Wandering around Grummore.

So, there we were, pitched up on the banks of Loch Naver in the heart of the Northern Highlands. It was a bit windy - but the weather was dry and bright, and however happy we might have been just taking in the spectacular view of Ben Klibreck we all know that you can't just sit around outside the 'van.

Besides, as noted in the last posting, there's a lot of history to be found in Strathnaver and its environs, so we set out to explore. We were feeling a little bit lazy though, so we didn't initially go all that far. A short walk up the hill behind the site brings you to the remains of the cleared village of Grummore - or "Big Grum" in English. The cleared remains of its counterpart Grumbeg, or "Little Grum"* can be found a little further up the road. Grummore is rather peaceful now. Unlike much of the surrounding country this relatively gentle slope is covered with lush green grass rather than heather and so is also covered in quietly grazing sheep and their associated droppings. Don't walk up there in sandals, is what I'm saying...

The low stone walls that are all that remain of this once thriving community protrude through the grass and bracken, rough grey scars amongst the vivid green. It looks in many ways like many other ruined villages you might see elsewhere from all sorts of different times. The difference with these ruins is that we know exactly when they became ruins. The precise moment when they stopped being homes and became the forlorn mounds of rubble they are today. We know who was here, we know why the people were removed and the buildings removed.

We know this because there are records, and because in the grand scheme of things it didn't happen all that long ago - just about two hundred years ago in the years between 1814 and 1819 in fact. Grummore was the first village in Strathnaver to be cleared on the orders of the Duke of Sutherland. By this time the clearances were nothing new, with many landowners in Scotland having already moved people off the land to make way for more profitable sheep. In many ways, in spite of the fact that he has become the symbolic hate figure for the clearances the Duke was in fact somewhat late to the party - he was neither the first nor the worst of the landowners who cleared their tenants from the land, he is simply the best remembered.

Not that this excuses what happened, of course. Prior to 1814 there were thirty settlements in Strathnaver. Now there are three. Altnaharra sits at the southern end, Syre is roughly half way up, and Bettyhill - where many of those cleared  ended up, sits right at the northern end on the coast. That's it. The clearances, overseen by the Duke of Sutherland's Factor, one Patrick Sellar, was zealous in his approach. In other parts of Scotland tenants were allowed to remove the timbers from their houses so that they could be re-used wherever they re-located. Sellar seems to have preferred to set fire to them. You can't argue that this wasn't an efficient method of making sure that people left and didn't come back, but it's hardly surprising that the clearances on Sutherland have come to represent the worst excesses of this depressing episode in Scottish history.

Sellar was, in fact, tried for these actions and for the murder of an old lady who died as she was being removed from her house. His defence seems to have been that he was acting lawfully because he was carrying out his employers orders - a defence that has become the default position for people involved in atrocities - and he was acquitted.  A cynic might well take the view that this acquittal owed more to the composition of the jury - they were all landowners who had something to gain from the clearances - and certainly the crofters who were removed did not feel that justice was done.

Still. The horrors of the clearances here at Grummore and elsewhere are history now. What you experience on the hillside now is peace. It's an easy walk - sheep droppings notwithstanding - not least because there is a planned trail around the site with wooden walkways carrying you over the roughest ground. This is because Grummore is the first (or last, I suppose, if you're starting at the other end...) stop on the brilliant "Strathnaver Trail". All the way along the valley sites of interest are marked by lilac coloured posts and provided with informative information boards so that you know what you're looking at. At most there is even space for you to pull off the road and park - a very important touch on a road that is only wide enough for one vehicle at a time.

As you wander through the abandoned and fallen houses - there are at least twenty that I have been able to make out; in some you can even still make out the floor plan - it is worth looking back down towards the loch, which looks spectacular from this vantage point. You also get a good view of the Broch that occupies one corner of the Caravan Club site - tangible evidence that occupation in this beautiful valley has a history that goes back a long, long way.

