Tag Archives: Arbroath

Lunan Bay and Red Castle

I missed a trip the other week to Lunan Bay, one of Scotland’s longest and most beautiful beaches about ten minutes north of Arbroath on the road to Montrose.  Today, there was a break, and it seemed like a good time to go.  The sun was out, and it was 14 degrees C.  From Arbroath, Lunan Bay is about a 15-minute drive.  A word of warning if you go.  The iPhone directions actually tell you to turn right about half a mile early.  To get to the lovely dunes and the sea, you need to drive right into the heart of this small hamlet.  You will then see the signs for the beach and its parking.  The drive takes you through farming land and cow pastures with the beautiful red Highland Cattle with their sweeping horns. Lunan Bay is one of the few remaining areas in Scotland where salmon netting takes place.  They have apparently been catching salmon here since the 15th century.  Up until the 1960s, the salmon fisherman lived in bothies, little shacks near the beach, and would only go home to their families at the weekend.

As you near Lunan, look off to your right and before you get to the actual village,  you will see Red Castle.

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Red Castle has a tragic history, and today it is mostly in ruins, ready to fall down.  It was built in the 12th century for King William of Scotland to defend against the Viking invaders who had been coming to the shores of Lunan Bay since the 10th century.  It is called the ‘Red Castle’ because it is built of red sandstone bricks.  The castle and the surrounding lands passed down to several individuals.  Ingram de Balliol married the wife of the late Walter de Berkely.  Together they rebuilt the castle, and the castle is said to have remained in their hands until their grandson, Ingram, died childless in 1305 and it was passed down to Henry de Fishburn.  It came into the hands of Robert the Bruce who gave it to the Earl of Ross in 1328.  It is awhile til the saga happens.  In 1579, Lady Elizabeth Beaton who owned the castle at the time fell in love with and married James, the son of Lord Gray.  Well, James fell in love with Lady Elizabeth’s daughter, and she throws him out.  James Gray joins with his brother Andrew of Dunninald, and for two years they try to take the castle.  They were ultimately successful by burning them out.  Since then they say the castle went into decline.  There are some images on the website Scottish Places that show the castle in the 1950s with its roof intact.  Today, as you can see it is almost entirely in ruins.  I did not know, but there is a footpath that will take you right up to the castle to see the keep.  I might try that tomorrow!

Lunan House has rooms to let.  It is close enough that you can walk down to the beach.   You might also be able to get a meal here.  On weekends before April 1, there is a cafe near to the beach parking, and I understand it is open daily once the visitors begin to come.

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I had an exciting event happen on the drive back to Arbroath.  I wanted to take photographs of the Highland Cattle, so I was driving slowly along a lane that was about 1.5 cars wide (small cars!).  The car in front of me had a pheasant leap into its windscreen.  Well, this reminded me of our old friend, Alf Waddingham from Grantham.  He told us the rule:  If you kill the pheasant you cannot take it but the next person can.  We often thought he might have scared them out of the ditches into the lanes to get hit as he always came home with 4 or 5.  Well, today, I pulled an Alf.  I don’t think the chef was that thrilled when I brought the beauty into the kitchen, but I am hopeful someone working on the estate will like it and take it home.  The colours on this bird are just amazing, and it was quite sad, actually.  That said, I have every intention of plucking those tail feathers.

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And tonight Lucy came to fetch me so I could see the ‘Worm Moon’.  It is apparently a Super Worm Moon that is occurring with the spring equinox.  It will not happen again until 2144.  This is the first time that a super worm moon has occurred since 1905.  The farmers used to say that the first full moon in March was when the soil had warmed up and the worms would wake up and come out of the ground.  Apparently, it will be brilliant at 2am!  Here it is starting to rise.

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Scotland, Day 7 The McManus. Dundee’s Art Gallery & Museum

Our second stop, highly recommended by my old friend, Hazel, was the McManus Museum yesterday.  For those thinking about going, entrance is free.  This is a great place to take a family, lots of things for children to do and photography is allowed in all of the galleries unless it is a special exhibition.  For those who cannot climb stairs, there is a lift and a cafe with a gift shop.  The McManus is right in the centre of Dundee.  A lovely place to visit with lots of shops about.

