Arnage

On Good Friday  morning the station at Arnage appeared to be reverting back to nature, gradually being cloaked in new verdant growth and is being prettily colonised by all manner of green things.

A muddle over the use of the passing loop at Arnage and misdirected signalling there caused the first head on collision on a single line section of the GNSR, just south of the station at Gallowhill on 12th March 1874. This collision between a light engine running south  and a mixed train heading for Peterhead, both of which were running late,  resulted in the deaths of three footplate staff and the severe injury of  a fourth. 

 South Lodge, Arnage Castle
The rather grand entrance and the South Lodge of the Castle are situated a few yards to the east of the remains of the bridge which carried the line over the minor road from New Deer. The castle drive runs northwards parallel to the Line for several hundred yards, gradually ascending before curving off to the right. The castle is hidden from the Line by trees.

Arnage Castle was built about 1650, and started as  a z plan castle,  by Thomas Leiper, local master mason, probably on the site of an earlier building. It was much  altered in the Victorian period by Aberdeen architect James Matthews who enlarged the first floor windows and added an imposing baronial entrance, the original having been blocked up. The castle was paid rather a back handed compliment  by Pratt in 1858 as 'a castellated rather than a Gothic building, and, with a few judicious alterations in harmony with its original style would hold a prominent place among the houses of distinction in the neighbourhood'. For much of its history the castle was in the possession of the Ross family,  Provost John Ross of Aberdeen bought Arnage in 1702 (he of the Town House in Aberdeen) and it remained with his family until 1937 when the estate was sold by the  7th and last of the Leith-Ross lairds of Arnage, Lt. Col. William Leith-Ross. For 40 years until his death in 1976,  the castle was owned by the wealthy housebuilder Donald Charles Stewart (D.C. Stewart). Stewart was a Rolls Royce owning philanthropist with an interest in antiques and in lavish parties at which international screen and stage stars were regularly entertained.

A Linesman's hut doing duty as a garden shed, part of a loading bank to the right

The station platforms are gradually reverting to wildness, in addition to the invading trees they are carpeted with  celandines, and primroses, swathed in periwinkle and honeysuckle whilst  daffodils are gradually spreading from the  Arnage Castle driveway on to the up platform. .

Primroses flowering on the platform edge

Lesser periwinkle cascades over the edge of the platform

The down platform,  looking south.

Heading north towards Auchnagatt 

Primroses on the permanent way by mile post 23 and  a quarter just North of Arnage Station, the wooded policies of Arnage Castle are on the right. A confident and aristocratic cock pheasant, splendid in his breeding plumage crossed the track heading for the castle policies just as this picture was taken.