Pollocks for the best scores and to Charlie for having the courage to play.

We were able to get away on the Saturday morning and it so happened that we could meet up with the walkers at Sandend harbour, where they had stopped for their lunch.

We could see them from distance, which is actually more difficult than you think as Sandend harbour is reputed to be the smallest in Scotland.

 

Suddenly, Charlie spotted us!

 After we all had our lunch and caught up with each other, we carried on with the second half of the walk back towards Portsoy.

It being Sandend, we walked across the sand to get on our way.

There was one tricky bit, which we managed to get across without any major mishap, despite Robin's misguided attempt at a Monty Python silly walk.

 

Looking back, it is hard to see why Sandend got its name.

The walk takes us through some good looking farmland, made all the more pleasant by the blue skies and sunshine.

No doubt, the walkers will have spotted numerous Yellowhammers, including this male on the farm roof.

It wasn't long before we were going downhill into the village of Portsoy.

In the distance and almost impossible to see is the empty site of what was once the Campbell Hospital on the outskirts of the village. This was most recently, and aptly for us, a geriatric hospital, but before that it was the Campbell Infectious Diseases Hospital. It has now been demolished to make way for social housing, which will be why Robin and Susan did not see it when they scoped out the walk. It was opened in 1904 and was given the name in honour of a Mr Campbell, who donated the funds for the building. I'm a little unsure about the kudos of having an Infectious Diseases hospital named after oneself.

Just as we turned the corner near the rubble that remains of the hospital, we found evidence that it is always colder in the east of the country near the coast.

Then Randle McMurphy and Nurse Ratched took us all for a walk across a field.

However, the search parties were already out looking for us!

Just remember, as Randle said " You're no crazier than the average asshole walkin' around on the streets and that's it." 

 

If you think we were mad, what about the generations of children in Portsoy that went swimming in the open air seawater pool at the bottom of the cliffs. This was built in 1936, but suffered from scouring over time and finally closed in the 1980's. It was allegedly warmer than the sea. Aye right!

Next stop was the harbour for an ice cream - most people had salted caramel and it was very good, Robin.

We ate our ice cream in the shadow of a metal dolphin sculpture made by Carn Standing, a local artist. Oddly, the statue was not erected permanently, but was put up for the Portsoy boat festival in 2014. It was then to be sold on, but the villagers wanted it to stay, raised the money to buy it and here it now stands - and very nice it is too.

Robin took Bob back to Sandend for his car and then we all left Portsoy for our house near Banff, where, unfortunately, a murder had taken place. Luckily the suspects in this heinous crime had all gathered together for a group photo

It must be said that they were a pretty motley crew, and any one one of them might be the guilty party. If they weren't on this particular occasion, I wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't all done something bad in the recent past. For goodness sake, just look at them!

I think anybody with gap teeth like this needs careful looking at - a clearly unsavoury type.

In truth, however, the real culprit was Sue  - who could believe that a caring nurse could be seduced by the dark chicanery of crystal balls and tarot cards, to the extent that she would murder someone? Almost nobody is the answer, but it is always the quiet ones you need to watch.

Luckily, it was just a charade and we just dressed up and had a good meal and some nice wine and nobody was really murdered at all.

The next day was significantly wetter than the Saturday and there was much questioning of the sanity of walking in torrential rain. Eventually, the rain abated to a downpour and everyone decided to walk. Well, actually, the rain went off and that swung it for the doubters. You should always listen to these nagging doubts.

Here we are getting the waterproofs on just in case.

Then  off we set into the woods. Note that the trees are overhanging, which just meant that it still seemed to be raining as raindrops fell from the leaves down the back of our necks.

Within a few minutes we had arrived at the Bridge of Alvah. Nice views up and down the River Deveron. 

We had an opportunity to go down below the bridge, but we felt we should carry on while it was still dry. This was probably a bit of a shame, as the bridge is quite interesting. It is a Category A Listed Building and dates from 1771, a palindromic year. It was allegedly designed by the Earl of Fife, who owned Duff House at the time.There are indications that he was given some help and may just have claimed the credit.

It is possible that he was specifically involved in the provision of a room within the structure of the bridge which was purportedly for his use in entertaining his mates and young women - often at the same time.

Luckily for you all, Sharon and Bob had been here before and here are some photos to illustrate all this.

The assignations room is on the left of the picture.

It wasn't raining on this day.

Once we hadn't seen the bridge from below, we were on our way towards Montcoffer House.

We couldn't see a lot of the house from the track, but it was of some importance back in the 

day. It is a Category B Listed Building dating from the early 18th Century, being renovated in 1774 and extended in 1880. By that time the house was in the ownership of the Duffs and in 1906, furniture was removed from Duff House in Banff to Montcoffer. Montcoffer House  became the residence of choice for the Duffs, who were perhaps better known as the Duke and Duchess of Fife, when they came up to visit Banffshire. Perhaps Duff House was too big, or too flash; who knows, but they passed it on to the nation at that time.