The building was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, and it has been the heart of the city’s culture since it opened in 1869.  Scott was a leading architect of the Gothic Revival style.  He was born in 1811 in Buckinghamshire.  At the age of sixteen, in 1827, he moved to London where he trained as an architect under James Edmeston.  Scott became enamoured with medieval Gothic and began travelling across Europe to see the buildings firsthand in the 1840s.  Gothic Revival as it was in the 19th century drew its inspiration from the architecture of medieval Europe with its pointed arches, trefoils, and naturalistic foliage decoration.  Scott was knighted in 1872 for his contributions to British architecture.   The following year he became the President of the Royal Institute of British Architects.  Scott dies five years later; he is buried in Westminster Abbey.

The McManus Museum was initially known as the Albert Institute.  It was designed by Scott with building commencing in 1865.  The structure was finished three years later in 1868.  Initially, it had a library on the ground floor and a public hall on the second.  Additions were added by David Mackenzie II (1832-1875) in 1872-74, and William Alexander (1841-1904) in 1887.

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The first floor has several galleries including Dundee and the World, The Victorian Gallery, The Long Gallery, the 20th century Gallery, a revolving exhibition entitled ‘Here and Now’ and the Creative Learning Centre.

Dundee and the World showcase the international and maritime collections centred on world trade.  Dundee was known for its business in jute and its whale hunting.  Today along the coast of the North Sea corporations drill for ‘black gold’ or oil.  The tour guides tell you that long before people had any need for this oil, they used oil from plants.  Around 1700 someone discovered that oil from whales would soften jute and leather, could be burned as a fuel and could be made into soap.  The boats carried crews of between 40 and 70 men who chased the whales in the North Sea and harpooned them.  They would be tethered to the side of the ship where strips of blubber would be cut off and rendered to extract the oil.  That was stored in barrels and sent back to Dundee.  It is believed that the very first whaling ship to leave Dundee was in 1753.  The early whalers travelled as far as the North Atlantic and the Arctic.  Overhunting meant that by the 19th century almost all of the northern whales were dead.  But the demand for oil did not stop, and Dundee whalers would travel to the South Atlantic to hunt.  In 1872 Dundee was the most crucial whaling centre in Britain with catches of about 200 whales per year.  The community prospered.  Sails had to be made, ropes were needed, men to load and unload and to work on the ships.  In fact, ships had to be made.  Whaling stopped in 1912 as the number of whales had significantly declined and made it uneconomical.  Whale oil was also being replaced by new oils including paraffin that was extracted from shale.

In its heyday, whale bones were used for lamp oil, cutlery handles, and lubricants while the baleen was used to stiffen corsets, for parasol ribs.  The spermaceti from the head of the sperm whale provided the wax used in candles, cosmetics and medicines.  The blubber or whale oil was processed for softening the jute in Dundee.

Other traditional Dundee industries included wool.  The fibres were sent to the Netherlands to be dyed.  Leather processing including processing the hides from Scottish cattle to make belts, shoes, gloves, hats, saddles, and harness.  Shipbuilding was, of course, a big industry.

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One startling exhibition was of two ‘Branks’.  Branks were used from the 1600s onwards.  They were also known as ‘Scould’s Bridles’ and were iron contraptions put on the heads of women accused of slander or sweating to prevent them from speaking.  They were then led through the town!  They were said to have originated in Germany and the Netherlands.

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There is a lovely model of the city.  Notice the church and all of the cramped quarters.  When the jute mills were working you could not see the city from across the Tay, all of the fibres mixing about.  And then there was also the pollution from the coal fires.

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The children seemed to love the area that might be classified natural history as much as I did.  There were hawks, Golden Eagles, rabbits of all sorts.

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The Victoria Gallery was staggering.  It is precisely what you imagine the annual exhibition at the Royal Academy would look like with pictures stacked one on top of the other.  It was a bit overwhelming.

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Restaurant recommendation for the day:  The Bellrock in Arbroath.  The fish (cod and haddock) are fresh every day, and if you think you have had great fish and chips, you need to try this place.  It will cost you a tenner (twice as expensive as in Canada but twice as good). And because of the amount you get could be easily shared!  On Sunday there is a buffet but the best fish is ordered off the menu.

