Our friend Caroline recently moved to the village of Blackburn, a few miles beyond the Aberdeen urban area. We were invited up for a weekend and decided to go at the end of September, when there would still be a decent amount of daylight. I took the bus to Dundee after work and met Nicole outside Abertay University. From there, we drove up the A90 and branched on to the the A96 - the trunk road that links Aberdeen and Inverness. It was dark when we pulled into Blackburn on the Friday evening. Caroline had cooked lasagne and we ate heartily before turning in for the night.
The plan for the following day was to drive out to Cruden Bay on the coast. After a leisurely home breakfast, we stopped for ice cream at the Forrest Farm organic dairy, before cruising around the A90 Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route that runs around the city perimeter and makes it far easier to reach towns to the north. Cruden Bay lies seven miles south of Peterhead and has a population of 1500. We wandered around the small harbour and spotted a redshank (pictured) standing on the quayside. A rather sickly looking razorbill was swimming nearby. Bird flu has hit the Scottish coastal regions hard and we would soon encounter harrowing evidence of the disease. Cruden Bay today attracts golfers and day trippers but there was a major attempt in late Victorian times to establish the area as a prime seaside holiday destination. Key to the development was the arrival of the railway. A 15-mile branch line was built between Ellon and Boddam. Constructed by the Great North of Scotland Railway Company, the route opened for business in 1897. It served Boddam Harbour and local stone quarries but a vital component of the scheme was the connection to the luxurious Cruden Bay Hotel. Built from local red sandstone in Scottish Baronial style, the upmarket resort had 55 rooms, tennis courts, croquet lawns, bowling greens and an adjacent golf course. Notable guests included Prime Ministers Henry Asquith and David Lloyd George, while future leader Winston Churchill also stayed. The hotel even had its own little electric tramway for transporting people and luggage to and from Cruden Bay Station. Unlike similar railway-linked leisure developments at Gleneagles and Turnberry, the Aberdeenshire bolthole was not a long-term success and the hotel closed its doors in the 1930s, its fate having been sealed by the withdrawal of passenger services on the branch line. The army used the grand building as a training base for the Gordon Highlanders regiment during WW2 and the tramway carried local goods until 1941. The hotel never reopened after the war and was demolished in 1947, the branch line being wound up the following year. Nothing remains of the hotel or railway station but I did spot the pillars of an old viaduct as we drove into the village. The two tramcars are now on display in the Grampian Museum of Transport.
We crossed the Water of Cruden on a wooden footbridge and went for a walk along the beautiful beach. A mile and a half long, the golden sands are a pleasure to traverse but we were dismayed to see several dead birds strewn along the shore. Closer inspection revealed them to be guillemots, a type of seabird adversely affected by the current flu epidemic that has killed tens of thousands of birds in Scotland. No effective treatment has been found. The Cruden Bay Hotel may be long gone but the remains of another opulent building still stand slightly further up the coast. Slains Castle overlooks the sea and has been abandoned since 1922. It was the ancestral home of the Earls of Erroll. A path leads from the village centre through the woods and after half a mile I could see the ruins looming ahead. The former stately home is best known for allegedly inspiring the Dracula novel, published in 1897 and written by Irishman Bram Stoker. He came to Cruden Bay regularly for his summer holiday and is believed to have commenced work on the vampire tale while residing in the nearby Kilmarnock Arms Hotel - still trading today. The guest book containing his signature in 1894 and 1895 also survives. Slains Castle isn't name-checked in Dracula but a description of its octagonal room does appear. The mysterious aristocratic vampire eventually became firmly embedded in popular culture but Stoker remained a part-time author until his death in 1912. Two of his other books are set in Cruden Bay. Access to the castle was unimpeded and it sits next to the Buchan Coastal Path, a seven-mile route that begins at Boddam, just below the major fishing port of Peterhead. Only the shell of the building remains but you can wander freely among the ruins. The roof was stripped of its lead a whole century ago and the elements have long since won the battle. The oldest parts date from 1597 but the house was extensively remodelled in 1837, when the 18th Earl married a daughter of King William IV. The exposed stonework is augmented by courses of red brick, which delineate the new additions. By the turn of the 20th century, the castle was being rented out as a high-class holiday home. Winston Churchill spent two nights here in 1908 as a guest of Prime Minister Asquith.
