Stonehaven, my holiday, walks around the town

I have had a wonderful break away. I didn’t go far, just a few miles up the coast to another little town called Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire. I hadn’t been able to get away at all this summer and suddenly I realised I only had another week or so before the schools re-open and I have to go back to work. So in a bit of a rush, I decided to phone around and see what I could book. I found a very nice lady who could offer me two nights, Tuesday and Wednesday,  in her B & B; she then managed to get me Thursday night in her friends B & B which gave me from Tuesday through till Friday……………ahhhhhhhhhh bliss, just to get away for awhile.

Stonehaven has a very similar history to Arbroath (where I live), it’s just another small coastal town that was originally a fishing village. Their harbour fascinated me; it’s so unlike the harbour at home. Our harbour is bigger than theirs, our outer harbour is still used by fishermen and the inner harbour has been fitted out with pontoons to accommodate luxury leisure craft. Theirs is so different. It’s small, has a sandy beach, is used by a few local people to moore their boats but is also used, and at the same time, by families! I found this fascinating. There were boats tied up against the harbour wall bobbing about in the waves, one boat was being towed away up the harbour ramp,  and just a few feet away children splashed in the water, ducks swam around, parents sat on the sand eating ice cream and sand castles were being made. All of this is overlooked by local pubs and restaurants where people can sit outside, watching the harbour as they eat and drink. It was so picturesque.

As well as the harbour Stonehaven has a sandy bay where all sorts of sea bird can be seen, including herons and several different species of seagull. The ‘bay’ as this beach is called is bordered at the north by a river known as Cowie Water running into the sea and at the south by a river known as Carron Water running into the sea. The space between these two fast running rivers is the area known as ‘The Bay’; it has beautiful yellow sand with a few rock pools that emerge from the sea as the tide goes out.

This little town is surrounded by steep sea cliffs; to the south the there is a cliff path that takes you over the cliffs with fantastic views out across the North Sea and past the War MemorialAbout two miles past the War Memorial is Dunnottar Castle which has a history dating back to the fourteenth century, (it’s possible the site was in use much earlier than that). It’s a now ruinous stone built castle on top of a steep cliff face that drops away into the sea below. I walked the two or so miles along the cliff path to the castle, down what seemed like hundreds of steps to the base of the rock and then up what seemed like hundreds more steps to the castle entrance, then I had a good look around.

It was quite a climb up and down all those steep steps but it was worth it. Once inside this old ruin it was beautiful, a huge medieval castle with towers, dungeons, stables, a smithy, a grand sixteenth century courtyard annex and a well that needed fresh water pumped in from the mainland!! Another thing I noticed along this cliff walk was the crops.

I must have been there at exactly the right time because there were whole fields of golden wheat swaying in the wind. That was quite a Van Gough moment.

If you walk in the opposite direction, along the cliff path going north from Stonehaven, you come to a very old ruined church. It has grave stones all around it; they are even inside what was once the church. The land must have continued to be used as a cemetery long after the church fell into disuse. Apparently the church was deserted because the cliff face eroded and left the church too close to the edge of the cliff.


 On the way back from this little ruined church, if you know where to look, there is what seems like a very old stone wall standing about 3 foot high. These few very ordinary looking stones are all that is left of a once great medieval castle, Cowie Castle. I never found out why the castle no longer exists and there is very little of it left. The only reason I knew to look out for it, was because I had read about it in the Toll Booth museum, it would have been very easily missed. 


If you don’t want to go wandering around a cliff face you can always go wandering around Dunnottar woods which start just outside the centre of town. There are all sorts of things to see in the woods.


It’s a lovely walk but there is also a little shell house that the lady who once owned the land built for her children to play in. She had ten children so I guess they needed somewhere to play. The shell ‘Hoosie’, as it is known was renovated a while ago but most of the shells from the outside are still missing.


The inside is quite a surprise though. Hundreds of little shells embedded into the wall in patterns and shapes, what a lovely little thing to find in the middle of the woods.

One thing that Sonehaven is well known for is it’s Olympic sized outdoor swimming pool. It’s filled with heated sea water and is one of very few operational outdoor pools left in Scotland. Like most of these outdoor pools it was built in the 30’s and has served its population well. It’s open every day through out the summer and you can even go for a midnight swim if you want too!! Said to be quite a unique experience. From what I was told there seems to be a constant battle to find the funds to keep this pool open, I just hope they manage it, I sat in the pool café one day watching every one have fun, it would be a real shame to lose this.

One of the nicest and most surprising things about my little holiday away was finding out that the landlady from the B&B was very well acquainted with the work of Joan Eardley, the painter I wrote about last week. What a coincidence, it turned out she (Janice the B&B landlady) is from Glasgow and lived in the ‘Townhead’ area of Glasgow (as a child) at the same time as Joan was painting her urchin children there. Even more of a coincidence was the fact that she knew the Sampson family very well; she was friends with the girl Joan Eardley painted most often, the child with the squint eyes called Pat. I have seen old school class photos of Pat the girl with the squint eye and she is instantly recognisable as the girl in the paintings.  AND………..even stranger, Catterling, the place where Joan Eardley stayed and painted the seascapes, is just a few miles down the coast from Stonehaven. I managed a visit to this tiny cliff top village and stood outside the very cottage where Joan Eardley had painted and lived. WOW…………….perfect holiday.

And all too soon it was time to come home. I have loads and loads of photos and eventually I expect I shall manage to get them all posted but for now I am just going to post the few I have here to illustrate my ‘holiday report’.

And sadly on Monday I shall be going back to work after having all this free time over the summer. Working, a necessary evil, will seriously encroach on the time I spend here, which of course means my time here will be a lot more limited than it has been these last few weeks. Until the next lot of holidays of course!. SO…………..if I I’m not around as much as I have been you will know why.