I’ve been to at least nine of the recumbent stone circles in Aberdeenshire and for me there are definitely three stand out favourites. These might not be the ‘cleanest’ examples of recumbent circles but they’re all circles that feel special to me.
Just so we’re all on the same page, a recumbent stone circle has a large stone lying on it’s side (the recumbent) which has two large standing stones either side of it (the flankers or flanking stones). Smaller stones radiate out from the recumbent and the flankers to form a circle. Recumbent stone circles are unique to Aberdeenshire in Scotland, and Cork and Kerry in the South-West of Ireland. There are thought to be about 70 recumbent stone circles in Aberdeenshire so I have a fair few more to visit! It’s not really known why they exist, but it has been hypothesised that they were part of rituals related to the moon. To be fair they were constructed in the Neolithic / bronze age period around 4500 years ago when written history wasn’t really a big thing!
So, in no particular order, my favourite stone circles…so far!
Binghill
I feel like this wouldn’t be on many people’s top three, but for me it was all about the journey and the atmosphere. There aren’t really any published directions or signs to Binghill stone circle and as we didn’t know which way to come from or where to park, we obviously picked the most difficult route! We ended up asking a really lovely chap who was busy renovating a Victorian house, he told us all about the trees in the area, the history and of course he told us which way to go to get to the circle. Even armed with that information it was a bit of a scramble to get there. We went in the middle of Autumn so when we arrived the remaining stones were cushioned in red and orange leaf litter. It was unbelievably pretty. This is only a very small recumbent stone circle, about 11m in diameter. It’s thought that there were once ten stones, but only seven remain. Four, including the flankers, have fallen and several are no longer in their original place. It’s a bit of a mess, but maybe because of the disruption, Binghill is the perfect place to sit and think about just how much time has passed since the stones were originally placed and try to get your head around how much has happened since. If you want to see a clean and classic example of a recumbent stone circle then this is not it, but if you want somewhere to contemplate your own existence then I cannot recommend Binghill stone circle enough!
I’ve actually written about Binghill in another blog about all the castles and megalithic sites between Aberdeen and Balmoral. If you’re interested you’ll find that blog here.
Loanhead of Daviot
This stone circle has so much going on and that’s why I love it. Firstly, there’s a large recumbent stone circle spanning about 20 metres. The recumbent stone has actually been split into two through freeze / thawing action, which is just remarkable, and there are eight standing stones as well as two large flankers. Those eight stones are graded in height and a couple of them have cup-marks on their surfaces, which are a little tricky to locate at first. What were these for and did this mean that those stones were once lying flat and used for something else? Who knows?! In the centre of the circle is a cairn, which makes this circle really special. Beneath this cairn, charcoal, pottery, human bone fragments (both child and adult), flints and traces of burning have been found. All of this suggests that the circle was used a long time after it’s original purpose faded into pre-history.
Secondly, directly next to this large recumbent circle is another circular structure which marks the remains of a stone enclosure with two entrances. This marks a bronze age cremation cemetery. An excavation in the 1930s revealed the remains of a 40 year old bronze age man and it was considered unusual that he was left there intact whilst other bodies were burned in the same area. It’s thought that the recumbent circle was an area used by a large community for many years, but that the smaller bronze age area was used by one or a few families over a much shorter period of time. Whatever brought later peoples to the area, they clearly venerated the circle and that to me is so exciting and kind of magical.
Loudon Wood
Loudon wood circle, also known as Pitfour stone circle, is a little bit illusive…or at least sounds like it should be from it’s google reviews. We actually found it very easily with the help of a map and some instructions from http://leshamilton.co.uk/megaliths/loudenwood.htm. Even though we took a fairly direct route to it, it still involved veering off the obvious paths and into the dark, tightly packed conifers to make our way slowly to the clearing that holds the stone circle. It was a windy day, full of creaking trees and chirruping birds, but as soon as we reached the circle everything seemed to fall silent. I guess that’s hardly surprising, but there was a peace to the area that made it feel kind of enchanted. The circle isn’t complete, but there’s a large recumbent stone lying between two flankers (one of which is no longer standing) and four other stones that make up a large circle about 18m in diameter. According to Canmore it is estimated that it probably took around 40 adults to move the recumbent into place. It might not be well looked after, complete or easy for everyone to find, but this circle undoubtedly has atmosphere. I didn’t want to leave.
So, these are my favourites based on feelings and emotion, but if you’re looking for a nice, clean, classic example of a recumbent stone circle then I would suggest either Tomnaverie or East Aquhorthies. …happy megalith hunting!
In previous blogs I’ve written about my grandmother’s mother’s side (the nailers) and my grandmother’s father’s side (the miners) and this time we’re staying with my grandmother’s mother’s side but we’re going down a slightly different line…the potters. I hope you’re still with me after that sentence!
So, the father of my great grandmother, Dorothy Amy (from my previous blogs) was James Bradshaw. James was born in 1862 and is most regularly listed in the records as a potter/thrower. Although in his younger years he is listed as a bottle thrower and for a brief period in 1909 he’s listed as a labourer. However, like many men he joined the First World War efforts and he went off with the Royal Hussars. I’m not quite sure how long he spent with them but unfortunately I do know that he died with them in 1916 fighting in Mesopotamia. In general it sounds like the Royal Hussars had a particularly terrible time frequently suffering from starvation, dehydration and sickness (fever, jaundice or dysentery). Understandably morale was also pretty low. On the 5th April 1916 there was an attack on Hanna in Mesopotamia where the starving 14th Hussars surrendered. It was considered one of the low points in British and Indian military history. I’m pretty sure that this is the incident in which my great great grandfather died because his death is recorded as the being the 6th April 1916.