Brochs, as mentioned in the previous post, were circular stone towers and are very nearly unique to the Highlands**. Most date from around two thousand years ago, and nobody is entirely sure what they were used for.  In fact, there is a lively debate in archaeological circles regarding how many there actually are. The problem is that unlike a Roman Villa or ancient church, Brochs don't leave a particularly distinctive footprint once their walls have gone. You can see there used to be a round building there, you might even find evidence of occupation, but was it a Broch, or a roundhouse, or something else?

Anyway. The traditional view is that the structures which have been identified as Brochs were purely defensive, but modern thinking is that they were more akin to fortified farmhouses. The Brock at Grummore is pretty much collapsed now, but if you look down on it from the road you can still clearly see it's "doughnut" shape. The ones that survive in a more intact condition always remind me of power station cooling towers, and to me they suggest something about the ancient Scots which is quite surprising.

They didn't care about the view.

How do I know this? Because there are several Brochs which remain pretty much intact, and they all have one thing in common. There are no windows. Once inside, you couldn't see out - even the entrance ways are tiny - openings a couple of feet high by a couple of feet wide. I appreciate that our Iron Age ancestors had more to worry about than we do now, and that in the absence of glass windows meant no protection from the wind - which I can attest is pretty icy and pretty fierce at times - but even so, the idea of being in such a place and not being able to see it boggles my mind slightly.

Because there is just so much to see - as I hope to demonstrate in the next post...

*"Mor" means "Big" in Gaelic, "Baeg" means "Little" or "Small". I'm guessing that "Grum" means something too, but I'm still a novice in the Gaelic language and I have no idea what...

**There are a couple in southern Scotland, but the vast, vast majority are north of the Great Glen.

Sites for Sore Eyes - an occasional celebration of perfect places to pitch up. 1: Grummore/Altnaharra

I really am in two minds about this post. There's  a bit of me that loves this place so much that I just want everybody to know about it. There's another bit of me that loves this place so much I just want all of you to stay the hell away so that me and Mrs Snail can have it all to ourselves. However, the Caravan Club has been promoting the bejeezus out of the place this year - so if I'm ever going to talk about it, now would appear to be the time...

We discovered the place about five years ago and were instantly smitten - there is real magic here, so I'm making it the first of an occasional series where I talk in depth about the actual sites where we stay. I don't normally do that, preferring to concentrate on the places to see and places to eat in the area. But some sites are special and deserve some extra attention. Grummore is one such place. 

The Caravan Club site at Grummore*, sits on the banks of Loch Naver about four miles east of the little village of Altnaharra, and twenty odd miles north of the town of Lairg in the Northern Highlands. The site occupies a narrow strip of land between the road and the Loch, offering one of the best views I can imagine of Ben Klibreck - one of the 282 "Monros", or "Scottish Mountains over 3,000 feet". When the weather is calm - which is surprisingly often given the location, Loch Naver becomes a perfect reflecting pool, offering a double view of this extraordinary peak. Whatever the weather the constant changes of light make the view endlessly fascinating.

Facilities are spartan, at least by club standards. Only about half of the pitches have electric hook up, there is no shower block, no laundry, no toilets. Just a chemical closet emptying point, a waste water drain and two taps. Oh, and unless you're carrying a portable satellite system (which we do not) there's no TV signal. Even the FM radio reception isn't perfect. Oh, and you have to drive over twenty six miles on single track roads.

For me and Mrs Snail, there is more than enough. We would be quite happy to park up the 'van here and just sit and watch the ever changing view. But even if that's all you do, that's not all there is. Interest is added by the vast quantity of wildlife which frequents the place. There are the ever present sheep (the warden is often to be seen patrolling the site with a small shovel and a bucket clearing up after them), the groups of red deer which can be seen on the hill behind the site and on the opposite shore, and the astonishing abundance of bird life.

Our bird feeder has attracted Blue Tits, Great Tits, Chaffinches and Siskins in great numbers. At the right time of year you will see huge quantities of Swallows and Swifts and while you may not always see them, in late spring and early summer the distinctive call of the Cuckoo is pretty hard to miss. You're also guaranteed to see larger specimens.

