We get into mischief at Cawdor Castle

September 12, 2016

Off to Cawdor Castle soon, but first, we walked over to the museum in Nairn, where we chatted with a couple of the volunteers, and I got two names for future genealogical reference. 

Like most small-town museums, this one was a treasure trove of local lore, housed in a heritage building known as Viewfield House. Intriguingly, I later discovered it was built in 1803 by  a Col. Ludovic Grant and later bought by a James Augustus Grant when he married Elizabeth MacKintosh in 1813. The Grants in my family hail from Cawdor, near Nairn, and one of them did marry a "Mcintosh," but these Grants aren't direct relatives.

This is the exterior of the Nairn Museum,
the former Viewfield House .
Source: http://www.nairnmuseum.co.uk/

We were also very taken with a special exhibit featuring automata (from the House of Automata located near Findhorn.)

Source:http://thehouseofautomata.com/gallery/

An antique cat automata
or is he really Puss in Boots?
Source:http://thehouseofautomata.com/gallery/

We asked the ladies behind the reception desk questions about the Grants and discovered that Budgate House (where lived my grandfather's father and several generations of Grants before him) was pronounced "budget," not "bud-gate."  My love of phonics occasionally leads me astray.

Then it was time to find the family farm, where, in the 1851 census, Caroline Grant, my great great grandmother, was listed as a 46-year-old widow and "farmer of  22 acres."  Her name was Caroline Masters Nicholls; she and my great great grandfather John Grant had been married in 1833.

   

John  died between sometime between the birth of their fifth child in 1844 and the 1851 census. I have not been able to find his death date, as apparently no deaths were recorded in Scottish parishes back then.  Caroline's surname solved a long-time puzzle for me, as my maternal grandfather's third name was "Nicholls."  How had that come about I had always wondered. Well, mystery solved: he had been named after his grandmother. 

Anyhow, we called a cab and the driver knew the present owner, who turned out to be one of the resource people mentioned by the museum ladies. Some of our cabbie's family had worked at the farm over the years.

Once we got there, I screwed up my courage, knocked on the door, and got permission to take a few photos.

Budgate farmhouse  as it is today near Cawdor

I wonder how long this stone wall has been there and if my forebears ever sat on it!.

Was this field part of the 22 acres?

Then it was off to visit Cawdor Castle of Macbeth fame. There is more about the connection to the Scottish play at this link:   

http://www.cawdorcastle.com/The-Castle/Shakespeare-Heritage.aspx  

Since the castle was not built until the late 14th century, it has no connection to the historical Macbeth, who was born about 1005 AD. As the 5th earl of Cawdor was supposed to have said, "I wish the bard had never written his damned play." Nevertheless, it is a wonderful place to visit.

There was long, narrow, busy driveway into the castle, which we did not want to have to navigate afterwards to catch the bus back to Nairn. Our cabbie advised us to leave the castle by following a footpath to a gate, directly on the other side of which was the village of Cawdor, where there was a church yard, possibly housing deceased Grants, and a bus stop.

The castle was immensely enjoyable, especially as it was furnished and not a ruin as the ones in Kirkwall were.The Dowager Duchess of Cawdor still lives there. I was taken by how cosy the rooms we toured were made by the large, ancient (and likely priceless) tapestries festooning the stone walls. 

The gardens were spectacular as well: 

The Dowager Duchess Angelika Cawdor commissioned the Tree of Life, sculpted by Tim Pomeroy. According to a report on the website Black Isle Bronze, it was lowered into the garden by helicopter in 2011:

Source: http://www.blackislebronze.co.uk/black-isle-bronze-news.html

The minotaur is at the centre of a maze in the walled garden which was first enclosed in 1620. In 1981, Lord Cawdor had the holly maze planted in part of it. Later his widow, the dowager duchess, commissioned the minotaur sculpture.

The castle was begun about 1370 when William, the third thane of Cawdor began the central tower house. This photo shows a much later addition beside the burn (Gaelic for 'stream'):

Our curiosity about the castle and its gardens satisfied, we decided to follow our cabbie's advice and find that gate. It was not hard to find, but it was all chained up. Back we trudged to the entrance and talked to the young girl behind the counter about getting a cab. We told her we just wanted to get to the village of Cawdor and that it was a pity it was such a long walk around along such a busy narrow road. 