James’s father was John Bradshaw, he was born and died in Belper, and he lived as a potter. John was first listed as working as a ‘potter labourer’ in 1841 at just 14 years old. Conditions were generally rather poor for potters, including (and probably especially for) child labourers. In 1840 many of the workers were under 15 years old and these children spent around 72 hours a week working, meaning that they were poorly educated and exhausted. If they were late to work because they overslept they were often beaten. Its also worth noting that at the time wages were paid in the local pub, meaning that men were encouraged to spend their wages immediately. Their wives often stood outside begging them just to pick up their wages and leave, but instead went home with a drunk husband and little money to get them through the week. Poverty and the desperation to stay out of the workhouse drove potters to keep turning up to work, despite the conditions and long hours of labour. I’ve obviously got no idea if John’s wife, Ellen, was one of the wives waiting outside the pub. What I do know is that at 12 years old she was working with cotton hosiery and then at 22 she was a ‘getter up of hosiery’. I don’t really know what that means! The only thing I can think of was that there was a ‘knocker up’ during the Industrial revolution who woke people up ready for work. Was a ‘getter up’ the same thing? At 23 she got married to John and then was never listed as working again. She outlived her husband though and lived on her own (with her mother who was also widowed) and received relief from the parish, which I don’t imagine was very much.
John’s father James was also listed as a potter throughout his life, and his father Moses was also a potter or ‘bottle turner’ in the Derbyshire area. Their wives are never listed as having jobs and the trail runs cold for additional information beyond birth and death dates from them. I couldn’t find out much about what life was like as a potter in 1780 (not from a google anyway), but I don’t imagine it was any better than in the industrial revolution.
The furthest back I’ve gone on this particular line is 1484, with my 15th Great Grandfather, Roger Fretwell, which is crazy! It’s the furthest back I’ve gone so far. Just to give you a little idea of what the world might have been like, in 1484 Richard the 3rd was on the throne of England (England had not yet united with Scotland, Wales or Ireland (North or South)…although Richard the 3rd did agree a 3 year truce with Scotland this year). This is the one and only Richard the 3rd that died at the Battle of Bosworth effectively ending the Wars of the Roses and the Middle Ages in one foul swoop, the same man who inspired a play by William Shakespeare and the same man whose body was found under a carpark in Leicestershire. In 1484 the Wars of the Roses was still ongoing, but the folk of England only had a few years left to endure of that particular set of battles. They had to endure it alongside other horrors like the sweating sickness though. The sweating sickness was a series of epidemics in the UK and Europe that popped up in rural areas killing folk in a matter of hours after the onset of symptoms. Medical historians still don’t know what caused it but it could have been a rogue hantavirus. Delightful. Outside of the UK the pope deputised a couple of chaps to go and hunt out witches in Germany, a Portuguese chap found the mouth of the Congo (which was very unfortunate for the people residing in that area) and on a lighter note Aesop’s fables were translated into English.
So, all in all, probably a rather challenging time to be alive! I’m not sure what was better, nailer, miner or potter? I’m sure they were all difficult. I’m already intrigued what I’ll find next, and although it’s a goal of mine to ‘finish’ my grandmothers line this year I’m looking forward to finding out if my grandad came from a similar group of people.
It’s time for the second instalment of the family tree! Last time I wrote about my grandmother’s mother’s side, so all the folk that led to my great grandmother, Dorothy Amy. This this time I’ll write about my grandmother’s father’s side stemming from my great grandfather, Bill Wood. I hope that’s not too confusing and, as before, I hope it’s broad enough that you’ll find nuggets of interest even if you’re not directly related to me!
Dorothy Amy’s ancestors were largely nailers (people who made nails), and even though I haven’t quite managed to finish this line yet, I can tell you now that my great grandfather’s ancestors were overwhelmingly coal miners. My great grandad Bill was the most recent coal miner on my family tree and it makes sense to start with him. William Henry Wood was born in Belper in 1908 and is frustratingly difficult to find records for! But what I can tell you is that he is listed as being a ‘colliery coal cutting operator below’ in the 1939 census. Let’s unpack that for a second. So, a colliery is a coal mine, which means a collier is a coal miner, and in lots of the census records I read they specify whether the miner worked above ground or below by just writing the job and then adding the caveat ‘above’ or ‘below’. Having not worked in a coal mine myself and being unfamiliar with the workings, I googled for images of coal cutting machines around the 1940s and the results are pretty much as bleak as I imagined (see image below)! I couldn’t find any more official records of his mining activities, but my grandad remembers him working with the classic mining tools of pickaxe and shovel and that he came home covered in coal dust from his job at the Denby colliery in Derbyshire. My mum has fond memories of him telling her as a child that he’d been mining below the house that day (her parents and grandparents lived next door to one another). I mean, that obviously wasn’t true, but it’s really very sweet!