If you've been reading this blog from the start you'll know that I have a thing for Raptors; one of the earliest editions of the blog went on at some length about a falconary display. There is just something about the larger Raptors that makes your heart race when you catch a glimpse of them wheeling and soaring in the distance. Well, around Grummore you will not only see Buzzards doing just that, there's every possibility you will see them up close and personal - I've been within three feet of one which just sat on a wall and looked at me.

There have been sightings of Golden Eagles in the hills around nearby Loch Loyal - although I confess I've never seen one - and when we were there last (Whit Week 2013)we learned that one of the people staying at the same time as us had seen our largest bird of prey, the White Tailed Eagle, on the opposite shore of Lock Naver not once but twice. Ironically at the time we were parked up by the shores of Loch Loyal scanning the sky for Golden Eagles... We've also seen pairs of the rare Red Throated Divers, and their even rarer Black Throated cousins. Herons, Tufted Ducks, Geese, Plovers, Dunlin (see below), Oyster Catchers - it's a veritable bird watching paradise! 

Birds aren't the only things flying around either. While they're not frequent enough to become a noise nuisance, you will also get to see the RAF's fast and not so fast jets doing their thing. I don't think we've ever stayed there without having at least one low flypast from either a Tornado or a Typhoon skimming the Loch - and by low, I mean low enough to make out the profile of the pilot - and slightly more in the distance you can often see pairs of Tornado GR4s dancing between the hills as they rehearse their ground attack/force protection routines.

Seriously, if watching stuff that fly is your thing, you may never want to leave the site!

Indeed, in some ways there's no need to. Grummore sits almost literally in the middle of nowhere. the nearest towns are Lairg, twenty off miles southish and Bettyhill, twenty odd miles to the north at the mouth of the River Naver. With no disrespect to these little towns there is very little reason to visit either - although there is a rather good museum in Bettyhill, about which more in a later post...

Lairg and Bettyhill are probably the closest shops - don't get excited, they're pretty small and will only be able to supply the basics - but if you plan well before you set out you probably won't need them unless you're staying awhile. The absolute basics - bread, milk, etc, can be obtained from the warden's little shop, which will also provide ice-creams - and does a roaring trade on hot days as cyclists pause for a wee rest by the lochside.

There is a good day out to be had in the town of Dornoch on the Eastern Coast, and in the town of Ullapool on the Western Coast, but they're both something of a hike from here and easier to get to from almost anywhere else. The space inbetween these places however is full of beauty and wonder, so a certain amount of "getting out there" is highly recommended.

Then there's the history. The valley of Strathnaver, where Grummore is to be found, and the surrounding areas possibly drip with it. Not all of it is happy. Grummore, the village after which the site used to me named can still be seen on the hill immediately above the site. Well, the remains of it can. The Village of Grummore was cleared rather violently at the height of the notorious Highland Clearances - a violent and shameful sequence of events which have both shaped and scarred the Highlands of today. There are many clearance villages along the valley - now largely empty of people but once positively humming with communities. As a result we'll keep coming back to them as we explore the place in future postings.

But the history of human occupation in this valley goes back much further than the tragedy of the clearances. On the Loch shore at the edge of the site itself sit (for they are far too collapsed to be called "standing") the remains of an Iron Age Broch - a sort of fortified farmhouse/tower unique to the north of Scotland and the Islands. The broch at Grummore is little more now than a ring of rubble, but there are better preserved examples both in the valley and in the surrounding area.

And it is the area around this amazing little site that we'll be exploring in the next post.

*Now officially called "Altnaharra" as part of the Club's efforts to make the location of their sites clearer. Because obviously everybody knows where Altnaharra is...

The walls of Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Let's get things straight from the start. The walls at Berwick-upon-Tweed are spectacular - on a warm sunny day I can think of few things finer than a leisurely stroll around their not-quite-two-mile circumference with the sun on your face and the cry of seagulls in your ears.

I wish I'd walked around them on such a day.

