Den of Old Maud

Maud Junction,  a distinctly autumnal look with fallen leaves. The lay out of the station reflected the need for lines to split to serve Peterhead and Fraserburgh and for the extensive goods yards needed by the cattle mart. The Peterhead platform is on the right, the Fraserburgh ones to the left, the goods yard was further left.




Maud Hospital,  originally the Buchan Combination Poorhouse, this imposing building designed by Alexander Ellis, was opened on 26th January 1869 in order to provide deliberately spartan accommodation for the poor of parishes across Buchan. This view from the Line just south of  Maud Station shows the side of the building. The presence of the railway and resultant good links across Buchan was a factor in the selection of Maud as the site for the poorhouse. The poorhouse assisted the development of Maud by providing employment for local tradesmen and craftsmen, including tailors who made uniforms from tweed and corduroy for the inmates, joiners who did maintenance work and made coffins. The school roll was considerably increased by the number of child inmates.



Buchan Combination Poorhouse, now Maud Hospital, from Hospital Road. The institution was taken over by Aberdeen County Council in 1930 when it became known as Maud Home. At this time it catered for 160 including 'ordinary poor, mental defectives, harmless lunatics and chronic sick'. The building was described as having 'narrow dark central corridors, with day rooms and dormitories on either side, enjoying neither cross light or cross ventilation'. The home was handed  over to the National Health Service in 1948 and became known as Maud Hospital.

The Line snakes along the eastern edge of  the Den of Old Maud, chiefly on an shallow embankment. On either side the land is marshy, there are extensive areas of ash trees and occasional willows and rowans in the den. As we walked along this section a single buzzard, flying high over the den was being mobbed by a group of rooks to which it remained indifferent. 

The willow herb seeds along the Line provided food for a flock of finches

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At the southern end of the Den there is a stand of immense beech trees one of which has recently lost a huge branch. The torn limb revealed rotten wood at its junction with the trunk but had this year's leaves on the branches.

Rusty leaves and beech mast littering the path.