Great grandad Bill was following in his father’s dusty footsteps. William Wood (my great great grandfather) was born in 1879 and died in 1915 at the age of just 36. In that time, he was listed as working as a ‘colliery engine fireman above’ in 1905, a ‘collier fireman’ in 1908 and finally a ‘boiler fireman’ in the electric works in 1911 for the Derby Corporation. He died young in a hit and run. According to rumour, and I guess family legend, folk knew who it was but as they were wealthy they got away with. Folk also say that William was robbed as he lay there in the middle of the road but I have no idea if that’s really true. Elizabeth, his wife, lived over 40 years without him! She was never listed as having a job, but that’s the case for most of the women in the tree.
Moving on, William and Elizabeth’s parents are definitely an interesting bunch. William’s mother and father (my great great great grandparents) are John Wood (1851 – 1909) and Emma Wood nee Morris (1853 – 1929). John is, you guessed it, a coal miner! In fact, he started mining at the age of 10 and then continued to work as a miner for at least the next 20 years. Around the time he started working a new mining act came in that actually raised the working age to 12, several years before that you could find children as young as 4 working in the mines. It isn’t clear what John did in the mine but in particularly narrow spaces that could hold pit ponies, small women and children hauled the coal out on their hands and knees whilst harnessed to a cart. As well as being smaller, women and children were often cheaper than ponies. Younger children around this time were often sat at trap doors used to periodically ventilate deep shafts and passageways as it was reportedly so hot in some parts of the mine that folk worked whilst nearly naked. It’s generally reported that these children spent most of their developmental years in darkness.
At 40 years old John is mercifully back above ground and actually listed as a beer house keeper and licensed victualler (a person licensed to sell alcohol). I don’t know if he owns the pub or manages it, but he’s listed as being the beer house keeper of ‘The Stanhope Arms’ in Castle Gresley until his death in 1909. A few years after John dies it appears that his wife, Emma, has taken over the alcohol license and she is listed as having an off license. She lives with her sons who are all colliers, one of them is a boiler fireman and another works in motor haulage underground, her daughter doesn’t work. That, to me, seems like a pretty badass thing for a woman to be doing around the turn of the century!
I think this could be ‘The Stanhope Arms’ now the ‘White Lion’.
So that’s the parents of William Wood but what about the parents of Elizabeth Wood nee Wagstaffe (my other great great great grandparents)? Well, Thomas Wagstaffe (1856 – 1916) was a miner (obviously!) and Catherine Wagstaffe nee Oakes (1856 – 1937) was a miner’s wife…like, she was literally listed as ‘miner’s wife in the 1881 census! The interesting thing, for me, about Thomas Wagstaffe is his clear job progression through the census records. In 1861 he is a young scholar, but by 1871 at the age of 14 he is already working in the mine. In 1881 he is still a coal miner but 10 years later in 1891 he is the colliery deputy. By 1901 he is the colliery under-manager and then on a marriage record for one of his children in 1905 he listed as colliery manager. When he dies at around the age of 60 he leaves £916 to his wife, Catherine, and daughter (Elizabeth – who is also a widow by this point). I used an inflation calculator (I have no idea how accurate those things are) and it suggested that £916 is worth about £80,000 now! I’m not sure how much colliery managers earned annually but it sounds pretty good to me! In addition to that, on the ancestry website somebody has uploaded pictures of Thomas and his wife Catherine. I don’t think I have any way of proving that these people in the photos are really Thomas and Catherine Wagstaffe, but they seemed to have enough money to afford nice clothes and get their photographs taken, so I’m happy to go along with it and accept these photos at face value.
Thomas and Catherine Wagstaffe (I think Catherine is the lady on the left).
Both Thomas and Catherine’s parents and parent’s parents are, of course, also coal miners…but there are a couple of other interesting nuggets of information here. Thomas’s father, George Wagstaffe, who is my great great great great grandfather not only worked in a mine but perished in one too. Now, coal mines are dangerous places so maybe some of my other ancestors died in mining accidents as well, but for George I have the receipts! Whilst he was working as a loader in one of the pits (coal mines) owned by Crewe Coal and Iron Company he was crushed underneath about 12 tonnes of coal. An inquest was held where they decided it was an accident and that whole incident made the papers. How awful though? It gives me shivers to think of it. …and also, how awful to have been the man that checked the props and declared the tunnel as safe?
The other interesting nugget I found out is that Catherine Wagstaffe nee Oake’s mother, Elizabeth Oakes nee Williams is Welsh. This excites me because finding ancestors that existed outside of the Midlands is like GOLD DUST! It also means that I’m at least 1/64th Welsh and that’s just delightful. I always thought I had a drop of Celtic blood in there somewhere! Elizabeth was born in Llansanffraid Glan Conwy in Caernarfonshire (North Wales) and I have no idea how she made it over the border to marry an Englishman. In 1851 she was working as a servant in Llynsfaern, Caernarfonshire and it’s possible (although the records were sketchy) that her soon to be husband was also working as a servant, but over the border in Cheshire (don’t worry he later became a miner and returned to the midlands!). Did servants have training? Could they both have met there? Did they have family friends that introduced them? I have so many questions about how these folk met…and met for long enough that they decided to marry! Anyway, I know that Elizabeth’s parents were Ellis Williams and Elizabeth Williams nee Roberts and I really wanted to explore my distant Welsh roots, BUT, it was a total minefield. There are multiple couples called Ellis and Elizabeth Williams who have daughters called Elizabeth in that area of Caernarfonshire AND all of the Ellis’s are farmers or agricultural labourers. It’s insane. I eventually want to have another go at unpicking the records, but it’ll be a mission that I come back to another day.
