Skulferatu #103 - Skateraw, East Lothian

Skateraw is a small hamlet, farm, and area of land by the coast in East Lothian.  It sits very close to Torness Nuclear Power Station, which dominates the skyline of the area.

 

Torness Nuclear Power Station

 

The coastline around here is very picturesque, despite what many may see as the carbuncle of the power station that sits over it.  However, I think that it actually adds to the area in a way.  This stark industrial building of blue grey melds into the changing light of the sky and almost compliments the more organic remains of the stone buildings of old industry that sit here.  For this is an area with an industrial past.

 

View from Skateraw to Torness

 

Skateraw is in an area rich with limestone deposits, and this was quarried and burnt to produce lime.  Lime was used in the manufacture of mortar and as an agricultural fertiliser.  In the Eighteenth Century a lime kiln was built on the shore of Skateraw, and the kilns produced lime on such a massive scale that a harbour was built so that it could be easily exported by ship to other areas of the country.  The harbour was destroyed by the sea in the late Nineteenth Century, though the remains of it can still be seen at low tide.

 

The limekilns at Skateraw

 

The destructive powers of the sea are something that have haunted this area over the centuries, from washing away buildings on the shore, to wrecking and sinking ships that were passing by. 

 

On a piece of land projecting out of the shore, there used to stand a small chapel that was dedicated to St. Dennis.  It is rumoured that the chapel was often used to store the bodies of those washed up from the numerous ships that were wrecked on the offshore rocks.  There, they would lay to either be claimed by their relatives, or to be buried in the nearby fields.   It appears that the chapel eventually fell into disrepair and the ruins of it were washed away and reclaimed by the sea, disappearing forever under the waves sometime in the 1830s.  Bones were later recovered in vicinity near to where the chapel had stood, leading to the belief that it must have been the burial ground for the chapel.

 

There are many stories of the ships that were wrecked on the rocks by Skateraw.  One of the most remarkable was that of two frigates, the Nymph, and the Pallas.  On the night of the 18^th of December 1810, these two ships were returning from a patrol of the North Sea when they mistook the lights burning from some of the limekilns for those of the Isle of May, and those on the Isle of May for the Bell Rock.  Changing course, they both struck the rocks at Skateraw.  The Nymph ended up right by the shore and tipped so that its masts almost touched the limekilns there.  This was a spot of luck for the sailors on board, as they all managed to scramble over the masts and get safely to land.  In the dark of the night no one could see what had happened to the other ship, the Pallas, and it was feared it had sunk.  Then at daylight it was found that it was stuck on the rocks with many of the sailors clinging to the wreck for dear life.  Boats were launched and most of the men were rescued and brought to shore, where they were provided with shelter and blankets to warm them.

 

Unfortunately, most were not as lucky, and there are various accounts of the shore being scattered with bodies and wreckage from ships that had floundered on the rocks.

 

Rocks at Skateraw

 

View over rocks at Skateraw to Barns Ness Lighthouse

 

Unlike many places in Scotland, Skateraw does not appear to have any connection with Mary, Queen of Scots, or to have been visited by her.  However, there was one rather famous visitor who stayed in the farmhouse there, that being Scotland’s national bard, Robert Burns.  On a visit to Dunbar in 1787, he made the acquaintance of a Mr Lee, who owned the farm at Skateraw, and was invited to dine and also to spend the night there.  Burns described Mr Lee as ‘a farmer of great note…an excellent, hospitable, social fellow, rather oldish; warm-hearted and chatty – a most judicious, sensible farmer.’ Indeed, Burns must have taken to the old fellow, as in the morning, before he left, he took a volume of his poetry, owned by Lee, and especially for him, filled in the blank names of those he had mentioned in his poems.  This book was then kept in the Lee family for many years, before being sold for the princely sum of £50 at Sotheby’s, around 1892.

 

During the First World War there was an airfield as Skateraw.  Well, I say airfield, it was actually what was called a landing site and was really there to be used in emergencies, such as, if the planes couldn’t get back to their permanent base because of bad weather or engine failure.  It was used by the No. 77 Home Defence Squadron, and when they were out flying, the farmer who owned the land would be telephoned and asked to make sure that there was no livestock wandering on the landing strip.

 

Memorial to all personnel and units based at Skateraw Airfield

 

During the 1930s, the minister of the Canongate church in Edinburgh, Reverend Ronald Selby Wright, set up the Canongate Boys Club for the poor boys living in the parish. He frequently took them camping at Skateraw where they built a hut at Chapel Point.  Near to where the hut used to stand, there is now a memorial cross to six of the boys who were killed in the Second World War.

 

Memorial cross at Skateraw

 

While out on my walk around Skateraw I clambered over some of the rocks that were exposed during the low tide.  On them were lots of limpets that had created patterns that almost looked like the symbols of some strange and alien language.

 

Limpet symbols on the rocks

 

I then headed round to the remains of an old cottage.  The cottage, rather than becoming a ruin due to abandonment and decay, was demolished in 1981, during the construction of the nuclear power station.  This was so that those protesting against the power station couldn’t occupy it.  Bit of a waste of a cottage if you ask me, but no one did.

