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Saturday, 10 July 2021

Fort George and Brodie Castle: Scotland '21 Part 5

An 18th Century Fort that Remains a Fort and a 16th Century Castle that Became a Country House

09-Jul-2021

Forming a Plan

Scotland
Moray

Last night, over an excellent dinner with free-flowing wine, we discussed our plan for today with our hosts, Norma and Wilson. We thought we might re-visit the Culloden Battlefield (we had not been there this century), just this side of Inverness and perhaps drop in on Brodie Castle (National Trust for Scotland) on the way back. Wilson asked if we had ever been to Fort George. We have been to Fort William (again, not this century) and were vaguely aware of Fort Augustus, but I had never heard of Fort George, so that settled it.

Fort George is on the Moray Firth on the western edge of the map, Brodie Castle is near Forres

10-Jul-2021

Into the Highlands

Highland

Half way between Forres and Nairn we reached the Highlands. As we were still on the coastal plain and Fort George is beside the sea, this was high land in name only. Highland is an enormous district, ten times bigger than Moray and the largest and most sparsely populated local government area in the United Kingdom. Everywhere north and west of Nairn is Highland, and there is a fair chunk south and west, too.

Highways originally connected towns, even after tarmac and motor vehicles arrived people drove from town to town, and if your destination was beyond the nearest town you had to drive through it, and the next and as many as required to complete your journey. As cars became commonplace towns became congested. From the late 1950s new highways were designed to pass near towns, not through them, leaving town centres to local traffic. But the A96 is an old-fashioned sort of road, ploughing straight through the centre of Nairn (and Elgin, though it skips round Forres). Nairn is not large, but you must set aside 15 minutes or more to make the short drive from one end to another.

Fort George

Fort George sits at the tip of a small peninsula on the sort of linksland where the more peaceably inclined might build a golf course. There is not much to see as you walk up from the car park, a low wall, a turret or two and just a hint there may be something hidden in the folds of the landscape.

Approaching Fort George

Walking a little further reveals a sizeable dry moat lurking within that fold.

Outer Moat, Fort George

The ‘Welcome’ sign by the bridge, clashes a little with the original intention of the entrance.

Bridge over the moat, Fort George

Beyond is another dry moat and a drawbridge, confirming that the ‘welcome’ is (or rather was) conditional.

Second moat and drawbridge, Fort George

For purposes of orientation, an aerial photo is helpful, so I have borrowed one from Wikipedia. The photograph is by Stephen Branley and is reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 license. It is a typical 18th century fort with many bastions – angular structures projecting from the curtain wall to give multiple lines of fire – fitted to the geography of the tip of Ardesier peninsula’.

Fort George

The reason this example of 18th century state-of-the-art military architecture sits on a windswept little peninsula in the Moray Firth go back some way, so I will now explain 150 years of Anglo-Scottish history in a few short paragraphs. My apologies for omitting some of the nuance.

Tudors, Stuarts, Hanoverians

James the VI and I

When Elizabeth I died childless in 1603 the English monarchy had run out of heirs. Henry VIII’s sister had married James IV of Scotland and her great-grandson was now King James VI and as the closest available relative he was invited to become King James I of England (and, co-incidentally, Ireland) as well. For the first time England and Scotland shared a monarch, though remaining separate countries with their own parliaments and legal systems.

Queen Anne

James Charles Stuart, to give him his full name, was the first of six Stuart monarchs. Some did well enough, others encountered difficulties. The attachment of Charles I (Stuart No. 2) to absolute monarchy led to civil war, his execution and an 11-year interregnum. No.4, James VII and II insisted on becoming a catholic so was ousted in favour of his protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange. They were succeeded by Mary’s sister Anne in 1702. In 1706 the parliaments of England and Scotland voted to merge creating a new country to be called Great Britain.

Despite Queen Anne enduring 17 or more pregnancies, she died in 1714 without an heir. Her closest living protestant relative, George of Hanover was invited to become George I of Great Britain.

The ’17

George I
National Portrait Gallery

James II’s eldest surviving son, also called James, was born six months before his father was deposed. He spent his early life in France and was brought up a Catholic. After his father’s death in 1701, he believed himself the rightful king but there was little opposition to his half-sister Anne or support for a catholic monarch.

George I, German and more closely related to his own wife than to Queen Anne, was not an easy sell to those harbouring Catholic sympathies. In October 1717, pre-emptive arrests of James’ supporters (Jacobites) prevented a rising in southern England while an insurrection in northern England ended at the Battle of Preston a month later. The Earl of Marr had more success in Scotland.