As I mentioned before, there are still a couple of lines I haven’t finished following from this part of the tree, but I always like to make note of the earliest records and have a little investigate of the time period. At the moment, the earliest records from this line are of my 11th great grandparents, John Mather (1634 – ?) and Elizabeth Mather (1636 – 1662) who lived in Staffordshire. This means that they grew up under the rule of Charles 1st and throughout the English Civil war (Staffordshire supported the parliamentary cause…who ultimately won). The war was one of the catalysts or contributing factors for the worst witch hunt in English history. Luckily for John and Elizabeth the puritanical witch hunting craze didn’t reach as far as Staffordshire. I’m actually reading a book about those witch hunts at the moment so it’s on my mind a lot! They then lived through the period in which England had no reigning monarch and the parliament ruled under Oliver and then Richard Cromwell (1653 – 1659). Oliver Cromwell divides opinion. He’s hailed as the father of English democracy and was celebrated as bringing in a new wave of tolerance (tolerance by 17th century standards!), which makes him a fairly popular figure in English history. But, he also invaded Ireland and his name in that regard is linked to words like genocide, massacre and ethnic cleansing. The war he led with his ‘New Model Army’ triggered a famine which was then worsened by bubonic plague. Understandably, in Ireland, Cromwell is not a popular historical figure. After living through such an interesting and tumultuous period in history John and Elizabeth died in more peaceful years under the rule of Charles 2nd. Phew! Anyway, that’s it for this ancestry instalment. On the Worth side I still have my grandad’s mother’s line and my grandad’s father’s line to do and I’m hoping to get these completed this year…so you’ll get two more family Worth blogs whether you want them or not!
This blog took way longer than I imagined! In October, whilst I was looking at the driving route to Loch Muick (I want to walk around it at some point) on my trusty OS map I noticed just how many tiny little markers there were along the roads that indicated ‘places of interest’. I decided it would be a great idea to visit every one of those, probably underappreciated, sites all the way from Aberdeen to Balmoral. I thought that we (my partner and I) would be able to knock it out in a day. 12 places of interest, 1 day, blog ready in time for my November post. Fool! That was a bit optimistic, to put it lightly, especially with that quickly fading Autumn light. A lot of the sites were difficult to find and once we’d taken the time to locate them, we wanted to linger and enjoy them rather than hurry off. I’m glad we didn’t rush it.
So, with a few months delay I’m going to tell you a tiny bit about those sites! Most of them have tricky parking, as in you just need to find somewhere as safe as possible along the side of the road and just go for. I also think it helps having an OS map, whether that’s on your phone or a physical copy, because most of them are literally just dots on the landscape with no signage. I think that’s part of the fun though. Just seeing something marked on a map and exploring until you find it.
1. Binghill Stone Circle.
This was the first stop for us, and it was a great way to start. To find it we pulled over and parked out of the way on the side of the road near Milltimber woods on Contlaw Road, and then walked through some gates with ‘private property’ signs and asked for some help in locating the circle. We spoke to a super helpful chap who owned the land and he said he thought it was easier to park and access the circle from Binghill Road…something I’d definitely suggest trying if you want to check out this site. In terms of directions once you’re off the road all I can really say is walk uphill into the woods and search around the area marked as “Recumbent Stone Circle” on Google maps. You really just have to follow your gut instinct and have an explore.
Once you get there only 3 of the stones are still standing, including the recumbent, although some of the smaller kerb stones are also in their original position. By ‘recumbent’ I mean that it is, as the name suggests, lying down…on purpose! The recumbent is flanked by two tall stones and then the other stones follow around in a circle, graded in height. Apparently, these recumbent stone circles are unique to Aberdeenshire, in Scotland and Cork and Kerry, in Ireland. They’re not quite sure what these recumbent stone circles were used for, but they think they could have been used for ritual purposes related to the moon. By ‘they’, I guess I mean historians! This stone circle is dated as Neolithic/Bronze Age, so around 3000BC. It’s hard to fathom anything that long ago!
History aside, this place just feels magical. We sat here for quite a while just chatting about the past, wondering what things might have been like, how the land might have lain, where people could have lived, what relationships were like…just pure conjecture and wild imagining!
2. Park House Symbol Stone.
Hmm, this is an odd one. To start with, I still have no idea where you should park if you want to see this. I struggled to understand the access to the area (coming from England, I still sometimes struggle to understand access rights and I get scared). We ended up parking precariously off the side of the road and scrambling up a bank onto the Deeside Way, and then walking onto the Park House Estate. There must be better ways of doing this!
Anyway, at Park house is a Pictish symbol stone which is thought to be early Middle Ages (5th to 10th century AD). The symbol stone is actually sat on top of a replica (an apparently inaccurate replica). This shows what it ‘should’ have looked like in its heyday with a mirror and a double-sided comb, a notched flower, a crescent and a V-rod. I have no idea what that all means!