"Oh," she said, "just take the gate off its hinges,"  which is what the locals apparently do. In our brilliant way, we then remembered that the top hinge was not in its place, so back we went, flourishing our tickets at the ticket booth (good for the day, not just  the visit), re-crossed the sweeping front lawn and the blue bridge and headed up the path, and yes, Greg lifted the gate off its remaining hinge. We walked through, Greg replaced the gate on both hinges, and we found ourselves in Cawdor.

The only witness to our mischief was this sheep:

This is the house across the road from the sheep pasture. Cawdor is a charming little village.

We explored the church yard of the Cawdor Parish Church for a while. 

Alas, we found no Grant stones. 

Cawdor Parish Church was likely where my great grandfather was baptized. Duncan Joseph Grant was born in 1835; parts of the church, which date from 1619, are incorporated into the present church built in 1831. 

It seemed as if we would have to wait three hours for the bus back to Nairn. I thought there must be somewhere close by to eat, so we walked along and found this pub, the Cawdor Tavern.

It was cosy, low-ceilinged, and wood-panelled, and we had a great meal. I had pork chops, haggis and potato mash, more vegetables and Canada Dry ginger ale, which made me think of home. Restaurants in Scotland don't seem to carry ginger ale except as a mix for drinks, so our waiter apologized for the very small bottle. Greg enjoyed an Orkney beer and asked about why it was available here, of all places. We were told the owner of the Orkney Brewery, where we had lunched a few days before, also happens to own these premises.

Alas, we were told there were no longer buses running even though the route (#252) was listed on the Stagecoach web-site. We decided to take the locals' word for it and returned to Nairn by cab. 

The driver this time regaled us with stories about the lawsuit for continued possession of the castle which the Dowager Duchess fought against her stepson, the new earl after his father died. The son took his case all the way to the House of Lords, spent a million pounds and lost! The cabbie's sympathies were not with him. He told us of other profligate young heirs as well. 

We ended our day with our heads full of history past and present and concluded taking a cab in Scotland is well worth the extra expense.

My "steely blue eyes" take in more sights in Thurso and Nairn

Hello again, folks,

I am trying to get you to Nairn as quickly as possible, but first, I must mention our  effervescent hostess at 4 Princess BnB in Thurso.

The very small sign indicates the  premises of the 4 Princess  BnB
(Source: http://bstatic.com/images/hotel/org)

She was, as my travel journal for the rest of Sept. 11 attests:

 ... very very talkative, but pleasant. She said my steely blue eyes were "evidence of my Norwegian ancestry." [I thought that was so cool: so I have steely blue eyes. Wow. As far as I was concerned, she could carry on and just talk and talk. But to continue with my journal record:]

We settled ourselves in our very small room, which fortunately had its own bathroom in the room, not off the corridor outside, as in Stromness and Fort William. 

Then we walked up the street for dinner —  nice cheese appetizer, which was a mistake, alas, for my innards later on. I had a teriyaki stir fry — many veg (onions, broccoli, carrots, green peppers) but no noodles. Greg had a fish platter. 

It was rainy and cool the evening we made our way to the Holborn Hotel and the Red Pepper
Restaurant  (Source www.nightmove.co.uk)

We sat at the table to the right by the wall . The night we were there the place was packed.
 (Source www.nightmove.co.uk).

Home by 8:30 pm — watched Poldark, the trial episode. I fell asleep, woke at  1:00 am, awake for  two to three hours. Grrrr.

September 12, 2016

We probably could have caught the 9:00 am train to Inverness, but we didn't rush. Nice breakfast: yogurt, fruit, scrambled eggs, dry toast for me. Pain and diarrhea, so I  took a whole codeine and felt better after a while. I would likely be enjoying the trip much more if I felt better. 

Our hostess again regaled us ... [in fact she had me laughing so hard at her comments about the state of my health, I almost didn't notice my stomach cramps on the way to the washroom.]

Then we headed out; it looked like rain and was very windy. We came to the train station and took turns going for walks. I found a nice park, The Mall, by the river.  