The reality of travelling in the UK of course, is that sunshine can never be relied upon. You can respond to this by remaining indoors whenever the sky turns the colour of slate, the temperature slides anywhere south of tropical or the wind rises beyond the gentle but to do so is to ensure you never get out and do anything; that makes the whole exercise of travelling utterly pointless. I can, after all, sit indoors at home.

So, I pulled on my jacket, strapped on my boots, clamped my Aussie bushman's hat on my head and strode out of the caravan. The Berwick Seaview site is on the opposite side of the Tweed to the walls half way up a hill above what is technically Tweedmouth rather than Berwick looking out to sea. I wandered down the hill to the river's edge - there's actually a pretty substantial beach there when the tide is out - and followed the road round past the rather grim looking port area towards the old Berwick Bridge.

This lovely little sandstone bridge is the smallest of the three Berwick Bridges, the other two being the larger "Royal Tweed Bridge" which now carries the bulk of road traffic over the river, and the immensely tall viaduct known as the "Royal Border Bridge" which carries the East Coast mainline. While the viaduct is certainly imposing its smaller seventeenth century counterpart has much more charm.

The honeyed yellow river crossing is the fifth bridge to grace this site, two having been destroyed by flooding , one in an English attack (presumably while Berwick upon Tweed was in Scottish hands) with the forth incarnation standing from 1376 until James I (or James VI if you're north of the border) ordered the construction of this final version in 1611. Comprising fifteen doric arches it links the north and south banks of the river and when it was completed in 1624 it carried the main road between Scotland and England.

Those glory days are now long past. The main England/Scotland road on the eastern side of the country is now the A1, which thunders by to the west of Berwick these days. Now the bridge carries a relatively small number of cars travelling south out of Berwick into Tweedmouth (it's a one way street) and foot traffic in both directions. I ambled across and turned right, following the banks of the Tweed towards the sea, just on the outside of the walls, taking a little detour along to the end of "Berwick Pier".

 

 It's not a pier at all, truth be told, it's a long harbour wall reaching out like a crooked finger and sheltering the mouth of the Tweed from the full force of the North Sea. Recently restored this early nineteenth century sea defence-cum-promenade is a great place to stand and look out to sea. There are clear views south towards the magnificent Bambourgh Castle and the Farne Islands. Grey seals are relatively common, and there are all manner of sea birds to admire. This part of the Tweed is also home to one of the largest colonies of Mute Swans in the country too, so you can be assured of some wildlife to look at.

At the end of the "pier" there is a small red and white lighthouse which, apparently is occasionally used to host artistic events but for most of the time merely acts as a focal point. I can imagine that on a fine summer's day with swans cruising around on the river one side and gannets diving spectacularly into the sea on the other a stroll to the lighthouse is a very pleasant thing. As previously mentioned however, this was most definitely not a fine summer's day. The wind was brisk, icy, and blowing drizzle down the back of my neck so I admired the view for about five seconds before turning on my heel and heading back to the shelter of the walls.

I made my way through a narrowish gate - just wide enough for a car to squeeze through, and found myself at the bottom of the high street, which ran up hill away from me. Thrusting my hands into my pockets I set off to explore.

To be fair, it was genuinely a wet Sunday afternoon but even so the place seemed rather oppressively grey and quiet with more than a couple of empty shops. Still, in these current rather harsh economic times the same could be said about many - if not most - high streets so it doesn't do to judge. The weather probably contributed rather a lot to the gloomy mood too. As did the discovery of the town's stocks by the wall of the town hall, which itself sits rather incongruously in the middle of the road.

According to the helpful little brown plaque fixed to the wall above them, the first record of these rather lopsided stocks in Berwick was in 1604 and although they may have remained in use until as late as 1857 their last recorded use was in 1849 when a woman was clapped in them for drunkenness and non-payment of court fines.  History - or at least that bit of history represented by the little brown plaque - does not know the name of the woman in question, but to be fair, that's not exactly the sort of claim to fame you'd dine out on at parties: "Oh, yes, I was the last person ever to be put in the stocks for being a pisshead who couldn't pay their fines..." In modern times of course such people are paraded not in the stocks but on the Jeremy Kyle Show. I know which I think is the most humiliating...

