Lonmay Station, through Spillarsford to Craigellie

The section of Line between Lonmay Station and Craigellie is usually extremely wet and difficult to negotiate, particularly between Spillarsford and Craigellie where stagnant water often covers the pathway. We took advantage of a hard frost to re walk this otherwise attractive stretch. 

Looking from Spillarsford towards Craigellie. Despite the frost there was a bright sprinkling of gorse flowers and  a few silky pussy willow catkins opening on line side trees. The morning felt spring-like as the sun rapidly melted the frost. There were larks singing overhead, skeins of geese heading inland from Strathbeg reserve and a small flock of lapwings tumbling  in the air on the Craigellie side of the Line.

Cortes village seen from just north of Lonmay Station. Originally this small settlement, close to the Peterhead Fraserburgh Turnpike,   was known as Spillarsford from the farm, now a ruin, seen in the trees on the extreme right. Cortes House is about half a mile to the west of the village.The hamlet is actually in Rathen parish being on the Rathen side of the Ellie Burn, the boundary between Lonmay and Rathen. The name Lonmay is thought to be derived from 'Long meadow' and the district has long been famed for the quality of the early potatoes grown on the sandy podsol. The 3rd Statistical account (1960) records the production of seed potatoes for export to England and South Africa. Earlier editions of the Statistical Account indicate that the area contained extensive bog and has been laboriously reclaimed.During the 19th century seaweed, carted from the shores at Cairnbulg and St Combs was used as an effective fertiliser. 

Cairness House seen from the Line near Spillarsford Farm.

The estates of Cairness, Craigellie and Crimonmogate sprawl to the east of the Line, Cortes House is to the west close to  the junction of the Aberdeen to Fraserburgh and Peterhead to Fraserburgh turnpikes.

Spillarsford Farm, long abandoned and now an unseemly ruin on the Lonmay side of the Ellie. 

Close to the Line a little to the north of Spillarsford Farm, this set of ruins,inhabited until the 1970s,  once a mill and  rather more picturesque than the farm, was reached by  a rack running across the fields from Spillarsford.

The lower of the mill ruins, the bank between the mill and the burn has drifts of snow drops.

The beautifully detailed1st edition 25 inch to the mile OS map, dated 1870, shows the mill wheel in position on the gable end of this building, just above the  snowdrops. It also shows a small body of water close to the buildings, probably the mill dam, and the mill lade running under the bridge over the Line from which these photographs were taken. 

Hillhead of Craigellie Farm, the tower is an ornamental dove cot, rising incongruously from the steading. The trees in the background are part of the Craigellie policies.

The 1870 OS map shows a small cluster of cottages at Spillarsford of these the Poorhouse seen above and Station Cottage, below are labelled. This poor house served Rathen parish. A locally administered poorhouse was established in Rathen by 1860. Map evidence indicates that it  seems to have become defunct by around 1900 when  a new edition of the OS map was published.

This large imposing building at Lonmay Station (above) was the bank, the station agent lived in the small cottage below, Station Cottage, Spillarsford.There was also a shoemaker and small general store amongst the cluster of Spillarsford houses. Lonmay Station, yet another relatively isolated station, was convenient for Crimonmogate. In season shooting parties alighted at Lonmay and there was a typically large turning area for coaches and carriages outside the station. At the height of the herring season it was common for open fish wagons waiting for the Fraserburgh catch to be held at the sidings at Lonmay until there was room at Fraserburgh.

Maud railway museum

Grey Granite paid a fascinating visit to Maud railway museum this afternoon. Maud was the junction at which trains to Peterhead and Fraserburgh split, there was also a cattle mart.

There is an excellent display of memorabilia. Notable were  the pouch which was necessary for trains to travel on the single line track, a sign, unique to Buchan Railways which was attached to the last wagon on goods trains to inform the loaders that another train was following. This was used on account of the erratic nature of fish catches, some days when the catch was good another train was put in to service to carry the fish. Grey Granite learned, from talking to the guide, that the wooden huts she and Rufus find alongside the track were officially 'plate layers huts' used by gangs of maintenance workers. Grey Granite was also interested to discover that, in the 1960's when the line closed, disused carriages were sold off at the price of £1-5sh (£1.25) per linear foot, the average cost of  goods carriage being  £22-15sh (£22.75). Carriages were used on farms for  a multiplicity of purposes, most commonly hen keeping. Grey Granite remembers a passenger carriage on her Uncle's croft at Latch of Cook which was used for hens and as an outside loo. Also of note were orders of service for memorial services for railway workers who died as a result of the enemy's 'foul actions' during the Great War.

On the way home M suddenly remembered that when St Fergus Power Station was being built large pieces of construction equipment arrived in Fraserburgh by sea and were transported by road to St Fergus. Some loads were too large to fit under the bridge at Lonmay so the solution was to jack up the entire bridge, including track to allow the loads to pass underneath.

Railway Bridge, with WW2 pill box on the right,  close to Maud Station