Sunday 20 Nov: Awe-inspiring landscapes and a personal mission fulfilled

Spoiler alert: we did see a dramatic sun set at Tomnaverie!

Up early from a fitful rest after our presentation, today we are checking out of the Apex and boarding a private coach with Tony, bound for Aberdeenshire. I tell the students to keep breakfast light due to time constraints and the fact that we have a group luncheon planned. No need to bulk up for the day! I have simple continental fare: croissant, cheese, fruit, coffee.

This is the first of two trips we’ll take to the countryside of Scotland. On this trip, we ride up the North Sea coast on the Angus Coastal Route, A92, with a stop at Arbroath Abbey and the famous Dunnottar Castle. After that, we stop for a civilized sit-down luncheon at the Milton Brasserie at Milton of Crathes, and head on to three archaeological sites: Midmar Stone Circle, Kirkton of Aboyne Burial Ground, and Tomnaverie Stone Circle. Readers of this journal are quite familiar with the latter two as sites of great interest to the Cromar family.

Our hope is to reach Tomnaverie by sunset, in the hopes there will be a sun to set — but the weather doesn’t look so promising as we set out. I’m hoping for a bit of a meteorological miracle, as I also have a very personal mission to fulfill at Aboyne. I’m carrying a lock of my father’s hair, shorn from his head on the night he died just about one month before this trip, which I intend to bury at the stone of Peter Cromar, progenitor of the Cromar line.

Another too-large coach

It’s more than a little disturbed when the bus pulls up: another too-large 50-seater coach. At one point in the planning, our school office of risk management had mandated large buses as a COVID defensive measure, but later rescinded this requirement. We had discussed changing this more than once with the travel agent, but evidently another ball has been dropped (number 6 if we count these bus mistakes as unique instances). I wonder how much more this gigantic bus is costing us than a more appropriately scaled vehicle while I make a mental note to send a warning email Kathy Ader, our historian on the ground in Aboyne. Will this coach prohibit us from pulling into the parking lot we’ve negotiated near the Kirkton of Aboyne?

North to Arbroath

Cats willingly herded, we leave on time, a minor miracle fulfilled. As we head north, Tony and I discuss reports of flooding and the uncertain status of Dunnottar, which has been closed throughout the storms — more due to fierce wind than rains. Tony says we will know if we can visit when the Dunnottar website posts an announcement around 9:30. We’re set to arrive at about 10:00, so we won’t have a sense of this until we’re just about there. So we make a contingency plan to head into Stonehaven if Dunnottar is not in the cards. One can do worse than Stonehaven, I hear — a classic North Sea port town. Still, I’m on edge: between the castle closure and the giant bus, could this itinerary end in tatters?

The Abbey

We arrive at Arbroath Abbey without rain but with heavy skies. The Abbey grounds cannot be entered as Historic Environment Scotland is attempting to stabilize the ruin, but even from afar it is impressive. Since it’s on our route north, we make a stop here because it is the site of the Declaration of Arbroath. As Philadelphians, we appreciate the link between this Scottish Declaration and the Declaration of Independence signed in our fair city.

As we run up the Angus coast, we see just how fierce the rising waters have treated the landscape. Arable plains adjacent to the river are flooded. As we approach the bridge that crosses the River North Esk, normally placid water smashes into the bridge pilings like rapids.

Crossing at the River North Esk

In between correspondences with Kathy — she’s negotiating the bus issue with the Lodge on the Loch — I do manage to enjoy view of the wind-whipped North Sea as we get closer to Dunnottar. We are finally relieved to hear the site is open for the day. Another little miracle saving our itinerary! However, the ominous clouds decide to break open as we pull up to the coach park. It will be a wet visit.

Dunnottar Castle

But wind and rain cannot spoil Dunnottar! It only adds to the ominous atmosphere of the place. The sea lashes against the rocks, seemingly in slow motion as the surf climbs impossibly high upon the steep cliff walls. Ancestral home to the Keith family, Dunnottar is famous in Scottish history as the hiding place for the Honours of Scotland during Cromwell’s invasion. Like many castles we’ll see, it has been featured as a motion picture setting, most notably for the 1990 film adaptation of Hamlet with Mel Gibson and Glenn Close. Some in our group are gripped by vertigo and need assistance negotiating some of the more dizzying climbs. As a late-middle-aged man, I’m a bit surprised at how fit I appear relative to some of these youngsters! I must be doing something right in my dotage.

Dare we say a bit of blue cracks through the clouds to the west as we make our way back to the coach? It’s been a poor day for photography, but the rain dies down enough to allow an obligatory group photo, courtesy of Tony.