3. Gibbet Stone – Mill of Dess.
This large mill stone shaped stone is easy to see from the road, but I would have had a hard time guessing what it was before reading about it. For parking you just have to find some vaguely okay space on the side of the road to stop! The same goes for most of these sites. This gibbet stone is thought to be the place into which a gibbet tree was inserted. What’s a gibbet stone, gibbet tree or indeed gibbet I hear you ask? Well, there’s no nice way to put it, a gibbet is something you hang somebody from/in. Whether that’s as a punishment (i.e. displayed in a cage but not left to die), directly as a method of execution (hanging by the neck or starvation in said cage) or as a warning (by leaving or placing a body there until it fell down – you can imagine what a state that would’ve been). So, a gibbet stone was what you stuck or fixed the gibbet tree/gibbet into. Gibbets or gibbet trees didn’t always require a stone, but it was thought that this particular gibbet stone was placed and used on the nearby Gallows Hillock.
I’m a fan of dark history so I was looking forward to seeing this one!
4. Aboyne Stone Circle.
This was one of the sites we spent the most time trying to locate, and then once we found it we wondered why it ever took so long! Parking in Aboyne is easy as it actually has carparks and safe places to pull over. Wherever you stop in Aboyne (it isn’t big), the stone circle is easily reached after walking past one of the local cemeteries (possibly belonging to St Margaret’s) and up the main path through the woods. On google maps the street is called ‘Aboyne Stone Circle’ and I think there is a sign directing you vaguely the right way, so it’s not totally hidden. At some point there’s a track that trails off left (North West) into the woods and the stone circle sits not far away from a field. If you’ve reached a farm gate on the main path then you’ve gone a bit too far, but head left (West) into the woods from that point and you should be alright. I appreciate it’s a fairly poor description, but it’s better than what we had!
The circle, once you find it, is very, very small at about 2.5 metres wide. This alone makes it pretty interesting. Apparently one of the stones, although firmly situated, might not be in it’s original place. My incredibly untrained eye couldn’t tell you which one though! The circle is dated somewhere in the Bronze Age (2200 BC – 800 BC) and the thoughts are that it could be a four poster stone circle. I’ve just learned that means there are four (or sometimes more) upright stones in an irregular quadrilateral. The circle is either this or a transition from a four poster circle to something else!
5. “Stone”!
So, this one outfoxed us for far too long! On the map it’s just a black dot that has ‘stone’ written next to it and I was therefore convinced it must be a standing stone. It’s marked as being right on the side of the road, so every time we drove through the area I’d peer intensely out of the window looking for it, but I never caught sight of it. Anyway, it came time to stop and look for it, so we stopped at the pull in next to the big ‘YOU ARE NOW IN THE HIGHLANDS’ sign. We walked up and down the road several times, scrubbed about in the bushes and even asked a lady coming out of her house, but we couldn’t find it. She said that her mother was interested in local history and had never mentioned a standing stone nearby. Eventually, it dawned on me that the ‘YOU ARE NOW IN THE HIGHLANDS’ sign is the stone marked on the map!
6. Loch Kinord Crannog, Castle and Castle.
So, this is a little off the direct Aberdeen to Balmoral road but I counted it as part of my route because I can do what I want! Plus, it’s a nice walk around Loch Kinord. There are 3 historical things of note there. Firstly, the crannog. A crannog is a manmade island constructed from wood (and presumably other bits) and this one was built around 2500 years ago. There would have once been a hut on top of the island but now it’s just the island itself, and you would 100% think it was natural. Secondly, is Kinord Castle. Okay, there’s no castle there anymore, just another island…but, you can imagine! Kinord Castle was burned down in the 1600s but as far as I know it had stood for about 600 years up to that point! Thirdly, and finally, is the Kinord Cross. Kinord Cross is a kite-shaped pink granite stone with an elaborate cross carved into it. This Christian monument was made sometime in the 9th century. It was moved to Aboyne Castle in the 19th century and then finally moved back to the loch in the mid-1900s.
I can’t imagine any of these sites will change your life but, as I say, it’s a nice walk around Loch Kinord.
7. Tullich Church and Souterrain.
Tullich Church is a great place to park for the souterrain, and it’s worth checking out too. This is a ruined medieval church (built on the site of an even older church) and it has a collection of very cool Christian and Pictish stones held safely behind glass. There’s a great information board all about the stones so I’ll let that do the talking if you decide to visit.
We actually visited for the souterrain though (not the church) and found it on our last trip along this route. I kept putting it off because there were always cows in the field and I’m super wary (read scared) of cows! Luckily on the last visit there were no cows around and we strode confidently across the field to a rocky/scrubby area and located the souterrain. Unfortunately, you can no longer get inside but we shone torches into the cavities and imagined what life was like around 0 AD when this was thought to date back to! The souterrain is an underground space, but it’s not really known what they were used for. Storage for grains? A place to hide? Or a bit of both? What do you think?
If you want to visit a really cool souterrain that you can crawl inside, I definitely recommend the Culsh earth house near Tarland.
8. Abergain Castle
I wasn’t expecting much from this ruined castle but this was definitely a hidden gem! We pulled off the ‘main’ road and parked on the side of a farm access road (out of the way of farm traffic) and then walked across some sheep fields and up into the woods. Abergairn is what remains of a small tower house built in the early 1600s and because of its small stature it was thought to be a hunting lodge. It’s a stunning area. We went whilst the Autumn colours were at their peak, which definitely made everything look beautiful, but there was a stillness and peace there that made you want to linger for as long as possible.
9. St Manir’s Standing Stone.
To visit this stone there’s a super handy forestry commission carpark just down the road. From the parking area you just need to hop over a stream and a fence and then you’re at the standing stone. A very mini adventure! As well as the stone this is also apparently the site of a burial ground and a church but little/no evidence of that remains to someone like me (i.e. not an archaeologist). Apparently, the 6th century chapel that used to be situated here used this standing stone as a reading desk and much later, unbaptised children were buried here up until the 19th century.