[This afternoon while writing this rather dull account, I decided to spice it up by adding Internet pictures and of course, more information: viz. "The Mall dates from Victorian times, but the new foot bridge was completed in 2009 after the old one washed away in a flood in 2006. The new bridge ... goes across the river in a single span." Source: https://www.geocaching.com/geocache] 

Source: http://www.caithness.org/bridges/gallery.php?gallery=0&image=5.
Photographer: Bill Fernie, and  taken on a much nicer day!

Then, while Greg walked, I  read a book by Trollope I had bought at a used bookstore:

It was a charming cubbyhole. Source: http://caithness-business.co.uk/business.php?id=1053

Now we are waiting for the imminent arrival of the train back to Inverness.
***
The train was delayed 15 minutes and seemed to go rather slowly at other times with the result that we missed the connection to Nairn by just a couple of minutes. Our conductor was miffed that they wouldn't hold the train. However, the next one came in just under an hour [for the 15-minute or so trip to Nairn].

Our BnB at Nairn, Cawdor House, is a stone's throw away from the station. A very enthusiastic young German couple run it, and we have a bigger room that we have had so far.

The outside of Cawdor House on a day very like the one on which we arrived.
 (Source: booking.com)

The postmodern photo-art was created by our host.
 (Source: booking.com)

[We decided to explore Nairn High St. and walked down to the shopping area. On the way, we ran into the young woman from the BnB taking the laundry into a laundromat. We all said hello, and later I reflected that being the arty one in the family, i.e., her husband, had its uses]. 

We walked to a park by the sea shore (nearby, the Moray Firth joins the North Sea). I put my hand
 in the water just to feel close to PEI (Source: booking.com)

The BnB proprietors recommended the Classroom Bistro down the street, where we had a very nice meal. I had sea bass, boiled potatoes and mixed vegetables cooked just right. 

Source: www.theclassroombistro.com

Back at our BnB, our TV wouldn't work, so we read our books.

***
And that is the end of the excitement for that day.

September 11, 2016 and our last day at Stromness

It is about time I showed you a map of the southern part of Orkney Mainland, with Stromness at the left, Kirkwall in the centre and St.Mary's, near to the location of the Italian Chapel, south of Kirkness.

 From Stromness, the ferry goes past the Island of Hoy back to Scrabster, not far from Thurso .

From my travel journal describing our final day on Orkney:

Yesterday (Sunday) we walked from our bed and breakfast to the church instead of taking a bus or taxi, as the weather was sunny and the route downhill. 

I tried getting money from a bank machine but couldn't because presumably my daily limit is so low. 

Greg got some cash.

We went to the wrong church first off, but someone from the Baptist church arrived just as we did. 

The Town Hall, now a community centre, used to be a church.
The Baptist congregation meets there on Sunday mornings.

He directed us up the hill to St. Mary the Virgin, which was tucked into the wall in what used to be the premises of the Legion (?). It was not much bigger than St. Alban's (in Souris) but better appointed,having recently been redecorated. It had a blue ceiling and blue altar hangings.

This is the outside of the church from a posting on the church's Facebook page.

  

The blue doors are in keeping with the colour associated with the Virgin Mary
 and abide by the colour scheme chosen for the historical section of Stromness.

This is what the little sign in the photo above says (also from the church's Facebook page).

 

Warm welcome: We were introduced to each of the 10 or so congregants and the priest, a retired interim from New York City. He grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania.

Nice service: The 90-year-old organist played only the prelude and the postlude. We sang the hymns a capella. Good singing, which became a bit slower as the verses progressed.

There was a little four-year-old boy,a foster child of a couple in the congregation. This was his last day in Stromness. He was lively and dressed in a combination of Star Wars gear and a cincture lent by the priest. 

We went for cake and tea in a very small room afterwards. The village eccentric was there too in a somewhat outlandish get-up including lots of purple...He appeared to be very well-liked  and like us, was plied with lots of cake. 

The foster-parents of the little boy had two balloons and a present for their little fellow. He seemed genuinely surprised at the fuss and while unwrapping the gift, said, "O... for me? ... Oh... a buuhk? ... Oh... a Babble!" which he hugged to his chest and grinned with delight.

This is the Bible (from a picture on the church's Facebook page)

He will be going to England to live with his adoptive parents. I hope he gets to use and read his bible.

