Strichen Town House

At the edge of Strichen a viaduct carries the Line over the River Ugie and gives an excellent view over the village roof tops. The prominent embattled tower and spire belong to the Town House

The town hall building was gifted to the community by Mr Fraser of Strichen House in 1816, around the time he came of age  and succeeded to estates in Inverness and Ross-shire. McKean (Banff and Buchan, an Architectural Guide, 1990) describes the tower and spire as being of 16th century Scots Tollbooth inspiration, whilst the adjoining hall block is classical. Originally the hall had an open arcade on the ground floor which was used as a covered market. The steeple contained a bell. Mrs C. Thomson,( 'Around the White Horse'), records that prior to the steeple being fitted the inhabitants of Strichen were woken at 5 each morning by the Town Crier sounding a drum or, in foul weather, a horn. Once the Town Hall bell was operational the day began an hour later.The bell became the signal for the Town Crier, resplendent in his uniform, a red coat with blue piping, to begin his rounds announcing events of local importance such as the availability of a cart of fresh herring at the Town House or that an ox or sheep had been killed. For a time during the late 19th century a female school was held in the lower part of the building.

The plainer spire of the former Free Kirk, (1893) now the parish church,  at the far side of the village may also be seen from the viaduct.

Around the White Horse

Holmwood House

Grey Granite has been reading, 'Around the White Horse', the memoirs of Mrs C.J.Thomson, Miss Charlotte Jane Gavin of Holmwood House, Strichen. The original was written in 1888, just 23 years after the railway arrived in Strichen and  is a fascinating account of village life .Born in 1811, Miss Gavin was the sixth daughter of Dr Alexander Gavin of Strichen. In addition to his six daughters Dr Alexander had five sons, all the children were regarded as being well educated, the girls first by a governess, then when they were older, at a school in Aberdeen. The boys all attended the parish school until they were thirteen when they went to University in Aberdeen. The family was considered to be part of Strichen 'society' .

Today the front garden of Holmwood is carpeted in crocus and snowdrops, poultry roams the garden.

Miss Gavin describes the benefits of the railway to the community, 'This pleasant view (to the West of the town) down the valley of the Ugie is cut off now by the railway embankment, built in 1865, but in exchange for the amenity of  a pleasant prospect, there are the practical advantages of easy ingress and egress to and from the village with facilities for traffic which largely promote the prosperity of the people.



There are two banks in the village and a monthly market. The railway does good service on these occasions, bringing the country folk by noon and carrying them off again to their homes by four o'clock p.m.; so that scenes of drunkenness a thing of the past; all is quiet before evening as if no market had been.'

Miss Gavin records that when Captain Fraser of Strichen House returned from the travels of his youth he married a French wife, Miss Leslie of Bohine, a Roman Catholic. Although  a Protestant himself, 'he endowed the Roman Catholic Church with a nice house for the priest and several acres of land as a glebe'. This house, on Brewery Road, built in 1751, is now known as  'The Cloisters' and is just visible from the Line.

The Cloisters glimpsed from the Line. The building on the left was a originally a chapel.

The ruins of the chapel for Strichen House, seen from the Line opposite Borrohill Wood

 

Kirkton to Rathen in 'just Spring'

Crocus vernus, naturalised along the Line near Philorth Halt 

Yesterday the wind was so strong and the cold so intense that we were forced to abandon the Line and walk out towards Rathen through Philorth Woods. We were rewarded by the masses of snowdrops in the woods. Already the wild garlic leaves are starting to unfurl and the lesser celandines have lush, mottled green leaves; flowers are surely imminent. Close to Rathen Station an ermine ran across the line just in front of us and stood for several seconds weighing us up before gliding down the embankment to peer out from the shelter of the undergrowth. It was the most beautiful creature with snow white fur, yellowish about the shoulders and with a black tip to its tail. Today  a weasel darted  across the Line near the Golf Club, again an inquisitive beast who stood for  a moment to consider us.
To day was a complete contrast, the sun was warm on our backs as we walked along the Line towards Fraserburgh, we had heard larks over the bents and seen  buzzards over the castle woods. There are several small clumps of snowdrops at the lineside all the way along this stretch. From Philorth Halt to the Golf Club the grass is studded with little patches of pale crocus, their chalice like flowers wide open in the sun. Willows have silky grey catkins and the alder catkins are fully open, there are swollen buds on the hawthorns and apple trees. Spring surely has arrived at last.