In the comments section of a random Aberdeenshire history post I also read that from this standing stone you can see the hill on which the last Deeside witch was burned. I have no evidence to back this up, but I choose to believe it! That’s my ethos for many a historical tale!
10. Abergeldie Castle.
Abergeldie Castle is a 16th century tower house which prompted me to enter the lottery more regularly. I spent the whole time walking around this area deciding which bit I’d turn into an Airbnb or a granny flat for my parents, what I’d plant where, where I’d put the barbeque, what I’d use the pit prison for etc… (Probably wine to be fair). Not long after we got back from our day trip I asked Twitter whether anybody knew the status of this house. There were lots of incredibly old private signs that made it seem like it probably wasn’t private anymore, all gates were open, no lights were on, nobody was around and everything looked very unloved. But, on the other hand, we felt like we were trespassing, there were enough possessions (like work jackets and spades) still around that we felt somebody could have lived there recently or perhaps be thinking about renovating and it definitely had been very loved at some point. It was all a bit mysterious. Anyway, it turns out that the man that had lived there had moved into an old people’s home many years prior and had recently passed away. Which is all a bit sad. It is a really beautiful spot and whoever gets to live there next is incredibly lucky…and wealthy!
To get to this castle we parked by the red phone booth/book swap just down the road, which is worth stopping at anyway.
11. Scurriestone.
This is an easy one to get to. We just parked at a little pull in and then walked into the field where the stone stands. Apparently, it’s thought to mark the spot where “the road diverged to the fords of the Dee and the Muick”, but that’s a little tricky to imagine now. It’s just listed as prehistoric which spans a large wedge of time…basically, it’s very old.
12. Knock Castle.
I think this is now amongst my favourite castles in Aberdeenshire. Knock sits on top of a hill surrounded by larches and it unquestionably pretty.
Knock is a 16th century tower house, which is full of tragedy. It was owned by the Gordons who had beef with a neighbouring clan, the Forbes. One of the Gordon’s, Henry, was killed by the Forbes clan so the castle went to Gordon’s son, Alexander. At some point Alexander’s son secretly married a Forbes girl, which as you can imagine did not go down well. The father of this girl had Alexander and 7 of his brothers killed whilst they were digging peat. I think there’s some chat about how they were armed and digging peat on Forbes land at the time (so not wholly innocent) but, after this long it’s probably hard to know the ins and outs of it. Anyway, the brothers (including Alexander) were then beheaded and their heads were spiked on top of their spades. Charming! On hearing this news Alexander fell to his death down the Knock Castle stairs and apparently his miserable and tormented ghost still haunts the ruins. The Forbes did not get away with this scot free however, and the head of the Forbes clan was executed by the law, his lands were also taken away and given to Abergeldie.
To get to Knock Castle we parked off the road at a quiet junction and just walked up to it, but I saw that other people had driven much closer to the castle and just parked in the middle of the road! It’s another one of those places where you just have to find a spot that looks acceptable and go for it!
I think if I can conclude anything from this series of excursions between Aberdeen and Balmoral it’s that this county is just packed with history. You can barely move without tripping over some ancient site and because of that I imagine there’s something for everyone. Unfortunately, however, there’s often not a lot of easily available information on most of these places and you end up trawling random sites with numerous search terms just to find a golden nugget of information. But, maybe that’s part of the fun, I guess not everything should be easy and I don’t necessarily think you need to know exactly what you’re looking at to enjoy it. Two of the best websites in terms of standing stones, circles and souterrains were https://www.megalithic.co.uk/ and https://www.canmore.org.uk/ if you’re ever interested in finding out about anything in your area.
Mum and Dad (he’s not a Worth but he’s still quite important!)
Ancestry. This is a bit different from my usual blog posts, but as I don’t know how many people actually read what I write, and as I mostly write for my own pleasure anyway, I thought I’d write about what’s been interesting to me over the past 6 weeks. Although hopefully I can make it interesting to people who don’t share my bloodline too!
I was born in Derby, Derbyshire in 1987 to parents who had been born and raised in Belper, Derbyshire. When I was just 10 days old we moved to Hereford, Herefordshire, which is where I grew up as an only child. Apart from a few stragglers in nearby counties pretty much all of my living family were born, raised and still reside in Derbyshire. We went to visit when I was a kid, I can’t tell you how many times a year but the visits dwindled until, as an adult, I barely go anymore. Because I grew up in Hereford I always felt separate and a bit different to the rest of my family. In fact when we were little my cousin once asked her parents which language I spoke because my accent was so different to hers! My family are lovely, warm and kind but I don’t really know them. It’s always just been me, Mum and Dad; A very small family unit. I don’t have any negative feelings about that, it’s just the way it worked out, but as I’ve gotten older I have started to question my ancestry and who I am a bit more…as in where did I come from.
Anyway, although I was born in Derby and that’s where my close familial roots are, I wouldn’t say that I was from Derbyshire. Although I grew up in Hereford, I don’t feel any ties to the land. I’ve moved around and across the UK several times now and I’ve lived in a couple of different places in both Wales and Scotland. Nationality, ‘home’ and how you identify (as in Northern, Southern, Brummy etc…) comes up when you’re new somewhere because people are interested in where you come from and who you are. I’m English, that’s obvious, I think?! But what does that mean? What kind of English am I?!