I didn't record in my journal anything about the striking stained glass windows we enjoyed in the church, so here are two images I found on their facebook page: 

 

This window commemorates St.Luke, symbolized by the winged ox.
Notice also  the doctor's bag and stethoscope for Luke the physician.

The sun shines through the window commemorating
St John, symbolized by an eagle.

After the service, we were walking further up the hill when Ann, one of the ladies at the church (whose husband is half-Orcadian), stopped and offered to take us on a little tour. She had an hour or so to wait for her spouse, who was off somewhere doing something else. 

First, she took us to the ferry terminal where we put our big bags into a locker - a brilliant idea.

Then Ann drove us around the town and beyond - so nice of her. She drove an electric car, which she was going to charge up after she dropped us off. There are 100 charge stations in Orkney! Ann told us it has a reputation for being very progressive in energy and experimentation.

This is the view of the town close to the mouth of the harbour.

This is overlooking the harbour closer to the downtown.

After we bid our tour guide goodbye, we walked along the extremely narrow main street : 

I thought it was a pedestrian mall until I realized - in time - that it accommodated
 two lanes of traffic. Pedestrians, look out!

Between many of the buildings on the main street, there were intriguing walkways up the hill.

And going down to the water, there were more vistas.

Here is the Stromness Hotel and the official (since 2007) flag of Orkney, showing blue for the flag of Scotland and red and yellow for the coats of arms of Scotland and Norway, thereby reflecting Orkney's connection to both countries..

Shouldn't every town square have one of these?

Now, where do those stars lead?

I was taken with the stone work and flowers.

Back from our walk,we repaired to a cafe near the ferry terminal and had a very odd lunch: potato skins with melted brie under a cascade of too much bacon. I paid 10 pounds in cash.

Back at the ferry terminal we chatted with a bicyclist who was doing his laundry. He found too late that there was no detergent, so he washed everything twice. It had taken him 11 days to cycle to the Orkneys from wherever it was that he lived.

The harbour at Stromness close to the ferry dock.

We forgot about the arrangement for our boarding passes until we handed the wrong,i.e.used, end of the ticket to the ticket taker. We were directed back to the wicket (where I had earlier asked about the wifi in the terminal) and were handed our boarding passes, which we would have picked up long before had we remembered what to do. There was not much in the way of foot traffic, so we boarded the ferry in good time in spite of the little glitch.

We had intended to eat dinner on the ferry but held off to see how rough it was going to get, as the bicyclist we had talked to had mentioned windy conditions once outside the harbour.

It did get rather rolling, so we just closed our eyes and went for the ride.

In Scrabster, another Ormlie cab was waiting for us. The driver turned out to have been the best man for the husband of the woman who ran the bed and breakfast on Princess St. where we were headed for the night. 

We were now officially back in Scotland ...

where further adventure awaited us. In my next blog, I will try to get us all the way to Nairn.

September 10, 2016: We explore Kirkwall

From my travel journal dated September 11, 2016:

"Spent yesterday in Kirkwall ... St. Magnus Cathedral ... 

 Work on the Romanesque-style cathedral began in 1137.

They had put the bones of many people, including Robert Stewart, into a common grave just outside the cathedral walls, where there is now a green space. Robert Stewart and all the Stewarts are not well-liked.  

 The unmarked common grave looks spookier through the fence

Lots of references inside to Richens. I photographed the tombstones.

The grave marker of Robert Richen, my 8th great-grandfather.

Stained glass window in St. Magnus Cathedral

Lunch at the cafe across the road from the cathedral... salads! Yay. I bought a tea towel with puffins on it. 

Went to the museum and got the time-line sorted out re settlements, and peoples, and dates. Then to the library archives where I found a book on the Richens, some of which the librarian photocopied(3£).

Then back on the bus to Stromness. He stopped as soon as we rang the bell so we did not have far to walk."

My travel journal doesn't really do justice to our day in Kirkwall. I wanted to go there to investigate my family connection to Orkneyjar, its name when reflecting its Norwegian roots. It was given to Scotland  by the king of Denmark and Norway as part of a dowry for his daughter Margaret, who married James III of Scotland in July 1469. The islands were never redeemed by him. 