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Hospitalfield, Day 3

Each of us, at breakfast, seemed to have settled in.  Everyone has adjusted to keeping warm and many of us threw off covers during the night.  The wind off the North Sea subsided and we woke to glorious blue skies.  Today, was an opportunity to stop thinking about being creative and to enjoy a tour of the library and the house with Alasdair Sutherland.  I learned so much that it was impossible to keep track of everything but today, I will begin writing about the ‘true’ history of Hospitalfield and not that contained in many accounts.  Alasdair gave us insight into the reasons for the carvings, the history of the pictures in the collection as they related to the Fraser family, and showed us some amazing books including the account books of the woodcarver whose work decorates the house.  To not overwhelm you, this will be done in instalments!  The house is the history of the Parrot family from Hawkesbury Hill in Coventry and the Fraser family.

The original building was called Hospitalfield but it was because it was a place to receive pilgrims arriving to go to St John the Baptist Abbey. — ‘hospitality’  A statue on the front of the house is original to the medieval era.  It was only later a place for those ill with leprosy and the plague.

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Patrick Allan’s family did not really want him to be an artist.  Not much different today, parents afraid their children wanting to be artists will be impoverished all of their lives.  His family did apprentice him with his grandfather who was a very skilled draftsman.  He then goes to art school in Edinburgh where he specialises in portraits.  From there he went to Rome where he made a very successful career selling drawings and pictures to people on the Grand Tour.  It is in Rome that he will meet some other painters and sculptors who will become his lifelong friends and will supply work for the rooms here at Hospitalfield.  In 1841, he set up a successful portrait business in London and traveled back and forth to Paris.  Patrick Allan becomes one of the founders of a group of artists, The Clique, in the late 1830s.  The group was known for their rejection of academic art and embracing genre scenes.  They also had a great disdain for the Pre-Raphalite Brotherhood, more of that later this week!

In 1842, Patrick Allan was approached by Robert Cadell, an Edinburgh publisher, who wants him to produce illustrations for Walter Scott’s Antiquity, which I mentioned the last post.  Patrick Allan did create the work but, according to our guide, not that enthusiastically.   Our guide today also said that there is no shred of evidence that Scott’s novel was based on people and places in Arbrough or that Hospitalfield was Monkbarns.  It is a myth that has been perpetuated (even by me yesterday).  While he is in Arbroath working on this series, he meets a widow, Elizabeth, whom he married in 1843.  Elizabeth will inherit all of the Hawkesbury estates in 1883.  Below are three large oil portraits painted by Patrick Allan-Fraser on the left, Elizabeth, his wife, on the right, and her mother in the middle.  The bottom picture is an image of Elizabeth holding her favourite cat painted by Patrick.

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I would like to draw your attention to the material on the wall behind the portrait of Elizabeth.  It is the most beautiful 17th-century Dutch embossed leather and was all the rage when the couple were renovating the house.  The room that these images are in was the original entrance hall of the James Fraser House.  One other curiosity about this room is the installation of gasoliers, gas lighting.  It was trendy and a status symbol, just like the imported leather wall panels.  They, however, did a lot of damage to the ceilings and objects in various rooms within the house with the fumes.  This was compounded by the soot from the candles and the coal that was used.

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The fireplace was shown at the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations of 1851 at Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October 1851.  The models of all of the various items that could be purchased could also be bought.  That is how the fireplace wound up in Hospitalfield.

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The beautiful wood carving through the original Hall and then the dining room was done by a local carver, James Hutchinson.   His work can be seen throughout the house including the framing of the triple portraits.  Below is a detail.

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The Drawing Room features two 17th century tapestries that Patrick acquired in Bruges.  The Room was decorated in 1870 when cedar was used to cover all of the walls to protect the fabrics from moths.  The room is the earliest example of the Scottish Arts and Crafts Movement.  The intent, through the subjects of the tapestries, was to link the inside of the house with the outside environment.  The ceiling has 197 different plant carvings found on the property.  It was done by a local carver, David Maver, who was paid seven pence an hour.  Hospitalfield has the complete book of his accounts.  Some of the ceiling carvings took up to one hundred hours.  Maver later moved to New York where he made a name for himself carving for the grand houses along the Eastern seaboard.