A short walk further up the hill brings you back to the walls, and the gate that takes you out of the town in a northwards, and Scottish, direction. This is where you'll find the largeish Co-Op and , more importantly for my purposes, a set of steps to get you up onto the top of the walls. You get a different perspective on the town from up there - although on the day I chose to make the walk I have to say nothing looked any less grey, although there was a rather good view down the high street to the Town Hall...

I wandered round in an anti clockwise direction, occasionally stepping down into the streets to see what there was to see. It's a fascinating way to explore a place - both enthralling and strangely disorienting. Whilst I can tell you that all of the things I'm about to show you were on or near the walls, I honestly have no idea where they are in relation to the rest of the town, and the only directions I can give you for most of them are "follow the walls and you can't miss it".

So. What did I see on the walls?

Perhaps the biggest tourist attraction in the vicinity of the walls are the Berwick Barracks. Now in the hands of English Heritage, they were designed by celebrated architect Nicholas Hawkesmoor, and when they were built in early eighteenth century they were the first purpose built barracks in the country.

I find this fact rather extraordinary. Up until then nobody had ever thought "we've got to station a lot of troops in an area. Perhaps we should sort out somewhere for them to live..." That when somebody did finally think of it, the fact that they needed to house a lot of soldiers in Berwick says a lot about the strategic importance of the town.  By all accounts it's a pretty cool place to visit, but I wouldn't know because despite being an English Heritage member and so entitled to free entry (and I do love free stuff) I was visiting on a Sunday, so it was shut.

Maybe next time...

Perhaps less impressive than the grand barracks was this little guard house I found further along the walls.

 

The not entirely helpful English Heritage sign which lured me from the walls informed me that "This eighteenth century guard house used to be in Marygate and was move here in 1815." All well and good, but it doesn't tell me why. Or where Marygate is. Or where "here" is for that matter. Still, it's a pretty little building. You'll be unsurprised to learn that it wasn't open when I visited, but the unhelpful little sign was good enough to tell me that the "Main Guard" is open from June to September. Presumably there are opening hours, but the sign didn't say. As I said, it wasn't the most helpful sign in the world.

 

There were a few cannon scattered around the place - presumably either to discourage the pesky Scots or - and this is no less likely - to serve to scare off the English if Berwick decides it want to rejoin Scotland in the event of that great nation deciding to vote for independence in 2014.

There was also this:

Probably my favourite public bench of all time. I can almost hear the conversation: 

"We should put a bench here - let people sit on the walls and look out at the view."

"Yeah. Problem with that of course is that you can't see over the ramparts if you sit down."

"No problem. We'll put the bench on stilts..."

Genius. Just genius. Much like the whole of the walls. They really are worth walking around. As you do, you can see that the gun emplacements are pretty cunning. They give pretty much 360 degree protection, there really was no way of getting close to the walls without getting your head blown off. As you stand on them you can clearly see how thick they are - even modern weaponry would have a hard time breaching them - cannonballs simply need not apply.

Even on a miserable, cold, wet, dismal Sunday afternoon the walls were full of interest and surprise. I'll certainly go back someday. Perhaps in the summer, and on a weekday, when things are open. And the weather is better.

The truth about Berwick's war with Russia...

It didn't take us long to realise that Berwick-upon-Tweed is a strange place. It's as close to England's northern border as it is possible to be without being in Scotland, and indeed, has leapt from one kingdom to the other so many times as the border as oscillated north and south that it was often difficult to be sure which country it was actually in. This gave rise to the popularly believed story that Berwick was accidentally at war with Russia for several decades.

The story goes that because the town kept finding itself on different sides of the border Berwick came to be viewed as a sort of stateless entity in its own right. As a result, decrees, treaties and other intergovernmental paperwork referred to "England, Scotland and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed". So far, so good. 

Then came the Crimean war - an epic battle between Britain and Russia that led to much death and destruction, a mediocre poem by Tennyson, the discovery of every terrorist's favourite headgear, the "Balaclava Helmet", the rise to fame of a certain Florence Nightingale and the rather shameful failure of a grateful nation to remember Mary Seacole until somebody invented Black History Month more than a century later. When the killing was over the two warring nations met in Paris to sign the 1856 "Treaty of Paris" which ended the conflict.

