BY THE MOUTH OF THE LOSSIE

It was May and we were off to Lossiemouth for a walk along the beach. They clearly knew we were coming as the bunting was out at the car park.

Little did we know, but we weren't really in Lossiemouth, though.

Lossiemouth is an amalgam of 4 different villages. Where we were parked was actually called Branderburgh and it was a planned settlement that came into being when the new harbour was built here in 1839 and extended in 1860. The whole port had functioned as the port for Elgin for centuries, but the new harbour allowed many fishing families to move from elswewhere on the Moray Coast and establish Lossiemouth as an independent fishertown. The harbour foundation stone was laid by Lieutenant Colonel James Brander of Pitgaveny, hence the name Branderburgh and the street name of Pitgaveny along which we walked.

While looking up this eminent chap, I came across a later owner of Pitgaveny House - Sandy Dunbar. He was once the Chief Executive of the Scottish Arts Council.

 However, he came to own the estate in an entirely unconventional way. He was bet £20 by his cousin that he would not run the 7 miles from Duffus to Pitgaveny - naked and during the day. He did, and he won the bet. He also greatly impressed his grandfather's cousin James Brander Dunbar, so much so, that he gifted the house and estate to him. At the time of Sandy Dunbar's death in 2012, the estate was worth £8million!

This long arm type of harbour is somewhat unusual. The new harbour at Branderburgh was built with two arms at right angles to each other, basically behind the earlier more normal harbour. It was originally for fishing boats, but now serves mainly pleasure craft.

Talking of pleasure, we were soon to be off for our walk, departing from the bank of warehouses by the quay. These warehouses are testament to the considerable trade that passed through the harbour in the early parts of the 19th Century. There were even steamers from Leith and London calling into the port.

Just along the quayside was a huge anchor, apparently trawled up by the Fishing Smack Isabella and James in 1882 in the Moray Firth. The Skipper was William Reid (BO). I assume that BO means boat owner, for he was indeed just that. It would be reasonable to assume that his children were Isabella and James. The only other information I can find is that the smack was 50 feet long! Why keep and display the anchor?

Not much further along the street is the Lossiemouth War Memorial. This was designed by Percy Herbert Portsmouth, an English Sculptor living and teaching sculpture in Edinburgh at the time of the First World War. In common with many sculptors, the end of the war and the requirement of local councils to erect war memorials, meant a boom in business for him. He designed memorials in Wick, Thurso, Castletown, Elgin and this one in Lossiemouth.

The memorial commemorates a large number of men, a lot of whom were sailors as you might expect. Also listed is Sergeant Alexander Edwards VC, who was decorated for outstanding bravery during the battle of Passchendaele in July/August 1917. He was later listed as missing in action in 1918.

This is where we were heading - the new, well, nearly one year old, pedestrian bridge across the River Lossie.

The new bridge replaced the old bridge, which was closed in 2019, rendering the East Beach unreachable from the town. You can see the remains of the old bridge behind the new.

Where there's a bridge, there's a bridge photo.

On to the beach we go! Along with Rab and his dug, which was very patient as Rab told us a little about the bridge and the concerns some had about the location - the old bridge had been built to allow fishing boats further up the river. Having said that, the new bridge is thought to have been built on the site of an even older bridge than the old bridge! Apparently there had been 360000 crossings of the bridge since it was opened nearly exactly a year ago - an average of very nearly 1000 a day!

Nice views back from the beach to the town.

Goosanders on the river.

Along the river side of the sands, we were walking across saltmarsh. Jacque did wonder if this was machair, but that is confined to the west of Scotland and Ireland. However, some saltmarshes in the Western Isles were once machair. Machair is not intertidal, but is a flora rich, nutrient poor area of land beyond the reach of the tide. These wiry grasses are typical of saltmarshes in Scotland.

As are these tufts.

Saltmarshes are commonly crossed by freshwater streams and rivulets, which cut through the soft mud soils quite easily. Indeed, the soils and vegetation is known to be not very dynamic. That is they are not prone to change. The down side of that is that vehicle tracks, for example, will compact soil very quickly and the tracks may remain visible for many years.

Crossing these burns by tree is more difficult than it looks.

Thrift is a common seaside flower. Indeed, the Latin name is Armeria Maritima' meaning Sea Pink. Thrift can also be found at some of the highest elevations in the UK, indicating the plant's resistance to exposure and wind.

We eventually started to move away from the saltmarsh.

Our progress was being watched by this male Stonechat, a bonny little bird.

We wound our way through the tree covered dunes.

There were huge colonies of lichen in the hollows within the dunes, indicating that the dune system at this point was relatively stable, and that the air was pretty clean.

The tree cover in the dunes is Scots Pine. This is the most widespread pine species in the world and the only pine native to the UK. These are male flowers. Scots Pine carries both male and female flowers on the same tree. The female flowers form cones over a two year period. The seeds from the cones are windborne because the seedlings are shade intolerant, so you don't generally find new, young pines growing under the canopy of older, mature trees.

Before too long, we emerged form the dunes onto the shingle beach. There was a boat on the horizon, but I cannot identify it. There are a remarkable number of vessels which came to grief along this stretch of coastline.

Just the spot for some lunch as it turned out.

Jimmy had a long way to go to wash the cups.

After lunch we headed back along the beach to Lossiemouth.

The weather behind us was looking a bit ominous, but there was only a tiny smir of rain over the whole walk.

As we got nearer to town, there were a few people in the water. Apparently, the East Beach is a well known surfing spot. Not that I intend taking it up any time soon. It had to be a bit on the cool side, and I'm pretty sure, I wouldn't look too good in a wet suit.

Back across the bridge we went and walked along the promenade back to the cars. We passed this bench, but I certainly didn't sit down, in case someone did actually stop and talk to me.

We arrived at the cars and stepped across the road for our well-deserved and tasty tea/coffee and cakes, which Dave and Jimmy attacked with gusto.

Jacque said she only had one cake!

All in all a fine walk, reasonably benign weather, great company and tasty cakes. What more could you ask for.

Well done to Hugh and Pam for organising it all.