Philorth to Rathen Station

Ripening brambles near Rathen Station

Grey Granite and Rufus have continued to walk the line throughout the summer but it has been inexplicably  impossible to upload onto the blog. Hopefully normal postings can now be resumed.

Today we walked from Philorth Halt to Rathen Station in beautiful, warm autumnal sunshine. The Line has already taken on a distinctly autumnal look. There are few flowers remaining on this stretch, the brightest colour comes from fruits and seeds along the path side. Small flocks of crows were sitting on the Line returning to the harvested grain fields as we approached. Three buzzards wheeled and high cried over Philorth woods.

Despite the autumnal look of the Line it was very warm and as we walked broom seed pods were bursting noisily.

Rosebay willow herb seed head, the long seeds were drifting across the line like threads of spider webs.

Dog rose hips, many exposed bushes have already shed their leaves

A line of exposed trees behind Philorth Halt has already been striped bare by the recent gales.

Rathen Station to Rathen village

Rathen Station is about a mile from the village it served.  This morning we decided to walk from the station to the village along the most direct route, before returning along the Line which we rejoined where it is crossed by the B9107 at The Leas. On a beautiful sunny May morning this made an enjoyable round trip of approaching 5 miles. There were skylarks, buzzards and an anxious tumble of nesting lapwings along our route and we noted the first heartease pansies and Herb Robert of the year on the sandy track over Gallows Hill.

A steepish sandy track leads over Gallows Hill and down into the village. There are good panoramic views towards Mormond and over to the Broch, the landscape a colourful Spring patchwork of greening grass and the flourescent yellow of oilseed rape.

St Ethernan's Church is on the left of the track as one enters the village.There are interesting gravestones, including that of Edvard Grieg's Great Grandparents. Corpses from Strichen were carried over Mormond Hill to be buried here prior to Strichen becoming a parish in its own right.

The plain birdcage belfry dated 1782

The diamond shaped wall sundial, which alas, lacks a gnomon, is dated 1625

The south aisle of the church has this ogee-arched aumbry and an inscription declaring Alexander of Philorth to be the patron.

 

The name Rathen may be a corruption of the saint's name or could be from the Gaelic for a round fort on a stream.  St Ethernan  (or Eddren) is thought to have been a  Pict of noble birth who studied religion in Ireland during the sixth century. He returned to Scotland where he travelled northwards as a missionary, establishing several religious settlements,  before  eventually reaching the Rathen area. St Ethernan lived as a hermit in a hollow on the East side of Mormond Hill, known as St Eddren's Slack, dying there on December 2nd, 668. Records dating from the 13th century mention a 'parson of Rathen' but there are no remains of the original church. However, Rathen is one of the oldest sites of continuous Christian worship in the North East

Adjacent to the old church is the Gothic church which replaced it in 1868, the broach spire is a prominent landmark

The Line close to Concraigs. The warm sun accentuated the coconut scent of the gorse and attracted many insects, there were small clouds of small white, small tortoiseshell and green viened white butterflies.

Approaching the Broch

The section of Line between Fraserburgh Golf Club and the point where the Line peters out close to the Esplanade is one of Grey Granite's least favourite sections; it is strewn with litter, smells of cooking from the Golf Club and Dunes Driving Range and Coffee Shop and tends to be fairly busy, often with the kind of walker who wants to chat. Less obviously there are locations of historical significance along this semi urban stretch. 

Sign in Kirkton Cemetery, one of the many good examples of Victorian ironwork to be seen in the Broch



'The Toolies' factory. In spring there is a raucous mechanised hawk flying in demented circles from the roof in an attempt to deter nesting gulls. 