Departing Dunnottar

We’re struggling to stay on time as we board the coach, aiming inland toward lunch. Kathy has emailed that we can probably get the bus into the parking area at Lodge on the Loch — it’s not their high season and there are few cars today — but the hairpin turn off of A93 will force a complex maneuver at the head of Charlestown Green in Aboyne proper, and this is going to take some time. I consult with Tony and we agree that a visit to Midmar will not preserve enough sun to see Tomnaverie. Reluctantly, we make the call to skip that stop, just as we are pulling into the Brasserie parking lot.

Milton of Crathes

Crathes was not our initial destination for lunch. I had requested Falls of Feugh in order to allow us to see the falls and make a sight-seeing stop out of it, but this was not what the travel agent booked. I’m sure there was a good reason for the change, though my knickers are in a knot because this venue switch was not discussed at all (ball drop number 7: bad communication), otherwise we may have chosen to eat in Stonehaven or Aboyne for strategic reasons.

Nevertheless, our stop at the Brasserie is very pleasant. Home to the Banchory Station of the Royal Deeside Railway, the Milton of Crathes complex is a historic settlement catering to tourists heading to the Cairngorms. We are served the best group meal we are to share on this journey! Beef olives, skirlie, mash potatoes, mange tout (peas in the pod), and charred corn in a braising liquor, with apple crumble, crème Anglaise, and a green apply sorbet for dessert. It’s really a fine dining experience. This is my first encounter with beef olives. Quite a concoction, with beef strips wrapped around a stuffing of sausage or haggis. People in Scotland have been making a variation on the beef olive since the Middle Ages! As we leave we notice more signs of the flooding that accompanied the rain: sandbags, and rushing water where there is usually a quiet stream.

Kirkton of Aboyne

I’m quite breathless as we move through the countryside, skirting the north side of the Dee between Crathes and Aboyne on A93. We pass through Banchory and hit a countryside that begins to feel familiar. These are the rolling hills and fields I’ve been exploring as an armchair tourist for the last two years. We pass the sign indicating we are entering Kincardine O’Neil, an important ancestral village for our family, and I snap a shot of the ruin of the Kincardine O’Neil Auld Kirk, a place that doubtless served as a congregating space for descendants of Peter Cromar. I wish we could stop here and spend some time! But, alas, this will have to wait for a personal visit.

We pass the Lodge on the Loch in order to negotiate its hairpin turn, and we pull into a bus stop near Victory Hall. This is where we are welcomed by my friends Kathy Ader and Veronica Ross. With them, we also meet Veronica’s husband Irvine Ross, the treasurer for the Cromar History Group of which Veronica is chair and Kathy is a committee member, as well as Sheila Kinniburgh, a member of the Aboyne and Deeside Heritage Society. Driving ahead of our coach, we follow them back to the winding, muddy, narrow driveway for the Lodge. Miraculously, our driver carefully threads the eye of a needle with a camel, and gets us safely into the car park. There, we meet up with Jean and Derek McCulloch, owners of the Lodge, the adjacent golf course, and the Kirkton of Aboyne burial ground itself.

A stone circle surprise

Top left: A stone circle at the Lodge on the Loch golf course.
Bottom left: Discussing the earth-energy of a circle. From left: Jean, Sheila, Irvine, and Derek.
Right: Two books gifted to me by our guide Tony. The top book contains more Cromar burial sites to be explored in the future, while the bottom one may make for an interesting read.

Entering the burial ground

I know this landscape purely from poring over satellite imagery in mapping software and photographic documentation at such sites as geograph and Canmore. It feels surreal to be walking it as we cross a muddy burn (stream) that evidently feeds the Loch of Aboyne to the west. We approach the gate on the north side, which Jean opens.

An unsettling feeling of familiarity washes over me. I’ve seen every publicly available photograph of this place, and I’ve mapped and remapped it. I’m spatially aware of every detail, but what surprises me is the intimate scale of the enclosure and the modest size of the kirk foundation (not the only time today this feeling will manifest itself, as we’ll see). Standing on a mossy foundation wall at the presumable entrance to the old building, Kathy regales the group with stories of the long history of this site — the Knights Templar, the Formaston Stone. Meanwhile, it takes me no time at all to locate the tall Cromar stone and, adjacent to it, the slab of Peter Cromar.

Peter’s stone

It is time to fulfill my promise. I breathe deeply, pull a small wooden inlay box out of my left breast pocket. From it, I retrieve the small white lock of hair I cut from my father’s head, and kneel to the ground. I place the hair at the head of Peter’s stone, take a photograph, cover my face with one hand, and weep.