Rathen to Kirkton

A glorious sunny morning, the beauty of the day overshadowed by frequent shots and pheasant scaring noises from a shoot in the woods at Cairnbulg Castle. There was also someone preparing to fly a hawk in the field by Kirkton Cemetery where there is a large rabbit colony. Following a walk along the bents to the Water of Philorth,  we walked back along the Line from Rathen Station to Kirkton.   We were privileged to see a magnificent buzzard wheeling over head near Islamor and being mobbed by crows.

A small patch of snowdrops growing by the approach to the Line at the Craigiewan

The bark of some apple trees, the occasional sycamore and a horse chestnut sapling along the Line has been nibbled by deer during the harsh snowy weather. None of the willows appear to have been eaten. We frequently see roe deer in the fields next to this stretch of Line. 

Frozen points

The Line at Strichen remains heavily iced, making walking very difficult. The hard core on the path is completely glazed by a sheet of solid ice so we had to pick our way carefully along the frozen edges of the path. A buzzard flew noisily overhead as we walked.  The Line and the fields close by are under a thin layer of frozen water and there are many temporary ponds, all of which are iced over to the apparent consternation of a heron which flew ponderously about the field near the Stone Circle path. Such difficult  conditions for wildlife, we saw far fewer small birds than usual in the woods. As I write this there is a report on the radio of the 'biblical floods' in Queensland, Australia, their extent and devastation are unimaginable.

The lake in Strichen is also iced over,  these mallards were slipping about on the ice near the small area of open water near the inflow.  Encouragingly daffodil shoots are showing through the frozen ground by the lake.

Hogmanay Walk: Kirkton to Rathen



Fields flooded with still partially frozen melt water, wreaths of snow on Mormond and in the ditches, is there still more to come?



The flooded fields support large flocks of wildfowl, hundreds of unidentifiable ducks in Wet Fold and on these fields near Kempen Hillock, whooper swans.There were curlews and dismal crows in the fields, a patch of white feathers on the Line  where a pigeon had met its end.

This morning we enjoyed most of an end of year walk from Kirkton to Rathen Station, round by Hillhead of Cairness and Invernorth returning along the line. The last mile was marred by coinciding with another walker who decided to walk along with Rufus and me, completely ruining the last part of the walk. How much one misses when having to emerge from one's head make conversation.The thaw which began several days ago has melted most of the snow but wreaths remain in the shade of the embankments and in places on the line. There are filthy black piles of snow dumped by the snowplough at the roadside The extent of flooding in the fields is extraordinary. By Rathen Station we saw roe deer tracks in the snow and noticed that the young chestnut saplings near the Golf Club have been striped of bark, presumably by the deer.

An original Harper Ironworks gate close to Mill Farm.

Close to Rathen Station this fireplace, complete with fire basket, is all that remains of a linesman's hut. It is usually well hidden by the rosebay willowherb - now reduced to bare stalks.



Thaw

What a difference  a few days and a temperature increase can make. Since yesterday morning  the temperature has gradually risen and by this morning had reached a balmy 8.5c. The Line is now merely flecked with patches of ice and snow, as are the fields towards Memsie and Rathen, Mormond Hill remains a monochrome.The fields by the Line, which were under a gleaming white blanket on Tuesday, are now under water. The meltwater from the snow has flooded the fields and filled the ditches alongside the line with icy water. The floods make one more aware of the contours of the land, not as level as it seems.  The ditches are overflowing with mushroom coloured water on which sheets of ice float, the Water of Philorth running fast and high. How easily one could slip down the embankment and quietly drown. The ducks in their pond at Craigewan were standing huffily on a sheet of floating ice. There were geese, gulls and mallards in the floods, starlings, curlews and corvids feeding in the softened fields.Our walk was cut short at Craigewan by the depth of water (with miniature icebergs) in the dip where the road crosses the Line, a digger was trying to clear the drain as we turned back.