 

The grim looking row of grey industrial buildings on the landward side of the Line is the former the Consolidated Pneumatic Tool Company factory. C.P.T. Was associated with Fraserburgh for about a century. Around 1903 the American company began making pneumatic drills in the Broch before diversifying to make other pneumatic tools, including the hammers used on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. C.P.T. began to make portable power tools used by munitions manufacturers in 1914 and rapidly expanded to become a major supplier to the British arms industry. In World War 2 C.P.T. produced fuel pumps and booster controls for Spitfire engines. Fraserburgh became an important centre for the manufacture of munitions employing a workforce of almost 2500 producing Bofors guns, Howitzer gun-units and turret rings for Churchill tanks. Unfortunately, the vast factory was an easy target for enemy planes approaching over the North Sea from Norway and became one of the reasons that Fraserburgh suffered a disproportionate number of air raids.

From 1905 until the closure of the Line 'The Toolies' was served by a siding which enabled raw materials and completed products to be taken directly in and out of the factory by train.

The St Combs Light Railway ran alongside the  Buchan Line from Fraserburgh Station to opposite the graveyard, the point at which the two lines diverged can still be seen on the seaward side of the B9033.

The Broch skyline from the Links which hide the remains of St Modans Chapel. Left to right: The South Church, Dalrymple Hall, Kinnaird Head Lighthouse.

The South Church, was built (1878 -1880) in a towering Germanic Gothic style on the site of an eighteenth century school on the Links. The church now houses the Moses Stone, the only relic of the short lived Fraserburgh University. All that remains of Fraserburgh station is an engine shed, on Harbour Road directly below the South Church.

The Dalrymple Hall was built in 1881, largely financed by Captain John Dalrymple. This ambitious building, with its baronial tower, originally housed a cafe, dining room, newsroom, public hall, public baths and once a month was used for the sheriff court. The building, still known as 'The Cafe' is now an arts centre.

The massive white tower of Kinnaird Head Castle surmounted by the lighthouse is a conspicuous landmark as one approaches the Broch along the Line. The castle was built by the Frasers of Philorth around 1570 or earlier, but was converted into a lighthouse in 1787, the lantern and lens date from 1902.This was one of the earliest Northern Lighthouse Board lights and now houses the Scottish Lighthouse Museum.

Strichen Toll House

Strichen Toll House on the B9093, the old turnpike road, seen from the point where the entrance to the Aberdeenshire Council Depot crosses the Line.

Following the Turnpike Act of 1795,  local Turnpike Trusts, consisting of landowners and burghers whose estates exceeded £400 Scots,  were able to apply for an Act of Parliament empowering them to build roads, in some cases, by raising statute labour and to levy tolls to pay for their construction and maintenance.  

The Turnpike Act stipulated that the roads had to be built and maintained to a high standard, in Aberdeenshire  the average cost of turnpike roads was £350 per mile. The Trustees, usually the landowners through whose estates the road was to pass, borrowed capital to build the road then recovered  the cost by renting out the right to collect tolls. Toll houses  were built every six miles.  These were usually two roomed cottages, often with a rounded or semi-hexagonal gable end to allow the toll keeper to see travellers approaching from both directions. Outside the toll house a barrier with a counter balanced bar (the 'turnpike')blocked the road until the toll had been paid. Charges varied from locality to locality and with the type of traffic using the road, vehicles were charged according to the number of horses pulling them. 

 

The completion of  the railway in 1865 drastically reduced the amount of road traffic and sounded the death knell of toll keeping and in 1866 all toll bars were removed from Aberdeenshire roads.

None so blind as will not see

Cowslips  (Primula veris)

Grey Granite cannot comprehend those, and they are many, who say that they find the Line boring. The Line is never the same on two consecutive walks, the wild life: the birds, flowers and mammals are constantly changing and give special character to each section of Line and each season.

This morning there was an eddying grey mist but the gorse formed great yellow, coconut scented banks near Rathen Station. There were unexpected cowslips and intensely mauve violets in the granite hardcore at the edge of the Line. There are now many clumps of cuckoo flower in the ditches, where last week there was only an isolated patch, sweet Cicely and pink campion on the banks of the Water of Philorth, mallards in the river, buzzards over the woods, chaffinches and bluetits  in the gorse and  today no people to impose vacuous chatter.