Orcadians to this day feel attached to Scandinavia. In fact when we left Orkney Mainland, we were asked if we were going back to Scotland. Gaelic (on the road signs, along with English, in other parts of Scotland) is seen as unnecessary in Orkney; as Carrie of See Orkney told us, "No one speaks it here."

At the time we visited, I thought I was directly related to the notorious Robert Stewart, scion of  James Stewart V of Scotland and his mistress Euphemia Elphinstone, and Robert's equally despised son Patrick. Thankfully, the notorious Robert is merely the second great-grandfather of my seventh great-uncle, Robert Richan (1707-1791), husband to a Stewart descendant, Jane Stewart of Eday.

However, seventh great-uncle Robert Richen and I share another Robert Richen in common, his paternal great-grandfather and my eighth great-grandfather, who is remembered on the gravestone pictured above. Born in 1620, Robert was a well-off merchant in Kirkwall, making his living as a litster or dyer.  In the late 1660s, in addition to other property,  he bought two double dwellings, "two sclaitt ruifed and twa theack ruifed." The inscription on his tombstone refers to him as "Merchand - Burgess of Kirkwall, who departed this lyf 1 Decr 1679." (Source: The Richans of Orkney 1983)

Time passed and vowels changed and my fifth great-grandfather, Captain John Richan, born in Kirkwall in 1756, arrived in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia about 1788. He died there in 1807.  But who is his father? He is named "son of John Richan" in one book about Yarmouth. In another account, his father is said to have been  Captain William Richan, descendant of those nasty Stewarts via his mother's side. 

This Captain William (1741-1829) was a colourful figure (sea captain, decorated naval commander, smuggler and husband of a profligate wife who pretty much bankrupted him). I wish he were my direct relative for the stories about him. Alas, I did some math once we returned from our trip and discovered he would have become John's father at the age of 15, not an impossibility in those days (or any days), but John Richan would have been his fifth consecutive son. Not likely, even with his virile Viking blood (the Richen's originally hailed from Denmark in the mid-900's), would he have been a father before age 10. 

There is another William Richen in Kirkwell, about whom I know very little aside from his date of birth in 1713. I wonder if he is the father of my Yarmouth relative. Did the writer of the family chronicle get the two William Richens confused or did John Richan's descendants intentionally re-write the family history? I shall likely never know.

John Richan ran a pub called variously the Vengeance, the Olive Branch and the Phoenix over the years. He had been a midshipman on board the "Vengeance,"  and outside his tavern, he painted a sign showing the ship with it guns blazing,  "a masterpiece according to his son (yet another William Richan 1797-1875) in a story on oral history in the Yarmouth Herald dated 1902 . The building was later used as a courthouse, jail and public meeting place. It was situated at the corner of Main St. and Marshall Lane, where a plaque was placed by the Yarmouth County Historical Society in 1998 (according to a photo in Africa's Children:a History of Blacks in Yarmouth NS.) 

So I have come a long way in both time and geography. And taken something of a detour in my account of our trip.It is quite exciting for me to think I walked along streets in Kirwall and Yarmouth traversed by my ancestors.

Anyhow, while we were in Kirkwall, we also walked about inside the ruins of the Bishop's and Earl's palaces, located across the road from the cathedral:

The dreadful Patrick Stewart wanted to build a magnificent complex incorporating the Bishop's palace. Although it is a fine example of renaissance Scottish building, the Earl was not so fine. After a life of apparent unending feuding and general malice, he was executed for treason in 1615. The beheading was apparently delayed for a few days until he learned the Lord's Prayer. (Source:  http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/historicalfigures/patrickstewart/index.html)

While I was in Orkney, I did not reveal what I thought was my relationship to the Stewarts and was so relieved after coming home that it was not a direct relationship at all, just one by marriage: dodged a bullet and  possibly hostile stares on that one. 

The Earl's Palace:  Patrick Stewart Earl of Orkney

  

The much older Bishop's Palace originally looked something like this: 

It was built in the mid-12th century for Bishop William the Old, a friend and crusading companion of the founder of the cathedral.  (Source: http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/bishop.htm)

It followed the design for a typical Norwegian palace of the time, with a hall for entertainment and a tower for the bishop's residence.

We spent a couple of hours clambering around the ruins enjoying the lovely sunny day unencumbered by any other visitors.