 

Cottage wall almost hidden by the sea grass

 

Flowers by the cottage ruins

 

Ruins of the cottage

 

In the warm and lovely afternoon sunshine of my wander around Skateraw, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me in the wall of the ruined cottage.

 

Skulferatu #103

 

Spot the Skulferatu

 

Skulferatu #102 in a gap in the walls of the cottage ruins

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #103

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.973844

Longitude -2.421947

 

what3words: harshest.cherub.retract

 

I used the following sources for information on Skateraw –

 

The New Statistical Account of Scotland

Vol II, Linlithgow-Haddington-Berwick

By the Ministers of Respective Parishes, etc.

1845

 

The History of Dunbar

By James Miller

1859

 

The complete works of Robert Burns

by Robert Burns & Alexander Smith, Alexander

1887

 

The Athenaeum Journal of Literature, Science, The Fine Arts, Music and the Drama

January to June 1887

 

Canmore

Skateraw Harbour

Skateraw Landing Ground

 

Scram, No 24 – June/July 1991

 

Our Club

By Ronald Selby Wright

1969

Skulferatu #90 - Training Trenches, Dreghorn Wood, Edinburgh

 

On a day of damp and drizzle, with occasional bursts of warm sunshine that promised much but gave little, I went on a trip to Dreghorn.  This is a part of Edinburgh I’ve never really ventured to before.  I think I’ve passed through it on the bus a few times, but it is not a place I’ve ever stopped off in.  However, I’d been told there was a rather interesting relic from the First World War in the woods here, so I thought I’d go and take a look.

 

Dreghorn Woods are next to the army barracks, so there is a lot of fencing and barbed wire along the paths taking you round. The woods are quite tranquil though, a haven from the busy roads nearby.  Being Autumn, the paths were pretty much mud and puddles with a covering of gold and red from the fallen leaves. But, hey, that’s nothing for an intrepid explorer like me!

 

Braid Burn running through Dreghorn Woods

 

Obligatory photo of fallen leaves

 

Swirling branches

 

Barbed wire and fences – Dreghorn Barracks

 

I took the long walk round to my destination, which lay on a slope by the river and just down from the barracks.  Handily signposted, otherwise you’d just think it was some mud and old earthworks, were what I’d come looking for.  These holes in the ground were actually training trenches from World War One, to get the poor sods drafted into the army ready for fighting out on the front.  

 

I followed a well-worn path that skirted around them.  A path of wet, slippery mud and leaf goo.  It gave some impression of what the soldiers training here would have had to go through.  Though, unlike them, I wasn’t going to crawl through the trenches and the puddles of water and sludge.

 

Training trench at Dreghorn Woods

 

Training trench at Dreghorn Woods

 

A zig zag of trenches in the wood

 

Trenches in the woods

 

Dreghorn Woods used to form part of the Dreghorn Estate, which stretched up into the nearby Pentland Hills.  In 1905 the estate was purchased by the War Department, now the Ministry of Defence, for training, and as a barracks.  During World War One, recruits constructed a major trench system through the woods and were trained in the tactics and ways of trench warfare.  Though, having read both Erich Maria Remarque’s ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ and Ernst Jünger's ‘Storm of Steel’ I do wonder how well it would have really prepared them for the slaughter they were about to face. 

 

Remains of a trench in the woods

 

Remains of a trench in the woods

 

A trench in the woods

 

After World War Two, the military stopped using the woods for training and the trenches became overgrown and many were eroded away.  They were largely forgotten about until a local historian, Lynne Gladstone-Millar, led a campaign to preserve them.  Her father, who fought in the First World War, had trained at Dreghorn Woods, and had told her about his experiences there and that the mud in the woods, the ‘Dreghorn Sludge’, had been good training for fighting at the Somme.  In 2013 an archaeological survey was carried out on the remnants of the trench system, and it was cleared of trees and vegetation to help preserve it.

 

After taking a walk around, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me, at the side of one of the shallower trenches, by the remains of some corrugated iron that would once have been used to strengthen the sides of the trench.

 

Skulferatu #90

 

Skulferatu #90 in a trench

 

Skulferatu #90 in a trench

 

Skulferatu #90 in a trench

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #90 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.902423

Longitude -3.24401

 

what3words: book.trains.lock

 

I used the following sources for information on the Training Trenches –

 

Information Board at Site

 

Historic Environment Scotland

Dreghorn Woods Training Trenches

 

BBC – World War One at Home

BBC - World War One At Home, Edinburgh, Scotland - The Dreghorn Training Trenches

Skulferatu #82 - Braefoot Battery, Braefoot Point, Aberdour, Fife

On a sunny, but very windy day, I took the train out to Aberdour and then walked along the Fife Coastal Path towards Dalgety Bay.  The path wound its way through woods where birds chirped, insects buzzed, and everything swayed slightly in the stiff breeze.  The path then led me through a field, where I ended up by Braefoot Terminal.  A rather charming looking area of high fences and security where liquefied petroleum gas is stored and pumped out into the large tankers that dock there.  Following a path by one of the security fences I made my way into Braefoot Plantation, where the remains of Braefoot Battery lie.

