The harbour-mouth, which is also the mouth of the Dee, is the beginning of the county on the sea-board. It is protected by two breakwaters, north and south, which shelter the entrance channel from the fury of easterly and north-easterly gales. To the south, in Kincardineshire, is the Girdleness lighthouse, 185 feet high, flashing a light every twenty seconds with a range of visibility stated at 19 miles. To the north of the harbour entrance are the links and the bathing station. The latter was erected in 1895 and has since been extended, every effort being made to add to the attractiveness of the beach as a recreation ground. A promenade, which will ultimately extend to Donmouth, is in great part complete; and all the other usual concomitants of a watering-place have been introduced with promising success so far, and likely to be greater in the near future.
From Donmouth the northward coast presents little of interest. All the way to the estuary of the Ythan is a region of sand-dunes bound together by marum grass and stunted whins, excellent for golf courses, but lacking in variety. In the sandy mounds in the vicinity of the Ythan have been found many flint chippings and amongst them leaf-shaped flint arrow-heads, chisels and cores, as well as the water-worn stones on which these implements were fashioned. These records of primitive man as he was in the later Stone Age are conspicuous here, and are
Girdleness Lighthouse
to be seen in other parts of the county. In the rabbit burrows, which are abundant in the dunes, the stock-dove rears her young. In 1888 a migratory flock of sand-grouse took possession of the dunes, and remained for one season.
Beyond the Ythan are the Forvie sands—a region of hummocks under which a whole parish is buried. The destruction of the parish took place several centuries ago, when a succession of north-easterly gales, continued for many days, whipped up the loose sand of the coast-dunes and blew it onward in clouds till the whole parish, including several valuable farms, was entirely submerged. The scanty ruins of the old church of Forvie is the only trace left of this sand-smothered hamlet.
Not far from the site of the Forvie church is a beautiful semi-lunar bay called Hackley Bay, where for the first time since Aberdeen was left behind, rocks appear, hornblende, slate, and gneiss. At Collieston, a village consisting of a medley of irregularly located cottages scrambling up the cliff sides, a thriving industry used to be practised, the making of Collieston “speldings.” These were small whitings, split, salted and dried on the rocks. Thirty years ago they were considered something of a delicacy and were disposed of in great quantities; now they have lost favour and are seldom to be had. At the north end of the village is St Catherine’s Dub, a deep pool between rocks, on which one of the ships of the Spanish Armada was wrecked in 1588. Two of the St Catherine’s cannon very much corroded have been brought up from the sea-floor. One of them is still to be seen at Haddo House, the seat of the Earl of Aberdeen.
Northward we come upon a region of steep grassy braes, consisting of soft, loamy clay, 20 to 40 feet deep, and covered with luxuriant grasses in summer and ablaze with golden cowslips in the spring months. Along the coast are several villages which once populous with busy and hardy fishermen are now all but tenantless. Such are Slains and Whinnyfold crushed out of activity by the rise of the trawling industry. The next place of note is Cruden Bay Hotel built by the Great North of Scotland Railway Company, and intended to minister specially to the devotees of golf, for which the coast links are here eminently suitable. The fine granite building facing the sea is a conspicuous landmark. Just north of the Hotel is the thriving little town of Port Errol, through which runs the Cruden burn—a stream where sea-trout are plentifully caught at certain seasons. The next prominent object is Slains castle—the family seat of the Earls of Errol. It stands high and windy, presenting a bold front to the North Sea breezes. All its windows on the sea-face are duplicate, a necessary precaution in view of the fierceness of the easterly gales. Very few plants grow in this exposed locality, and these only in the hollow and sheltered ground behind the castle, where some stunted trees and a few garden flowers struggle along in a precarious existence. As we proceed, the rocky coast rises higher and bolder and presents variable forms of great beauty. Beetling crags enclose circular bays with perpendicular walls on which the kittiwake, the guillemot, the jackdaw and the starling breed by the thousand. The rock of Dunbuy, a huge mass of granite, surrounded by the sea, and forming a grand rugged arch, is a summer haunt of sea-birds and rock-pigeons.
Sand Hills at Cruden Bay