Imagine Travels

Casks

Had a look at the Lochnagar distillery, which is just down the road from Balmoral. We decided to visit the queen another time, so drove on towards Ballatar and found a nice walk on the ( B976) way.

Enjoyed the light wind, the lovely weather and the landscape as we set on some stones in the lush grass.  The stones must once have formed some kind of boundary, you could still see the outlines, but they were obviously no longer in use. There is so much in the lie of the land that hints at history, but more of that later in this post.

Savoured the view for a while and then walked back, with even more savouring on teh way.

Explored round the humpback bridge near to where we had parked the car, and drove on to Ballater.

In Ballatar we admired the shopwindow showing Trump holding a bottle of fake booze. There was a botte of fake tan as well as  a sign questioning him:

Donald where’s yer troosers.

Castles: catching up on history

Evening strol near Braemar

With Breamar, which according to one website has been a playground for kings, nobles and the great ones of the land since the dawn of Scottish history behind me, and the Invercauld arms, where the Jacobite standard was first set, catching the last rays of sun at my back as well, I set off for an evening stroll.

The Invercauld arms hotel  seems a nice place to stay, and does carry quite a bit of Scottish history.  Apparently on the 6th of September 1715 the Braemar Gatherings took place right on the spot where the Invercauld arms now stands. John Erskine, the 24th Earl of Mar,  later to be known as Bobbin John raised the standard for King James VIII and III hoping to put the old pretender (and father of Bonnie prince Charlie) on the throne for Scotland.

http://braemarscotland.co.uk/history/   says of The Earl of Mar:

The Earldom of Mar is one of Europe’s oldest titles, and at that time the Earl held a large area of land in Aberdeenshire. “Bobbin’ John”, the 24th Earl, however, was a politician of fickle loyalties (hence the title Bobbing) who bore a grudge after having been snubbed by George I. (Remember that word: Mar, it will crop up again)

and on the raising of the standard it tells us:

 The Standard Raising ceremony followed a great hunt held in the Forest of Mar, organised as a pretext for the many Jacobite clan chiefs to plan the intended uprising. The Earl of Mar’s Punchbowl, a hollow formed in the rock above the footbridge at the Linn of Quoich, was filled with brandy to entertain the guests, and may still be seen. The hunt had gone well, but the ceremony of the Standard, watched by about 2,000 highlanders, was marred when the gilt ball fell off the top of the flag-pole – an omen of disaster to come. What followed has been chronicled many times, and eventually led in 1746 to the slaughter at Culloden, and to the outlawing of tartan dress and clan gatherings till 1782, as part of the dismantling of the old clan system.

I walked to  the local castle just down the road. It really is the local castle as it is rented out to the local community. It being a castle, naturally there is a bit of  history too. It was: an important garrison after the 1745 Jacobite rising.  30 years after the first attempts the Scotts were still at it, and the English were still trying to stop them, stationing one of their garisons in Braemar castle in order to do so. It didn’t end well for Braemar castle some years later.

The castle looks pretty foreboding up close without the willowherb so soften it. No wonder if you read some of its history: Braemar Castle had been attacked and burned by John Farquharson, the Black Colonel of Inverey during another Jacobite rising of 1689, to prevent it being used as a garrison by Government troops” (source: wikipedia).

Here is the story of the black colonel. for those of you who like fiction, it seems like something straight out of Outlander, but this of course all of this really happened.

“The Black Colonel”, John Farquharson of Inverey was a violent man in a violent age. Outlawed in 1666 for the murder of a Ballater laird, he became a hunted man, but nevertheless spent much time in his own castle of Inverey, and fought at the battles of Bothwell Bridge and Killiecrankie. In 1689, he burned the 67-year-old Braemar Castle to prevent it falling into government hands. Cornered on one occasion by redcoats in the Pass of Ballater, he ensured his own immortality by escaping on horseback up the near precipitous north side of the defile. Eventually a redcoat ambush was laid for him at Inverey, but forewarned, he escaped, and watched his castle burning. He thereafter took refuge in the ‘Colonel’s Bed’, below a rock overhang in a gorge in the River Ey, where his light o’ love, Annie Ban (Fair Haired Annie), brought him food. Before he died, about 1698, he instructed that he was to be buried at Inverey, beside his Annie Ban, but for some reason he was instead buried at Braemar. The next morning, his coffin was found on the ground beside his grave, and was re-buried. On the third occasion this happened, the coffin was taken to Inverey for re-burial, and was heard of no more. (Source:http://braemarscotland.co.uk/history/ )

The views beyond Braemar castle are royal, or should I day “to die for”

looking over the Invercauld estate