Our campsite lies across the Cowie River in Cowie, a former fishing village, now part of Stonehaven. Stonehaven lies on the coast 15 miles south of Aberdeen. We spent the morning exploring the town before the forecast rain was due to return in the afternoon. It grew up from an Iron Age fishing village and like other towns in the area it has had several names over the years. During my five years at medical school in Aberdeen the nearest I got to Stonehaven was the occasional winter Saturday evening when eight of us would squeeze into a Mini Clubman and visit the Lairhillock Inn near Netherley; enjoying the huge open fire and a drink or two. Today, walking into town from Cowie the first thing we passed was the Art Deco open-air swimming pool. It is one of only two in Scotland and was being prepared for the opening on 25 May. Every April it is filled with sea water and heated to 29 degrees. Built in 1934 it is now maintained jointly by volunteers and the council.
We walked along the beachfront, round the High Street to the Old Pier. Crossing the Carron River, we saw some of the major flood prevention works that are underway, due to be completed in 2021. James had chatted to an elderly man there who told him that he recalled cars floating down the streets in some of the previous floods.
Near the bridge is the former Haven Fish Bar which invented the Deep-Fried Mars Bar.
The oldest part of the town is near the harbour and the oldest building is the Tollbooth, which was the first courthouse and prison. It now houses a museum which unfortunately is closed on Tuesdays. The first episcopal church in the town was destroyed in 1746 and laws forbade episcopalians from holding a service for more than five people at a time. For several years secret services were held by the Rev Alexander Greig at a house in the High Street, Christian’s House.
Rev Greig and two other ministers from nearby congregations were imprisoned in the Tollbooth for six months and would conduct services from the prison window to their congregations below.
There were a number of metal sculptures along the way to the pier:
The harbour was improved in 1820 by Robert Stevenson, engineer and grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson. In the 19th century the herring trade was important. The tide was out when we visited.
The new town, north of the River Carron was founded in 1795 by Robert Barclay of Ulry with wide streets named after his and the Allardice families. The market square was built in 1826. The Stonehaven Feein’ Market is held there every year on 1st June. A farmers’ market occurs on the first Saturday of every month. Another annual June event is a vintage rally to commemorate Robert William Thomson who invented the pneumatic tyre in 1845 and a number of other things. In July a Highland Games is held and every Hogmanay balls of fire are swung around in the streets. I walked back to the campsite along the mostly shingle Cowie Beach where a fossil of the oldest known air-breathing land animal, Pneumodesmus newmani, a species of millipede, was found in 2004 picking up a few small pieces of sea glass. A notice in town asks people not to remove stones from the shingle beach.
After lunch we walked along the remainder of Cowie Beach towards the sandstone cliffs which are only 1km or so from the east end of the Highland Boundary Fault.
North of the fault is granite. There were oystercatchers on the shore and cormorants on an offshore rock. At the end of the beach a path leads along the foot and then up the cliff to rejoin others near the B road. Many wildflowers were blooming among the undergrowth.
A little further on, returning to Cowie is the remains of a gun emplacement.
I don’t know which conflict it is from. We got back to the van before the rain set in for the rest of the evening.