The lock of hair resting at the head of Peter Cromar’ stone prior to burial

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I am in a state of catharsis. Time is standing still. I kneel over this scene for what seems an hour, but it is of course much shorter than my perception, as the group disperses from Kathy’s talk to inspect the site. My local friends come over and asked if I’ve found what I’m looking for. Having somewhat regained my composure, I indicate the two stones, one supine, one erect, near to which I’m still keeling, and gesture to two other clusters of Cromar stones adjacent to the vault. I’m really in an emotional fog. Someone mentions that Peter’s stone is likely to be the oldest stone of the lot.

Jean (I think) uses a stick to fashion a small hole and says something like, “Here, we don’t want the birds carrying it off.” I place the hair in the hole, and we carefully cover it. My personal mission has been fulfilled.

After the burial, Jean records the event. Kathy is at left in red, Sheila behind her, while Tony, our guide in tartan trousers, is behind me.

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Departing the burial ground

Reluctantly, because I really want to explore more, we have to depart the burial ground. As we retrace our steps, my mood turns giddy. I laugh crossing the burn. I wonder if this is an appropriate reaction to what just occurred, but I decide it is no time to judge myself. Whatever I’m doing, I will just allow myself to be in that moment, in that manner, because what I have just accomplished is a momentous and privileged achievement in my family history, so perhaps I should feel joy mixed with sorrow! I have closed the circle.

It is appropriate our next stop will be another kind of circle, this one complete with a recumbent stone signifying the closure of a sacred space. Our talented driver guides his bowling ball of a coach skillfully through the tiny marble maze of a driveway back to A93, and we again follow our local guides. At one point in our correspondence, Kathy had suggested, and even received permission, for us to stop by the Aboyne Estate where we could see the birdcage belfry that was removed from Saint Adamnan’s at the Kirkton, but we are are fighting the sun now — a sun that is miraculously shining bright as it dips toward its early appointment with dusk. A visit to the estate will have to wait for another day. We are making haste to Tomnaverie.

Tomnaverie Stone Circle

The site is only about ten minutes up the road, passing back through Aboyne and turning left on B9094, the road leading to Tarland roughly paralleling Tarland Burn, but it’s a race against time. We pass Coull to the east, and toward the west I spy a dirt road with a tiny sign for ruins of Crossfold. This road leads also to Cuttieshillock. Both are important ancestral settlements for the Cromars.

Following our local guides to Tomnaverie

Entering the circle

As we round a corner and head due west, across an open field we can see the rise upon which Tomnaverie rests. Our small caravan pulls into a small lot at the head of the trail leading to the circle. This is not a steep climb, but it is steady, and as we approach the apex, the stones peek over the high horizon of the hillock. As we enter the threshold defined by the stones, the full extent of the Howe of Cromar begins to emerge. It is breathtakingly beautiful.

Entering the circle, with Irvine leading the way

Lo, what a prospect meets the eyes
When, gazing raptured o’er Cromar,
Beyond the Grampian peaks arise
The crowning heights of Lochnagar.

From The Slack of Tillylodge
by George Stephen

A panorama of our group enthralled by Tomnaverie

Scale

The phenomenon that photography simply cannot capture is the sense of scale. For the second time today, I get a strange feeling, not of expanse, but intimacy. The stones are surprisingly and simultaneously massive and small. None are higher than one’s chest, but their weight is palpable. The hills that define the Howe really seem close enough to touch. Tarland, slightly west of north from here, appears as a toy town one could pick up and play with. Cattle lowing in the fields between here and the town sound almost as if they are right upon us. A bell rings. A flock of birds careen over the town. Sound carries exceptionally well in this pure air. It is peaceful, quiet, still, even though 20 of us have descended upon the monument.

Tarland to the left and the Cromar Parish Church to the right as birds fly overhead. The picture does this scene no justice.

Sunset

The star of the show is the miraculous sun, a welcome sight after the days of rain in Dundee, setting in the southwest adjacent to Lochnagar, the large mountain framed by the recumbent stone. It bestows the clouds framing the scene with a mercurial glow that would make J. M. W. Turner envious. We know from archaeological findings that it is more likely the ordering system for Tomnaverie is based on lunar astronomical observations, but I can’t help but think that we are seeing some kind of alignment relating to the solstice sun in relation to the mountain, since we are less than a month away from that occurrence.

Sunset at Tomnaverie. Again, the image feels vast, the scale feels quite the opposite.

Irvine tells us the history of this site, which reaches far back to prehistory. He mentions the quarry that almost destroyed the monument, the efforts record it and restore it archaeologically, and reclaiming of the land eaten away by quarrying. I deeply appreciate the restoration of the land here, as many photographs I’ve seen of the circle are marred by the gash in the hill.