James Stuart
National Portrait Gallery

Despite Scotland declaring itself Protestant in 1560, there were still many Catholics, particularly in the Highlands and Islands, far from the centre of government. James arrived in northern Scotland in December, and joined the Earl of Marr and a Jacobite army of 5,000 in Perth. Discovering that supporters of King George under the Duke of Argyll were marching north with a much larger and better equipped force, he left Perth for Montrose and sailed back to France.

The ’17, as it became known was easily suppressed, but action was taken to ensure it never happened again. Three forts were built along the line of the Great Glen, the geological fault separating the highlands from the rest of Scotland.

Fort William, at the foot of Ben Nevis has become the second biggest town in the Highlands, but there is little left of the fort. Remnants of Fort Augustus exist in a village of that name at the south west tip of Loch Ness and Fort George was built in Inverness. It was not this Fort George, building here started in 1748 after a second insurrection which we will come to shortly.

The Great Glen (in yellow) and the position of Fort William and Augustus and the two Forts George

Inside Fort George

The ditches and walls on the landward side of the fort are serious defensive obstacles, but once past the crunchy exterior the soft centre came as a surprise. We are familiar with the interiors of medieval castles, but 18th century forts are rare in this country.

It looked strangely like a housing estate – and the houses, or rather, barracks are still in use. Since 2007 Fort George has been the home of the Black Watch, dubbed the ‘Ladies from Hell’ in the First World War, though these days kilts are ceremonial wear only. There were few squaddies around, though a small detachment invaded the café on a mission to secure tea and sandwiches.

Inside Fort George

From the outside there is little special about the Lieutenant Governors’ House, but the sizeable interior is now home to the regimental museum of the Queen's Own Highlanders and Lovat Scouts. We wandered round the exhibits which include uniforms, weapons, medals, First World War memorial plaques known as "death pennies", photographs, paintings, memorabilia and regimental regalia. (That is Wikipedia’s list.) It is worth half an hour of anybody’s time, but either they did not permit photographs, or I forgot to take any.

From the museum we climbed onto the ramparts and walked to the seaward end of the fort. The visitors guide vastly improved my previously sketchy knowledge of military architecture. The ramparts are substantial earthworks with a line of casemates at the base. A casemate is a small room in the wall of a fortress, with openings from which guns or missiles can be fired. (OED) Several of these seemed to be just storerooms. At the points of the bastions are bartizans, battlemented parapets or overhanging corner turrets. (OED, again). From these defenders had wide angle of fire. This new knowledge should be illustrated with photographs, but I had a bad day, sorry. Wikipedia has pictures (link above).

Wildlife – Absent and Present

The end of the fort is the tip of the Ardesier Peninsula. With better alignment the peninsula and Chanonry Point on the far side could close off the Moray Firth, but Chanonry does its pointing in the wrong direction so the channel just narrows to around 1,500m, a taxing swim for a human (cold water, unknown currents) but a playground for dolphins. Several different people had told us this, but the expanse of grey water between the fort and the Black Isle (fake news, it is not an island at all!) was unruffled by wind, boats or dolphins. After staring across at Rosemarkie for some time, we decided no one was coming out to play today.

A good view of Rosemarkie unobscured by dolphins

The shore was not crowded with waders, either, but turning inland we found the chapel roof was popular with sea gulls while a couple of posing oystercatchers offered a photo opportunity.

Oystercatcher, Fort George

The Chapel

The (now) interdenominational chapel was added in the 1760s. Although described by Scottish Churches.org as a basic, squat box I think it is a handsome little building and fitting for the surprisingly handsome fort.

Chapel, Fort George

The interior raises the perennial problem of military churches. If every army has God on its side (and most claim they do) does God a) make difficult choices b) play no part in human conflicts or c) not exist anyway. Blessed are the peacemakers as a beardy man in sandals once said.

Chapel interior, Fort George

The Barracks

Historic Scotland have furnished several barrack rooms as they might have been in the 18/19th centuries.

Fort George barracks as they might have been

Some NCOs were accompanied by wives and children. Privacy may have been in short supply, but dry and relatively clean accommodation was luxury for an ordinary 18th century family, though there was always the danger of being sent off to war.

The ‘45

There was a story teller outside the barracks and when we joined him he was deep in the story of the ’45.

The 1717 Jacobite rebellion had failed but they had another go in 1745. It seemed a good moment, the War of the Austrian succession was keeping the British army occupied on the continent, George II, who had succeeded his father, left government to parliament, which did not please all, and Scotland was feeling neglected.

Charles Edward Stuart
Scot Nat Portrait Gallery

The would-be James III was now 57 so he sent his son, Charles Edward Stuart, known as ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, to do the rebelling. Charles raised his standard at Glenfinnan in the Highlands in August 1745, gathered an army and marched south. By October he was in Edinburgh and had control of most of Scotland, though he had not taken neither Edinburgh nor Stirling castles.