I have no idea why Britain and Russia signed a treaty in Paris. Perhaps the diplomats involved really, really liked croissants, strong coffee and rude supercilious waiters. Who can say. Crucial to the story, however, is the fact that the peace treaty makes no mention of Berwick-upon-Tweed - meaning that this little north eastern town is technically still at war with Russia!

Now, this is a very nice story but whilst this would explain the town's devotion to its Elizabethan fortifications there are a couple of problems with it. First of all, while it is true that there is no reference to Berwick in the peace treaty, there is no reference to Berwick in the declaration of war either. Add to that the fact that Imperial Russia effectively ceased to exist with the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, which meant there was no Russia to be at war with after that date - and the rather obvious fact that towns can't declare war in the first place and the whole thing rather falls apart.

Still. It is a nice story.

 It's a fitting one too. Berwick-upon-Tweed is a town steeped in battle set on a coast and in a landscape that is festooned with relics of past conflict. Still, we were there for only a few short days, and there was no way we were going to be able to take in everything in such a short time. The northern section of Northumberland is just too crammed with interest. To be honest, we didn't even visit Berwick properly.

I drove through it on the evening of our arrival looking for a supermarket - we'd been on the road for more than a week and although we'd made a foray to the Tesco in Barrow-in-Furness while staying at Ravenglass, supplies were getting low. As a public service I can tell you that Berwick is blessed with three supermarkets. There's a smallish ASDA (which is the closest to the Caravan Club site), a largeish CO-OP literally just outside the walls and a medium sized Tesco.  Of the three, I found the Tesco the best - which is a shame, because that first night I didn't find it and so was at the mercy of the Co-op and the ASDA.

I don't know if I've made a big enough thing of this yet, but we Snails are food snobs. Sorry, but we are. We don't insist on organic meat, but we do insist on free range. Essentially if I'm going to have an animal killed so that I can eat it, I like to think it's seen the sky a couple of times; call me a soppy sentimentalist if you like. Free range seems to be an idea that Berwick hasn't totally embraced, because my choice at both the ASDA and the Co-op was severely restricted. As in, neither place had any.

On the up side, I was able to replenish our dwindling stock of red wine and the ASDA also supplied the perfect salt shaker/pepper grinder combo that I've been looking for for the caravan for ages, so I guess I'll let them off...

At this point it should be noted that the little retail park about five hundred yards from the Caravan Club site boasts an M&S Simply Food, which I didn't notice on the first night there, but which will amply provide for the most seasoned food snob, which means that in the end Berwick turns out to be a source of culinary delight...

Anyway. None of this tomfoolery is telling you anything about the place itself.

As previously mentioned the town is surrounded by rather impressive Elizabethan defensive walls, built between 1558 and 1570 to defend the place from the Scots. The English/Scottish border was a pretty dangerous place in the sixteenth century and the strategic importance of the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed simply cannot be overstated. The Scots were rather keen to get their hands on it, the English - having lost it several times over the years as the border wandered north and south apparently at will - were equally keen to hang on to the place.

The result of this desire was - at the time - the most expensive construction project England had ever seen and is now the only fully intact se of Elizabethan town walls in the whole of England and nearly four hundred and fifty years after their construction they are still a pretty impressive structure. At a mile and three quarters in length they completely surround the old town and are pierced by just four gates. Had you been a rampaging Scottish army in the late sixteen hundreds, you really would have thought twice before you took them on - they are huge!

Back in the day I suspect they made the good people of the town feel very safe indeed. In more modern times they're a useful tourist attraction and a fantastic vantage point from which to view the town and its surroundings. The tourist websites suggest that a walk around these magnificent ramparts will take you about forty five minutes, but I reckon that if you want to really see and appreciate the place you ought to give yourself a good hour or more. Decide for yourself next time we chat because I'll be taking you on a little walk around the fortifications...