The 20th Earl sold Slains in 1916, ending more than 300 years of family occupation. After a spell in the hands of wealthy shipping magnate Sir John Ellerman (who never visited), the castle was purchased by Dundee firm Charles Brand Ltd who cynically tore the place apart and sold off whatever they could. A sad end to a striking mansion in a magnificent location. A recent proposal to convert the remains into holiday apartments fizzled out and B-listed status has now been secured to prevent similar schemes gaining a foothold. There were quite a few people milling around and I poked my head into a pitch-black cellar. It was also possible to ascend the spiral staircase in the tower, although I only climbed a short section. The gaping windows led to a sheer drop. I should imagine if you found yourself in the castle alone, the spirits of the undead would make their presence felt. Particularly when the wind howls. We walked back to the car and I read an information panel that described an aviation exploit from 1914. Norwegian Tryggve Gran took off in his monoplane from a field near the Cruden Bay Hotel. His intention was to complete the first flight across the North Sea. A fog bank was encountered on the first attempt and he turned back, landing on and overshooting the beach to finish up in the water. Gran gave it another go and was halfway towards his homeland when the engine cut out and the aircraft plummeted. Fortunately the downdraught forced the propellers back into action and he regained control just 30 metres above the waves. Gran reached Norway after a total of four hours and ten minutes in the air. The flight is regarded as one of the great early journeys and Gran returned to Cruden Bay in 1971 to unveil a memorial dedicated to his achievement. These pilots must have been fearless, literally throwing caution to the wind.
We drove back to Blackburn and ordered an Indian takeaway to sustain us through the marathon first round of Strictly Come Dancing. Afterwards we watched a fictional aviation legend return to the cockpit - Tom Cruise as Maverick in the follow-up to the classic Top Gun movie from 1986. Cruise made a decent fist of reprising the heroic role and the special effects were breathtaking. Well worth a watch, even if you happen to be sceptical. On Sunday, we set out for Inverurie, around 10 miles distant. Caroline remained at home as she had to study and Nicole and I stopped at Forrest Farm, this time ordering pizza for an alfresco lunch. A short drive along the A96 brought us to Inverurie, an affluent market town of 15,000 people that lies in a region of Aberdeenshire known as the Garioch. The River Don runs close by and the Aberdeen to Inverness railway passes through. Paper was manufactured here until 2009 but the area's best-known industrial pedigree is the enormous locomotive works for the Great North of Scotland Railway. Closed in 1969 during the British Rail era, the former carriage and wagon workshop now houses the Garioch Heritage Centre. The museum opened in 2017 and received an award the following year - presented by the Association for Industrial Archaeology - honouring the most creative re-use of an industrial building. Naturally, the place was on my hit list and we were given a warm welcome upon arrival. The café and shop were situated on the ground floor, with the exhibits upstairs. One of the guides offered to show me around and the first display was dedicated to a transport corridor from the industrial revolution, but not the iron road. In front of me were the remains of a barge, thought to be the last vessel to work on the Aberdeenshire Canal. The cast-iron craft was unearthed in 2021 and is at least 170 years old. After being found protruding from the undergrowth on an industrial estate, the local council utilised the collective muscle of Garioch Rugby Club to help pull the historic boat out of the ground. Running between Aberdeen and Inverurie, the canal carried traffic from 1805 until 1853. Both cargo and passengers were transported and a direct connection to Aberdeen Harbour was established in 1834. Ultimately the coming of the railway rang the death knell for the waterway and a deal was struck to build the tracks upon the course of the canal. The gallery showcased a wide range of artefacts from the region's social and industrial past. There was even a life-sized model of Queen Victoria, clad in her mourning attire. The monarch and her husband had visited nearby Haddo House in 1857. The Tait paper mill was one of the county's largest employers and still had a staff of over 500 in the 1990s, when demand was already much reduced. Papermaking has now virtually disappeared from Scotland, due to competition from Asian plants in a globalised market. I studied the scale model of the locomotive works and marvelled at the fine detail. It took 10 painstaking years to construct and even features a moving train! Several photos of engineering activities were on display and pride of place in the room was given to the crane apparatus used to lift carriages from their bogies. This piece of kit was in daily use throughout the life of the workshop from 1902 to 1969.
The works had been refitted a decade earlier to accommodate diesel traction but the slimming down of the national rail network in the 1960s meant that several major engineering sites across the land had to go. Thus almost 70 years of building and repairing rolling stock came to an end in Inverurie. The industry had been chiefly responsible for the town's rapid expansion in the early 20th century and the railway heritage lives on through the local football team - Inverurie Loco Works - who compete in the Highland League. The industrial land is now occupied by retail units, modern housing and the museum. A line once branched off to Oldmeldrum, five miles away. The passenger service on this route was never a success and ceased in 1931. Agricultural produce was transported and the tracks also served the Glen Garioch Distillery (one of the oldest in Scotland). Changing freight distribution patterns rendered the branch unviable and it was axed in 1966. The development of the North Sea oil industry in the 1970s was aided by the presence of many skilled workers in the general Aberdeen area. The museum visit had proved highly educational and we bought a few jars of local jam and chutney from the gift shop. Always nice to make some sort of donation. Particularly when entrance is free. We were given a sneak preview of the gallery on the ground floor, where a fashion exhibition was due to open the following week. Various community events are staged on the premises and I hope the centre continues to thrive.
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