Had he settled for Scotland, he might have succeeded, but Charles was convinced he was the rightful king (once his father died) of all of Great Britain. He persuaded his allies that English Jacobites would flock to his banner and the French would stage a helpful invasion in southern England.

They marched south and reached Derby, 280 miles from Edinburgh and only 130 from London, on the 4th of December. Few English Jacobites had joined them, there was no sign of the French and the further south they went the more his Scottish allies worried about being cut off.

To keep his army together he turned back. After an orderly retreat he laid siege to Stirling Castle in January and beat off a relieving force. Although victorious he was weakened, gave up the siege and retreated further north to Inverness.

The showdown at Culloden on the 16th of April was a crushing defeat that finished the Jacobites as a political force. The lead up to Culloden had destroyed Bonnie Prince Charlie’s reputation as a leader, but his subsequent escape established him as a folk hero of sorts.

I had always thought of Culloden as English against Scots, but the story teller disagreed.  Scots fought on both sides and he saw it as a victory for New Scotland over Old Scotland.

The New Fort George

The old Fort George built in Inverness after the ’17 was taken by the Jacobites in 1745 and later blown up to deny its use to government forces. The forts and other measures taken to ensure there would never be another rising played their part in provoking that rising. To prove they had learned nothing, a new Fort George was built to really, really ensure there would never, ever be another rising. The sophisticated defences of the new Fort George have remained untested, Culloden had destroyed the threat.

Brodie

Back to Moray

By the time we left Fort George it was too late to visit both Culloden and Brodie Castle; we chose the castle because we had never been there before. Returning to the A96, we turned east and fought our way back through Nairn to the village of Brodie, 6 Km from Forres.

Norma and Wilson had suggested Brodie Country Fare as a possible lunch stop. It was a far bigger enterprise than we had expected and finding a parking place required some touring. By having many sections divided by woodland, they cunningly disguised a large car park as a small one.

The size of the shop could not be disguised and we followed the crowd through the rambling emporium towards the restaurant. That was big, too, and busy. It was, we realised, Saturday, and unwillingness to venture out during Covid had, apparently, been suspended for the day. We joined the end of a long queue. It moved swiftly but as we reached the front, we found they were handing our buzzers and promising to buzz in ‘45 minutes, maybe an hour, and do go and look round the shop’ - fine, if handicrafts, country clothing and decorative knick-knacks are your thing. We were already later than intended so decided to cut our loses and settle for a National Trust Sandwich and a cup of tea at Brodie Castle.

Brodie Castle

The earliest part of the castle, a couple of minutes’ drive off the main road, dates from 1567, but the site has been the seat of Clan Brodie since the 12th century.

National Trust Scotland accepts English National Trust cards (and vice versa) and the café provided the required snack. The grounds are famous for their daffodils, they have over 100 – or 400 – varieties (NTS claims both figures on their web site), but that is of little interest in August. They also claim their Playful Garden has an amazing menagerie of characters inspired by the castle’s quirky and colourful history, including Scotland’s biggest bunny sculpture – perhaps not age appropriate as we had not brought any grandchildren with us.

Clutching our timed ticket for the castle tour we marched up the drive. The tower on the left is a survivor from the original building, burnt down in 1645 by Lewis Gordon of Clan Gordon, an unfriendly act that also destroyed the Clan Brodie archives. Around it cluster several 18th century rooms, but most of the existing building is 19th century.

Brodie Castle, Moray

The guided tour showed only a small part of the interior – this may have been a Covid related curtailment of what Wilson remembered as a more comprehensive tour. The castle’s treasures include furniture, ceramics, paintings and a 6,000-volume library, but photographs were not permitted and without them I can recall little of what we saw. That makes it a disappointment for me and a pathetic piece of blogging. Sorry.

Dinner and Thanks

Back in Forres, Norma had been working hard in the kitchen. Dinner tonight was Mexican themed and again excellent. The wine flowed freely, but we left enough capacity to enjoy a small glass or two of the local product. With over fifty malt whisky distilleries, Moray is a paradise for the discerning tippler and we enjoyed Aberlour, and Benromach - as local as they come. 

We met Norma and Wilson in North Korea in 2013 and have kept in touch ever since, but this is the first time we have met on home soil. They looked after us royally and their advice about what to see was invaluable. We owe them a big ‘thank you’ and I hope we will be able to return the compliment in the near future.

11-Jul-2021


Lynne with Norma and Wilson, Forres

We took our leave in the morning and headed south for the last chapter of our Scottish sojourn in Lanark (coming soon).

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