When I went to see my parents recently I got into the old photo collection and started chatting to my Mum about family. In the collection there were some photos she wasn’t quite sure about. For example, Mum knew that a particular picture was my Great-Great-Grandmother but couldn’t tell me her name. So, I started to have a tinker on ancestry.com, and then I got addicted, and then I ended up paying for 6 months membership. I mean doing a PhD is surely the perfect timing to take on a big project like researching your family history!
I’ve been doing this for about a month and a half now and I wanted to share some of the interesting things I’ve found out about my family and the times they lived in. Maybe it’ll inspire you to do some of your own research!
I read that it’s good to pick a side (maternal or paternal) and I decided to start with my maternal side, which is ‘Worth’, for lots of reasons. I’m interested in women’s history, my Grandad Worth has interesting parentage (although that’s his story to tell) and I found an old 1920s Christmas postcard addressed to a woman on this side of the tree called Hilda, and I wanted to know who she was. To begin with I went at the family tree a bit wildly just following lines here and there but I soon got lost! I mean they tell you to pick a side because it’s a big job, but I didn’t quite anticipate how big. So, I decided to go to the furthest right side of my family tree and start following each line down.
At that side of my tree is my Great-Grandma Dorothy Amy Wood née Bradshaw, my Grandma’s mother. I was actually named after her and my Grandad’s mother, May Worth née Butler. Anyway, so Dorothy was born in 1903 in Belper, Derbyshire. Edward VII was reigning at the time and the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was formed this year. They fought for the rights of women through arson, throwing stones, smashing windows, shouting at people and going on hunger strikes. Not that Dorothy would have known anything about that in her early years. As a child, Dorothy had Diphtheria, a serious bacterial infection you’re unlikely to come across now due to childhood vaccinations and she went deaf because of her infection. When she was 8 the 1911 census came round and although hers and her mother’s occupations were not listed, her two sisters, Hilde (or Hilda) and Ellen were listed as a ‘mender’ and a ‘lie maker’ (whatever that is) respectively. Her father, James, was a pottery worker. I LOVE the census records. They give the best hints, telling you who people were living with, who’s the head of the house, their ages and what their occupations are. Occupations are more commonly listed for men because…well…the patriarchy, so I get particularly excited about the nuggets of information I find about the women in my family. Much later, at 32 years old, Dorothy married William whose line I haven’t even begun to trace yet and they had several children. In 1939, at 36 years old, she was listed on the census as an unpaid domestic worker and her husband was listed as a colliery coal butting operator. I don’t know exactly what that is yet but I imagine it was hard and dirty work. My Mum remembers him coming home from work and telling the grandkids that he had been mining right below the house. The only other thing I know about my Great-Grandma Dorothy is that apparently, she didn’t like having her photo taken because she had bad legs with awful various veins. These were always wrapped up. She died in 1970 when she was 67.
Before Dorothy things get a little tougher as we’ve moved past living memory and my Mum can no longer feed me little titbits like the Diphtheria fact!
Great-Grandma Dorothy in hospital with Diphtheria and the message her sister Nellie (Nellni) wrote for her on the back of the photo postcard.Great-Grandma Dorothy with her son my Great-Uncle Brian.Great-Grandma Dorothy with her legs bandaged.
Dorothy’s parents were James and Millicent Bradshaw née Webster. Like Dorothy’s husband I haven’t started to trace her father James’s line yet. My Great-Great-Grandma Millicent was born in 1864 in Leicester. At this time Victoria was on the throne, the American civil war was still happening and overarm bowling was legalised in cricket! Millicent’s parents are William Webster and Lydia Webster née Spencer. Millicent’s father, William Webster, whose side I haven’t investigated much was a nailer (nail-maker) for most of his life but was a drummer for the militia in his youth. In the 1871 census, when Millicent was just 7 years old, the family are registered as being in Rotheram, South Yorkshire. I can only see the part of the census document related to her and her sister (Emma, born in Belper) and they are both listed as scholars. I’d love to know what motivated the family to move from Belper to Rotheram through Leicester (where Millicent was born) and then back to Belper again. 10 years later, in Belper, the 1881 census shows that a 17 year old Millicent is working as an embroiderer. Her mother, Lydia, is married to a different man, as in not Millicent’s father. He is called Stephen Walker and he is a deaf, horse nail maker. Nail-making was a common profession at this time and in 1850 the poet, Thomas Crofts, wrote about Belper, “it has nailshops past my counting, where men and women toil, making Roundheads, Forties, Clinkers, for the tillers of the soil”. It’s thought that nail-making was associated with Belper since the Norman Conquest and Belper nails were exported all over the world. The folk (mostly men) who made nails, could famously make 1000 a week. Although, to be fair, if they didn’t make their quotas they would be fined, which I’m sure was a great incentive! Apparently Belper nailers were notorious in their unruliness. Although they were incredibly hard working they were also, in general, hard drinking, rebellious trouble makers. There’s an old anecdote, which I hope is a joke, that goes as follows; “An innocent stranger puts his head inside the window opening of a nailer’s shop and asks “What’s the time?” The nailer pauses from his work, and brings his hammer down hard on the stranger’s head, answering gleefully, “It’s just struck one!”. They did, however, have a reputation for violence so maybe it’s true! Another chap, a reverend, describes Belper as an “insignificant residence of uncivilised nailers” and describes it as the “rudest place”, bar one, that he knew! Charming, huh?! There are actually quite a few nailers in my tree and I love that so much of my ancestry relates to these outspoken folk, it sounds like anarchy!
