Silverbank Caravan Club Site, Banchory, Kincardineshire

Our last day in the area was spent back in Aberdeen, in an attempt to see the attractions we could not squeeze into our first day there. We headed in the first instance to Footdee, more colloquially known as Fittle, situated at the mouth of the River Dee. Our travel literature had explained that this was a quaint 19^th century fishermen’s village with higgledy-piggledy cottages backing in to the sea, and that the inwards facing of the windows and doors was for protection from storms as well as a deterrent to visits from the devil. 

The genesis of this little village relates more to considerable expansion of the harbour and the necessary relocation of the fisher folk and their homes, the architectural “Fish Town” project for John Smith, who also designed Balmoral Castle. Fifty six houses were built between 1808 and 1809 to provide for the harbour developments advised by Thomas Telford, that brilliant engineer whose work we have come across right through the United Kingdom.

As we walked around the outside of the prescinct, I peeked into the tantalising narrow lanes and considered that it would be rude of me to venture into the streets; it would be a little like Clovelly, in Devon, or Port Isaac, in Cornwall, both which we visited last year, where the tourists flock to peer into the locals' windows and doors, intruding into their very lives. Instead we climbed up on to the Esplanade that continues on around the sandy beach of Aberdeen and took a couple of discreet shots which offered nothing more than a souvenir that we had been there. But as we stood there, gazing out to sea and counting the oil rig service boats sitting off the shore, a tour bus arrived and unloaded forty voyeurs. We watched them from above and decided that we too could surely do a hasty walk through Fittle on our way back to the car.

We fell into conversation with a local woman, who was a fount of information regarding a wide range of Aberdeen matters, including the situation below us. As regards the boats moored offshore; wharf fees are apparently so expensive that many remain outside the harbour and are themselves serviced by a lighter type system. She spoke too of the economic slump Aberdeen was currently suffering; after years of inflated living sourced by endless money pots from the fuel companies; the laws of supply and demand have finally taken over. There is too much oil for the market, and the work is just not there as it was. There have been reduncancies in all sorts of employment areas, including for her husband and their two grown-up children. 

Her tour advice was brilliant but all too late. It seems we should have made an effort to return to Stonehaven, the coastal town we had passed through on our way to Banchory. Close by is Dunnottar, the one castle all visitors to Scotland really must visit, if no others. Too late now!

We drove a few miles up the coastline, and found our way to Seaton Park on the southern bank of the River Don, although still in Aberdeen, or more correctly, Old Aberdeen.

The park was originally part of Seaton Estate, owned in the 17^th century by the Gordon family, but in 1775 was acquired by the Forbes family, and later through family lines, the Hays. The grand house was destroyed by fire in 1963, although the family had already moved out. The stable block and walled garden are the only remnants of the original buildings in the park.

The Aberdeen Town Council bought the Park in 1947 to provide public amenities for the north side of Aberdeen, and in the 1950s the format of the park was changed with formal gardens laid out. The amazing playground was established in 1974, winning an award for its design. Today as we arrived and parked near the playground, there were dozens of small children having a wonderful time.

We wandered down into the centre of the park, then through the woods in search of the 13^th century Brig o‘Balgownie over the River Don. My husband appointed himself navigator, with the city map we had in hand, which was a poor guide for the park. We walked and walked, through the University’s Hillhead Student Village, down into woods, and along unfamilar streets, finally arriving at one of Britain’s oldest bridges. It has a gothic shaped arch with a clear span of some 12 metres and is built of a mixture of sandstone and granite. In the 1800s it was almost totally rebuilt by the council and a fund was established for its maintenance in perpetuity. There was no advice as regards the continuing existance of the Fund, and as to the shape of the bridge, the trees and lovely old residences crowd out any possible viewing by the general populous. We had to accept the description on the signage.

Having found our way back to the park on an alternative route, we picnicked in the sunshine beside the playground, then set off once more on foot through the park, but this time up through the parterre flower gardens. St Machar’s Cathedral sits on a rise overlooking the Park and the river, surrounded by crowded gravestones all undergoing serious maintenance. Curious as to why the ground had been cleared around every one of the hundreds of the headstones, we asked the two workers what was going on. 

In February this year an eight year old boy was killed  in Glasgow when a gravestone fell on him. In June the parents sued the council, and I am not sure of the outcome, but this obviously put the wind up councils all around the country, and here in Aberdeen, the council, or more correctly, the ratepayers, are funding the uprooting and concrete reinforcement of every headstone. Is this not a knee-jerk reaction?

Gobsmacked by the revelation, we entered the Church which has been here in some shape or form since 580 AD, founded by St Machar, a follower of Columbus. A Norman Cathdral was built on the spot in 1131, although nothing of that original structure remains. Most of the current church was built in the 15^th century, and there was storm damage and demolition in 1560 during the Scottish Reformation. Extensions have been sometimes necessary and sometimes simply willed. Despite being titled a “Cathedral”, it has in fact been a Presbyterian church since the Reformation. It seems that any church that was once the seat of a Bishop prior to the Reformation, is still known as a cathedral here in Scotland. I wonder if this ever sticks in the craw of the officers of the Church of Scotland.

As we entered this rather pleasing church, albeit of grey sobriety, we were treated to the musical strains of a singer and pianist. We settled into a pew and spent some time listening to the two practice, neither greatly talented, but still wonderful to happen upon in this ‘theatre’. The singer was a conservative looking middle aged  woman, but the accompanist was a far more interesting type; a fairly young and very black man with his dreadlocks wrapped in a scarf so they hung in a cluster down his back. Every now and then he corrected the singer, singing a line with far greater talent than she. At one point he picked up his trumpet and played a tune, rather at odds with the other melodies, but he was better left to the piano. What a bonus this all was!

From here we walked north up the cobbled streets of Old Aberdeen, through the middle of the University, the amalgamation of Kings and Marishal Colleges previously alluded to.

We stopped to admire the exterior of Kings College Chapel, the first and finest of the college’s buildings, completed in 1495. A man wearing an identity badge and looking very official indicated that we might go in through a side door to explore the chapel for ourselves. How lovely it is, boasting the finest medieval woodwork in Scotland. 

Bishop Elphinstone, 26^th Bishop of Aberdeen, then petitioned the Pope in Rome to create a university here to serve the north of Scotland, and once the approprate seal of approval had been obtained, he set to establishing a university based on the long estabished University of Paris, where he had studied.   

There are two tombs in the Chancel, one is that of this Bishop Elphinstone, and he is memorialised yet again with a larger and more ornate monument outside the college.

We set off and walked around the boundary of the university and back up the main road to Seaton Park by which time the earlier rain had eased. The walled gardens still called; these proved a little disappointing, but this surely was because we have been spoiled by such high quality examples at the castles we have recently visited. As we made our way back through the woods to the car, the heavens opened up yet again and we stood under our umbrellas in the shelter of the larger trees until it eased after ten minutes or more. It was time to head home.