 

The North Blockhouse

 

View inside the North Blockhouse

 

View through the woods to the North East Blockhouse

 

The North East Blockhouse

 

Braefoot Battery was a First World War coastal defence site that overlooked the Firth of Forth.  In early 1914, just shortly before the start of the war, the government bought the land the battery now sits on from the Earl of Moray.  It would seem however, that there had been plans for quite some time to build a battery there in preparation for any attack by enemy forces on the UK.  Construction then began with the battery being completed in 1915.  When finished it had two 9.2 inch guns, which could fire a shell weighing 55kg a distance of up to 26KM.  These large calibre guns were intended for use on enemy ships that may come into the Forth to attack either ships anchored there or the naval base at Rosyth.

 

Remains of one of the gun emplacements

 

Remains of one of the gun emplacements

 

Big bolts at the gun emplacement

Detail of the gun emplacement

 

Big metal ring at the gun emplacement

 

In 1917 the defence of the Forth was restructured and the guns at the Braefoot Battery were no longer needed there.  They were dismounted and put into storage, with one gun later being sent to Portsmouth.  The site was again used in WWII and several new buildings were added.

 

View down through the woods to one of the battery buildings

 

View down through the woods to battery buildings

 

View through the woods to the Royal Engineer store and workshop

 

View along by the barrack blocks

 

One of the battery buildings next to the barrack block

 

The toilet block

 

Urinal

 

A post war woodland plantation now grows all around the battery buildings and though this gave my walk a lovely woodland feel, the trees did obscure what once must have been quite spectacular views from the hill the battery is on.

 

Battery buildings

 

Hut in the woods

 

Drainpipe

 

After walking around the woods, I made my way down to the nearby shore.  Like almost everywhere along the coast of the Forth, probably the whole coast of Britain, there is a rather tragic story connected to this place.  A tale so horribly tragic that I just have to tell it...

 

...in 1887, on a sunny afternoon in mid-May, James Turnbull, a solicitor who lived in Aberdour, decided it would the perfect sort of day to sail out in his boat.  The perfect sort of day to get a good view of the construction work going on in the building of the Forth Bridge.  So, he invited his chief clerk, a Mr Ramsay, to comer along with him on this little jaunt.  The two men set sail and the weather was quite lovely, just until they got to Braefoot Point where a sudden squall caught them.  The small boat they were in was not built for these sorts of choppy waters and high waves, and it soon filled with water and began to sink.  The two men, both of whom were unable to swim, stood on the deck of the boat as the water first reached up around their ankles, and then up around their waists.  But behold, a passing steamer.  The two men on seeing the ship waved and shouted at it, hoping to be rescued.  On the deck of the steamer, the passengers thought they were seeing two bathers in the water waving as they went past.  So, they waved back, and the ship steamed on.  As the water reached up to their necks, both Turnbull and Ramsay realised they were doomed.  They said a little prayer, then their goodbyes to each other before the sea swallowed them up.  Now, on the steamer it so happened that three of the passengers who had been waving to the doomed men were none other than Turnbull’s daughters.  On their arrival home they excitedly chattered to their mother about their trip on the ship and having seen some bathers at Braefoot Point.  A friend of Turnbull’s was waiting in the house to see him and realising that he was not the most accomplished of sailors, had become concerned about how long it was taking for him to return.  On hearing the girls talk he had a sudden horrible realisation of what they might have in fact seen.  He quickly summoned some men, and they made their way to Braefoot Point.  There they found Turnbull’s boat washed up on the shore.  Shortly afterwards, as the tide went out, they found the bodies of both Turnbull and Ramsay.   Two men who quite literally had been not waving but drowning.

 

On the shore at Braefoot Point there stands an old pier.  I made my way out onto it and the wind, which had been getting up all day, battered me this way and that, making it difficult to even keep my balance.  The sea was rough, being whipped up by the wind and I understood how it could easily overwhelm a small boat like that which Turnbull and Ramsay had been sailing.  Feeling decidedly unsafe, despite being on dry land, I quickly made my way back and walked over to one of the battery pill boxes, which stood out on the rocks overlooking the Forth.

 

The pier at Braefoot Point

 

View to the pill box at Braefoot Point

 

Pill box at Braefoot Point

 

Pill box at Braefoot Point

 

There, in a howling gale, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my walk in a hole in the wall.

 

Skulferatu #82

 

Spot the Skulferatu

 

Skulferatu #82 in a hole in the wall at the pill box

 

Skulferatu #82 in a hole in the wall at the pill box

 

Map showing the location of Skulferatu #82

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 56.034242

Longitude -3.321253

 

what3words: throat.points.loved

 

I used the following sources for information on Braefoot Battery and Braefoot Point –

 

Dundee Courier - Saturday 14 May 1887

 

Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser - Monday 20 April 1914

 

Canmore

Canmore - Forth Defences, Middle, Braefoot Point Battery