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Other images of the tapestries in the Drawing Room.  Because of their age, the light from the windows is curtained off.  The brilliance of living a room with cedar to protect artworks at that time was quite impressive. Other cabinets within the house are made of solid cedar and lined with camphorwood to safeguard the beautiful clothes of the women.

Tomorrow I will give you a tour of three more rooms in this great house.

The winds are still down, and the sun is shining brightly in Arbroath.  Any artist seriously looking for a place to do a residency should seriously consider Hospitalfield.  They have a small dedicated staff.  The costs are reasonable and if you take public transportation – and not rent a car – you will really only have to bring your supplies.  For some of the writers this March, that has meant only pens and paper!

 

Arrived at Arbroath and Hospitalfield House

From my window in one of the most historic bedrooms at Hospitalfield, I can see the North Sea.  To get there, one only has to walk through the garden, full of blooming daffodils and crocus.

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The photographs provided by Hospitalfield show the amazing exterior of this medieval building, but it is the interior spaces that give you that ‘wow, oh my goodness’ moment.  Built in the 13th century, the warren of rooms was home to the people who had leprosy and the plaque….hence, the name Hospitalfield.  Right now, it is both home and inspiration to the nine or ten of us who are here as interdisciplinary artists from various places including Brooklyn, London, Glasgow, Holland, and Newcastle, Great creative people.

Cicely Farrer wrote to us and told us that it is both cold outside and cold inside this old stone building,.  She is right.  It is cold to the bones which, in some way, has a connection with the SHEEP that are everywhere and the wool industry.  Did I forget my wool jumper from Ireland just so I could get a new one from here?  Did I really?!  But, for those who are thinking of travelling to Scotland, the first word that comes to mind is SHEEP.  There are more sheep in Scotland than there are people.  Did you know that?  And some of those sheep are even orange!

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This is the first residency that I have been on in more than 30 years.  It feels like a first time because everything is that much more different.  There is a fantastic chef here named Simon who cooked us pilaf, a chicken curry, slaw with Nigella seeds, and his homemade flatbread.  This was followed by a chocolate brownie with real whipped cream and a raspberry coulis.  It is nice to be taken care of and not having to think about anything – a mantra that seems to be on everyone’s mind.

So this is the four posters historic bedroom at Hospitalfield that is mine for two weeks.

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Some of you might recall that I was given a -37 degree C sleeping bag.  It will definitely come in handy tonight!  It makes me appreciate all of those big two-story frame farmhouses in Manitoba and all their small rooms and doors. Apparently to keep the warm in.

Here are some other views of the inside hallways.  The wood is beautiful.  Some of the private rooms have coffered wood ceilings and carved wooden walls.  I fear that they would crack in the dry cold of Manitoba,

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Scotland is on many of your bucket lists.  It is a gorgeous country with vast open spaces.  That is one of the single reasons that Scotland is a favoured tourist destination for the Chinese.  The tops of the Highland hills have snow on them today. March is chilly.  The great houses open in April.  You should come after April 1 if you can.

And if you do come, you need to start planning in advance and check out all of your options.  From Canada, for example, I found out that you can fly from Halifax to Glasgow.  Other places even land in Dundee, but the majority of travellers I am told begin their journey in London.  It is easy to get to Scotland from London King’s Cross; it takes about five hours, and if you book at least 5 to 6 weeks in advance with NLER you can get a much-discounted ticket.  Most everyone I know automatically thinks about renting a car.  If you absolutely need to, plan, so you only need to for a short period.  It isn’t the cost of the daily car fee that is so expensive.  It is the cost of insurance.  The price per day of full coverage with Europcar is 37 GBP.  At the moment it is 1 GBP to 2 CDN.  While the daily rental might seem insignificant, insurance can add up.  Figure it out before you travel.

If you decide to go ahead and rent a car then make the most of it!  This means not travelling on the motorways – at least as much as you can,  Wandering off to find small villages with quaint shops and local food is part of the fun.  And do check out the local fare.  To give you an idea of what fast food costs in Scotland and an excellent reason to stay away from it, I can tell you that a Burger King Jr Whopper meal is 7.14 GBP or $14.28 CDN.  Thank goodness the chef at Hospitalfield House is so amazing.