Stonehaven








Stonehaven is really two towns, the old town ("Old Steenie") dating back to medieval times, huddles around its harbour at the foot of the Carron Water, while the late 18th century new town, built on the back of a fortune made by a local landowner lies between the Carron and Cowie Waters. The old town was largely built by the Keith family of nearby Dunnottar Castle, and in particular George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal (also responsible for Marischal College in Aberdeen), under whose patronage it became the county town of Kincardineshire in 1600, thereby replacing the "failed" county seat of Kincardine near Fettercairn. However it fared less well after that, being put to the torch by the Marquis of Montrose during the Covenanting Wars of the early 17th century, occupied by Cromwellian forces when they besieged Dunnottar Castle in 1651-2, and by the Duke of Cumberland's troops in 1746 (following the town's declaration for the Jacobite cause). But in 1759, the Barclays of Urie bought the adjacent estate and in 1759 Robert Barclay laid out the new town, while thirty years later, Robert Stevenson - the builder of the Bell Rock Lighthouse off Arbroath - cleared the harbour (below left) of a major rock obstruction in time for the town to cash in the herring boom of the late 19th century. The town lies at the end of the Highland Boundary Fault, a huge geological fault the runs diagonally across Scotland. To the north and west lie hard Pre-Cambrian and Cambrian metamorphic rocks of the Dalradian group and to the south and east softer, sedimentary rocks of the Devonian and Carboniferous periods, principally the Old Red Sandstone. (I think its interesting anyway!)



The 17th century Tolbooth (above right) which sits on the quay of the harbour is the oldest building and now houses a restaurant and local museum, but at one time was the town gaol and from a cell three imprisoned local ministers of the Episcopal Church contrived to perform baptisms by pouring water through their barred windows onto the heads of babes below. Also commemorated by the town is the inventor R W Thomson who it would seem invented the pneumatic tire (as opposed to the usual suspect of John Boyd Dunlop).

	The old town's High Street with its mercat cross and steeple is the venue for a Hogmanay celebration in which young men of the town whirl fireballs round their heads. It's a custom of great antiquity and is thought to have something to do with warding off evil. Another local custom is the Feein' Fair held in the Market Square in the new town. In the past, this was the occasion when local farmers came to town to engage labourers for the coming months, but is now the venue for a variety of summer events. Stonehaven is also the location of the only surviving Art Deco open air seawater swimming pool in Scotland. (Only open in the summer months funnily enough.)
Dunnottar Castle (below) just to the south of the town is probably the most spectacular castle on the east coast of Scotland. More a fortified promontory than a castle, it is encircled by cliffs 160 feet high against which the North Sea pounds relentlessly. The only access is over a narrow tongue of land which lies far below the rock upon which the castle is built. From the 14th century onwards it was in the hands of the Keith family and its fortifications withstood all attempts to storm the castle until Cromwell turned his artillery on its walls, and after an eight month siege in 1651-2, the Royalists occupying the castle were forced to surrender. Fortunately the Honours of Scotland (the royal regalia) and Charles II's private papers, which had been left here for safe-keeping, were successfully smuggled out of the castle and hidden under the floor of nearby Kinneff church until the Restoration in 1660.

		But the grimmest episode in Dunnottar's long history occurred in 1685 when the 9th Earl of Argyll, in conjunction with the Duke of Monmouth, rebelled against the Catholic King James II. The English rising failed after the insurgents were defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor in Somerset, while the Scottish rebellion was also put down and Argyll executed. A large number of prisoners - 122 men and 45 women - were taken to Dunnottar and crammed into the Whigs Vault where they were kept for two months in the stifling height of summer. Twenty five tried to escape by climbing down the cliffs, two dying in the attempt, while the others were recaptured and tortured before being transported to the Quaker colony of East New Jersey. Today all is peaceful at Dunnottar and it's quite often to be seen as a location in a variety of film and TV scenes.

For more information on Dunnottar click here. For more information on the Fireball Festival click here. For more information on Stonehaven click here. To find Stonehaven on a map click here.