My atonement for Tomnaverie

I share the theory I’ve concocted about the relationship of my family to that quarry, and only half-jokingly declare that I’m here to atone for that history. I’m hoping that the next step in restoration will be to remove the old wire fence that was placed here to keep visitors from falling into the now absent quarry. From the recumbent stone (which, when I touch the cup marks in the top, does not in fact whisk me back to the eighteenth century) I can locate Cuttieshillock in the dusky light. I think about my great-grandfather Theodore standing, as he must have at this very place, touching this very same stone. I tear up again a little bit.

The recumbent stone | At far left beyond the recumbent, a view of Cuttieshillock, Theodore’s boyhood home

We walk over to the site of the underground nuclear observation post, installed during the Cold War, slightly down the hill from the recumbent. Irvine tells us about the function of this strange base as night overtakes dusk.

The nuclear observation post to the south and west of the recumbent stone

We bid our farewells to this sacred site, and to our local friends who have illuminated it for us. I assure them I will return as soon as I can, to dig deeper into my family’s past than this trip will allow.

On to Edinburgh

It is now about 4:30, the dim remnants of dusk helping us to board the bus. Tony and the driver decide the best route is not to retrace our steps back to the coast, but to take an inland road past Ballater and Balmoral through the Cairngorms, to Perth and then on to Edinburgh. So instead of working our way back to A93 and heading back east, we head west. A93 basically parallels the westward trajectory of the River Dee until Braemar, then turns south.

The road is a Highland roller-coaster, impossibly narrow, with switchbacks and hairpin turns. I can only imagine what dramatic landscape lies beyond the small pool of illumination offered by the bus headlights, but the memory of what we experienced today keeps that thought from being too dispiriting.

We make a brief stop at the outskirts of Perth for folks to get a snack and a rest, then we hit a multi-lane highway, M90, which whisks us across the older Forth Bridge and into Edinburgh. With the stop and some unexpected traffic, we arrive well past 8 PM to check into our hotel. Luckily, Edinburgh is a big restaurant city, and Stephen has reserved us a table at what will prove to be the finest restaurant experience of my life, though it’s a bit of an adventure getting there.

Aizle (rhymes with hazel)

The trick to finding the restaurant, we learn only too late, is to understand there are two establishments named Aizle. The Aizle we want is at Charlotte Square in New Town. The one our Uber driver whisks us to is instead in some no-man’s-land to the south of the Old Town. We’re a little disoriented, but I have the presence of mind to know this is definitely not Charlotte Square! By now we are quite late for our 8:30 reservation. Stephen calls and begs forgiveness, and the hostess says, OK but be timely about it. Can’t say I blame them, it’s quite late now for a seating.

We manage to arrive nearly an hour late, but are welcomed warmly nonetheless. It turns out Aizle occupies a light well in the middle of the Kimpton Charlotte Square, a four star hotel that took over from the old Roxburghe — the first hotel I ever stayed at in Edinburgh! So I have something of a surprising history with this new place.

Ingredients, not courses

Aizle offers a set menu based on a list of ingredients that make up a series of courses, which they keep secret. It’s a guessing game when you might be introduced to the caviar or the elderberry that you find in the ingredient list. This set menu is a requirement to meet the high standard of quality set by the chef. My favorite line at the Aizle website: “We cannot accommodate individual dislikes.” Sounds like a line I should use with the kids at home next time they complain about dinner.

The Aizle “menu” … a list of tonight’s ingredients

They offer a wine pairing with each course. All of this is fabulously expensive, but hey, we’ve decided that after nearly a week, we deserve to treat ourselves like grown-ups and experience something only Edinburgh can offer. For the first time in my life I sample venison and duck, considering the possibility with every bite that perhaps I haven’t lived life as fully as I could have! Every course is exquisite beyond description. The presentations are sculptural. There is more going on here than engagement of taste. The food is actually semiotic, filled with meaning and metaphor, everything thematically driven by the autumn harvest. No wonder this place caught the eye of Stephen, who is an English professor after all.

The remarkable presentation of food at Aizle

Six courses of bliss

This is the first time in a restaurant where I seem to have an emotional reaction to food. Perhaps this a residual effect of the strong emotions of the day, but there are more than a couple of courses where I well up. close to tears, the food is that good. The drink pairings are on point. The meal, course after course, six to be precise, lasts over 2 hours. We close the place down, and enjoy an early Monday morning walk back to the hotel.

As I retire, exhausted, I’m thankful for all the miracles that framed one of the most meaningful days of my life, one that I will continue to reflect upon it for the remainder of my days on this little planet which is privileged to host such a beautiful nation-in-waiting as Scotland.

Tomorrow’s adventure will be an exploration of the Royal Mile.