Strichen viaduct to the B9093: The French Farm

Grey Granite walked along the Line from Strichen viaduct to the B9093 where she turned off to Howford Farm, 'The French Farm'. There is a pleasant walk along the bank of the Ugie back to Strichen from the farm. Alternatively one may cross the bridge below the farm and follow the old Peterhead to Banff coach road up to the Skillymarno Road, returning to Strichen via the kirkyard. MacFarlane writing in 1723 (Description of the Parish of Strichen) mentions that there was a bridge 'for those on foot only at Howfoord,  (sic) where there was also a ford'.The existing bridge was constructed in 1777. 



Cherry blossom at Strichen Station

The wet area of ground under the viaduct, close to the Ugie, has huge patches of exquisite wood anemones (Anemone nemorosa)

There is a large patch of snake's heads (Fritillaria meleagris) by the  large pond under the viaduct. These have almost certainly  been planted

There are currently many violets in flower along this section of Line

Howford, seen from the Line.

The rather imposing new house behind the trees on the left of the picture replaced  the original  early 19th century farmhouse, built  for Louis Servan, a French emigre.   This building, seen to the  right of the silage tower, is now a much decayed  ruin, used as a store but  still showing its former elegance.  Its rounded corners, arched windows, tiny pavilions and back courtyard are in complete contrast to  the traditional foursquare granite farmhouses of Buchan.

Little definite is known of Louis Servan, beyond that he died in 1834 , is buried in the old Strichen Parish Church kirkyard and married twice. His first wife, Mary Black died on 8th March 1814, Servan died,aged 80,  on 8th December 1834 at Howford and was survived by his second wife, Mary Keith.

Mrs C.J.  Thomson, in her memoir of Strichen in the 19th century,  'Around the White Horse' mentions an old Frenchman, Louis Survanne (sic) whose politics were of the Ancien Regime. Dr Gavin, Mrs Thomson's  father introduced Servan to a visiting Prussian who firstly   affected to be  a Republican and had a violent disagreement  with Servan. The Prussian then reappeared disguised as his own brother  and had another long political discussion this time  agreeing with Servan. This incident had a profoundly disturbing effect on Servan who had to be escorted home and died shortly afterwards. This suggests that Servan may have fled France during the Revolution  (1789-1799).  However, Jean Scott, niece of Lorna Moon (Nora Low) in a 1948 broadcast for the  BBC French Service, quotes, but gives little credence to, the legend  that Servan helped  the Laird of Strichen escape from a band of French soldiers, members of Napoleon's Army, against whom he was fighting in Spain. According to this particular version of events the laird, his henchman having been killed,  surrendered to the French in order to avoid capture then persuaded Servan to help him escape. As a reward for his help the Laird promised the impoverished Servan a house and land back in Strichen. On their safe return  laird built the 'French House' for Servan and according to the story it was in honour of his escape from Spain that the white horse on Mormond Hill was constructed. Coincidentally Jean Scott was a member of the French Resistance in World War 2.

Kirkton to Rathen Station, Spring flowers

This morning the temperature reached 16.5c, tempting out a couple of small tortoiseshell butterflies, a very hairy caterpillar and several bees. The section of Line between Fraserburgh and Rathen has been transformed by the recent warm weather. The occasional hawthorns and silver birches are starting to open their leaf buds, the slowest of the willows have catkins. Close to the pond at Craigiewan there are several blackthorn bushes 'wearing white for Eastertide'. The walkway  is brightened by sudden patches of celandines, marsh marigolds and clumps of daffodils and by the ditch feeding the Water of Philorth a small colony of cuckoo flower.

On the far side of the drainage ditch a small clump of Marsh Marigolds (Caltha palustris) and on the near bank the myriad yellow stars of Lesser Celandine (Ranunculus ficaria)

Daffodils on the embankment close to Fraserburgh Golf Club

Daisies (Bellis perennis) and the minute white stars of  Whitlow Grass (Erophila verna)
Whitlow grass grows profusely in the sandiest parts of the track.



The unexpected delicate flowers of Lady's Smock, (Cardamine pratensis) also known as Cuckoo Flower caught my eye growing amongst the young leaves of Comfrey by a ditch feeding the Water of Philorth