The only resident we saw was the (blurry) squirrel on the roof.

Just up the road from the House are the remains of the associated doocot. This dates from about 1790. The whole estate was improved for the Duke of Fife about 20 years before and the house, offices, gardens and pigeon house were thought to have been valued at the princely sum of £103.16 shillings!

Just to show how wet it was, here is a photo of some sodden sheep's wool caught on the farm fence.

The farm and the woodlands are all pretty well looked after and very neat and tidy. Even the ploughed fields attracted admiring glances from the local Rooks.

Suddenly, we seemed to arrive at a bit of a wildlife haven.

A Hare ran across the field down by the river.

We were watching the Yellowhammer in the trees.....

.....alongside the preening Goldfinch....

....all alongside the Bluebells.

We also passed a more tame animal grazing quietly through the woods.

 

As we got closer to Banff, we passed by some nice stone walls. They had holes at regular intervals with no obvious function. I found a guide from Historic Scotland that indicated that holes in stone walls were quite common and used for various purposes - to let water or animals pass through, being the most likely here. There were often sheep holes that would let sheep move from field to field, but would stop cattle doing the same. Assuming the track we were on was once part of a field, this seems plausible.

Quite suddenly we came upon this fine view of Banff.

Banff is a Royal Burgh, confirmed by King Robert II in 1372, although the settlement dates from at least the early 12th Century and King Malcolm IV was living in the Castle at Banff in 1163. It was very prosperous in the 16th-18th Centuries due to sea trading and fishing and many local wealthy families built large houses in the burgh. The Earls of Fife were added to the list of important residents with the construction of Duff House in 1749.

Bizarrely, we had to pass through MacDuff to get to Banff. This meant going through the grounds of the MacDuff Distillery.

We tend to think of distilleries as old, long-standing features of Speyside, but this one was actually founded in 1958, making it younger than almost all of the Dinosaurs. It is owned by the Bacardi Corporation and produces 2,400,000 litres of alcohol each year - more than the Dinosaurs could possibly drink.

By now, the rain had begun to fall quite heavily and we were in need of tea and shelter and, in some cases, toilet facilities. Luckily, the Spotty Bag Shop and Cafe were just around the corner from where we were standing in the rain.

We should have known better when we saw this sign on the door.

This is despite the fact that they actually sell backpacks!

We trooped up the stairs to the busy cafe, almost salivating at the thought of a nice hot cup of tea and a sticky cake. However, the manager, or whatever he was, was most unkeen to let us in. Whatever he was, he wasn't the Customer Relations Manager. He was brusque and clearly did not want some cold, wet and dripping Dinosaurs spoiling his nice cafe.

We were soon out on the wet streets again. We will never be back.

We were now getting a fairly jaundiced view of the attractions of Banff, which were hard to see. We even passed a car park which did nothing for the setting of the fine building behind - a clear case of urban planning vandalism.

They even had the audacity to call it Green Spaces!

Banff was quickly becoming the least favourite place we had ever been to, but then we got to Duff House.

Duff House was built between 1735 and 1740 by William Adam for William Duff of Braco. In fact, there was no formal contract between Lord Braco and Adam and they disagreed about the costs involved, ending up engaged in a bitter court case. Adam sued for just under £5800 and he won his case at first. However, Lord Braco would not give in and the matter was drawn out until just before Adam's death in 1747.

Adam's sons, Robert and James were the founders of the Adam style that held sway in the 18th Century. The elder Adam was a bit less original than his son and most architectural critics suggest that Duff House and his other large commissions are really based on the works of other architects and styles. One even went so far as to say that his work was really an "ad hoc improvisation from source books, improperly digested." Wow can architects be scathing!

It is pretty impressive, no matter what you think of the originality of the overall composition.

After the horrors of the Spotty Bag Shop, we were really pleased and grateful to the guy at Duff House who suggested that we sit under the Portico and have tea from their cafe along with the sandwiches which we had brought with us. The shelter was most welcome, as was the hot tea and coffee. All we had to do in return was not lean against the windows, otherwise the alarms would go off, resulting in evacuation of the building. It was a little tempting, but we resisted.

Here we are enjoying his hospitality. He saved the day for Banff.

There was one unsavoury incident that marred this act of kindness. Poor Dave had been looking forward to his banana after his coffee and tuna roll. However, after searching his rucksack for ages, he could find no trace of the delicious banana.

Smirky, smily Hugh had a look in his rucksack....

.....and pulled out a banana. Dave's banana. Hugh had filched it from his rucksack some time earlier. He held it up and taunted Dave with evident glee. Dave's reaction is not repeatable.

The rain had not really abated during all of this hilarity, so we were soon back out in the wet.

We were soon lost, having wandered into a town on the outskirts of Glasgow, where clearly the residents did not believe in punctuation.

We were soon  back on the right track and came across this twisted tree. These are a bit unusual and are the result of the crown of the tree actually being twisted. This happens when the tree is exposed to wind on only one side and the torsion produced by that twists the tree every time the wind blows.