Anyway, I digress, let’s get back to my Great-Great-Grandma Millicent. At 19, in 1883, she marries James Bradshaw who is listed in the 1891 census as a bottlemaker. Her occupation is not listed here, and her children are scholars or too young to be schooled. At this time her mother, Lydia, is living with her and working as a charwoman, so presumably she’s widowed again. Charwomen worked as domestics, but they didn’t have fixed schedules, working when and where they could. Millicent doesn’t have a listed occupation in 1901 or 1911 but her husband is now a potter. After that I lose Millicent in the censuses, but she dies in 1932 at 68 years old.
It gets harder and harder to trace the interesting details of people’s lives after Millicent and her mother Lydia (my Great-Great-Great Grandmother) and it’s just because as you leave the 1800s and enter the 1700s the censuses are far less available and marriage records stop listing the father’s occupation. In some ways it does become easier to log names and dates though. There’s less information to sift through and I guess fewer people on the planet the further you go back. It also helps massively if another ancestry searcher has already done some of the hard work of sifting through the records for you! Millicent’s ancestors mostly hail from the Midlands; Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Leicestershire. But there is a moment in the mid-1600s where I think that there could be some aristocratic folk that moved to England from Prussia (Germany/Denmark area). The line is really confusing though. Essentially, I think there are 2 men with same name who marry 2 women with same name in the same area and I’m not confident that I’ve picked the right man and woman! I’d love to have some Prussian aristocracy in my bloodline but I think I need to sit down and have another go through all the online records and maybe even physically go to the records office (when I can). So, I’m not confident enough to go through that here, now. Exciting though!
One interesting story I’ve gleaned pre-1800s though, and one I’m far more confident on, is that of my 6th Great-Grandfather John Mayer (that’s Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather!). He was born in 1738 in Wolstanton, Staffordshire. At this time George II was on the throne (wearing one of those super poncy wigs) and slavery was very much the ‘in thing’, but they had slowed down on the witch hunting, with some of the major witchcraft acts being repealed 2 years earlier. I would be so interested to find a witch amongst my ancestors…although I could assume if I did nothing good would have happened to her! Anyway, John Mayer. Beyond his birth record the first time I find him he’s 38 and a weaver, and he must be doing okay for himself because he has an apprentice called Samuel Robinson (you had to pay duties for having an apprentice).
Many years later in 1818 when John Mayer (also spelled Mare…spelling becomes a lot more loose and carefree the further you go back) is 80 years old he is listed as being a gentleman. I’m not totally sure what this means but I think essentially he’s a ‘free-man’ as in he didn’t have or need a job.
Three years later my 6th Great-Grandfather is charged with uttering base coin! Essentially, he was trying to spend adulterated money. He didn’t ‘present’ at the trial and he was acquitted. Maybe they took mercy on him because of his age or status or maybe they thought he was innocent (although they don’t say he wasn’t guilty!). The chap above him in the criminal register committed the same crime and went to prison for 6 months. A few years earlier this crime was considered high treason and if you were caught 3 times you were hung! What a rebel?! He died just a couple of years after this at the lofty age of 85.
The furthest back I’ve traced in this line (the line of my Great-Grandma Dorothy and Great-Great Grandma Millicent) and earliest records I’ve come across so far are that of my 17th great Grandparents John and Johanna Fardon (Vardon). That’s too many ‘greats’ to type out even to make a point! John was born in 1485 and died just 23 years later and Johanna was born in 1490 and massively outlived him reaching the lofty age of 72 years old. When they were both born in 1485/1490, the Tudor, Henry VII, gained the throne by killing King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth (the last battle in the Wars of the Roses). He was the last monarch to die in battle and he was the chap whose remains were found under a parking lot in Leicester. Johanna would have been alive to see the reign of Henry VIII and the mess that followed him with the young King Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey, Bloody Mary, Phillip and finally Elizabeth I, who I guess brought some royal stability. At this point the United Kingdom or Great Britain didn’t exist and these guys sat on the English throne (although, by this time the eldest son of the monarch was usually the Prince of Wales…it’s complicated). I can’t tell you much more about John and Johanna other than they were born and died in Broughton, Oxfordshire. The further you go back the simpler and more difficult to read the records get. I rely a lot on what other ancestry searchers have done before me and at some point to find out any more about these people I’d have to go to the place they lived and look at the physical records.
What John and Johanna could have been wearing presuming they were peasants. Picture taken from the Grimani Breviary
Obviously, I was always aware that I had ancestors, I mean, we all are…but having the constantly growing expanse of names make me more distinctly aware of it. Like, I’m actually related to people who were alive during the Norman Invasion, saw the arrival of potatoes and went through plagues (proper plagues with boils and ‘doctors’ wearing bird masks, not COVID19). Okay, they’re very distant relations at that point but I still think it’s cool.
I still have a lot more searching to do but from what I’ve seen so far I think it’s relatively clear that I am absolutely a Midlander! Ultimately it never really mattered to me where my known ancestors came from but I’m glad that I’m starting to find out.
In A Kingdom By The Sea 