Duff House was a large building and, no doubt, there was a considerable demand for gin and tonic. To satisfy that demand, they had an ice house built and here it is.

Apparently ice could remain inside for up to 3 years. The gin would not last that long in the company of Dinosaurs, but Sharon thought that she should check, just to be sure.

By now, the rain had been falling for so long, that we had entered the rain-forest. Hugh was a bit hesitant about offering his hand to this snake, but then he remembered he used to be an accountant and had shaken hands with bigger snakes than this one.

Next stop was the Duff House mausoleum. This is actually the site of one of the most amazing bits of social climbing fraud you might ever come across.

The mausoleum was built in 1793 by the second Earl of Fife. Like all Fifers, he was keen to show that he had a bit of pedigree and was well connected. So, he stole gravestones from elsewhere and passed them off as his ancestors.

He also sought to embellish his connections by telling everyone that the friend of his ancestors, Robert the Bruce, was buried here as well. This is the tomb that he used for this bit of deception.

Unfortunately, in the 1990's it was discovered that the tomb more correctly belonged to a 17th Century Sheriff. The Earl had payed the local council in gold to have the tomb moved.

The earliest ancestor of the Earl at the mausoleum is, in fact, Alexander Duff of Braco who died in 1705, less than 90 years before the mausoleum was built. He had him moved in 1793 along with the remains of the first earl and his wife.

The door was pretty good though.

We were getting close to home and despite the sky beginning to lighten up it was still a bit damp.  There was a range of waterproof gear on show. The men all looked like a SWAT team about to storm some ISIS stronghold.

 

The ladies were much more colourful, which, of course, just makes them more of a target come any invasion.

Soon, however, we were back at the house and all the wet gear was sitting in the warmth of the swimming pool drying off in the heat.

Not only that, but the sun had come out, the seats had dried off and the girls were out on the patio having drinks.

Some of the men were playing around in the games room.

We had a nice roast beef dinner with a range of wines and then all the tired little Dinosaurs went to bed.

The next morning was much better weather-wise. We were up sharpish, breakfasted, tidied up and ready to go before 10 and we left the house for the last time before heading to Whitehills to buy some fash.

From there it was a short drive back to Sandend for our last walk of the trip - a short coastal walk to Findlater Castle and back round to Sandend.

We started off in rebellious fashion by louping over the fence, just beside the sign advising that the walk was closed due to subsidence and danger!

We were encouraged in this undertaking by the Pollocks, who assumed all responsibility for our wellbeing and safety.

The start of the walk took us along the coast above the village.

Soon we reached the areas where the land was falling into the sea, but we nobly pressed on, safe in the knowledge that the Pollocks had been here not so long ago and they were sure it was perfectly safe.

We were soon rewarded for our faith and bravery by some nice coastal scenery.

Inland, there was a slightly odd sight of gulls stretched out in a line across a field.

The gorse was looking especially vibrant in the spring sunshine.

The sun was beginning to warm the day nicely and the ladies decided it was time to take their clothes off.

It was nice and flat and the landscape opened up nicely, with good farmland sloping to the edge of the sea.

It wasn't too long before we reached Findlater Castle perched precariously on the precipice.

Findlater Castle probably gets the name from the Gaelic fionn - leitir, meaning white cliff. There is thought to have been some form of fortification here from before 1250, which wasn't yesterday. The current ruins are most likely from the 1450's, probably incorporating elements of earlier castles. Ownership of the castle passed to Sir John Gordon who later rebelled against Mary, Queen of Scots in 1562. He lost and died of apoplexy after his capture. Rather bizarrely, his body was tried for treason in Edinburgh.

Taking in the view.

While we were at the castle a guy came along and flew his drone around - very impressive and stable it was despite the breeze....

,,,,but not as elegant as this Herring Gull.

Still on birds, there is a fine beehive doocot close to the castle. Indeed, the doocot and the castle did exist together, at least for the last century of the castle's occupation as the doocot dates from the 1500's. It contains 700 nesting boxes and was designed to provide a ready source of meat in the winter when most livestock were slaughtered as they could not be kept in feed over the winter months. Doocots are a sign of large estates, because, by law, they had to be built well within landholding boundaries to stop the pigeons eating a neighbour's crops. Strange, but true.

Nice tracks in the field.

A small Tortoiseshell butterfly enjoying the sun on a dandelion.

Green and pleasant land.

Reflections of yesterday's rain.

 

Pigs in shit. Don't they seem happy?

We passed this house on the way into Sandend and it was flying the flag of the Knights Templar. The actual order was disbanded by the Pope in 1312, but they have given rise to all sorts of myth and legend since then. There is also a far right organisation named the Knights Templar International. Who knows why the flag was flying here?

We were soon back at Sandend and the cars and then it was time to say goodbye and head for home.

It really was a great weekend and huge credit goes to everyone who made it such an enjoyable time, especially to Susan and Robin who did all the organisation.