Unexpected Benches - Kilmany Circular - 22nd December 2020

Today's walk was inspired by my friend, Margaret, who had asked if I had walked any of the Kilmany disused railway and I had had to confess I hadn't even heard of it. This felt strange; I was becoming familiar with swathes of the Fife countryside, if not literally, by dint of perusing the Ordnance Survey map for hours on end. So how had this part escaped my attention thus far?

Of course, her enquiry led to my using the search function on my Memory Map and then to devising a route along the old railway line (Newburgh and North Fife (NNF) Railway Line). The Fife Free Press had this to say about the opening of the new railway line:

The Newburgh and North Fife Railway, which is to be opened on Monday [25 January 1909] for public service, is about 13¼ miles in length and was built at a cost of about £240,000. The new railway, besides being expected to aid in the development of an important agricultural district, gives the North British a through route between the districts to the north and west of Perth and Dundee and the Forfarshire coasts. There are three stations, at Kilmanie, Luthrie and Lindores, which have been designed with specially long platforms for the accommodation of the summer excursion traffic. (Fife Free Press 23rd January 1909)

It was with an elevated air of expectancy that I found my way to Kilmany and squeezed into a parking place in this tiny, hidden village. After the usual ceremony of donning boots, etc, I decided I would pay Jim Clark a visit. I had a notion he was a racing driver and there my knowledge on the subject ended, but he was worthy of a memorial and a beautiful one at that.

Life-size Jim Clark memorial, Kilmany, NO3821

Clark was born at Kilmany House Farm on 4th March 1936 and became one of the greatest ever Formula One drivers. He died tragically in a racing accident at Hockenheimring, Germany, where the cause of death was thought to be a deflating rear tyre. He was held in such esteem that it was thought impossible that one of such calibre could be capable of a fatal driving error. He is buried in Chirnside, in the Borders, where his family had moved to in 1942.

The Jim Clark memorial is placed next to the attractive Motray Water which runs through the village of his birth. 

Bridge over Motray Water, Kilmany, NO3821

I crossed the bridge and headed west on the disused railway line. Just as I crossed into the next gridsquare, there is a break in the railway line, forcing me to go up onto the A92, which I crossed and then rejoined the railway line.

Disused NNF railway line, Kilmany. NO3821

Tunnel under the A92 on the Newburgh/North Fife Railway Line. NO3721

 I continued along the railway line until I reached the minor road and a former bridge.

Former railway bridge near Kilmany - NO3721

I had to climb over the gate you can see in the photo to rejoin the railway line. Without realising it, I was now following the lower contour of North Hill and heading in a south-west direction.

Dismantled NNF railway line west of Kilmany- NO3721

As I approached the road north of Rathillet I could see across to Stirton, where I would be in a few hours' time. All I had to do now was turn right instead of left and I would miss out a good third of my walk. Sometimes I am tempted by such thoughts, but not today, not on this glorious wintry day.

Stirton from the south. NO3621

Just before reaching the road, I crossed a former bridge over the Motray Water and looked down onto the burn in the hope of seeing a Kingfisher fly past. It was a day for shimmering things and a Kingfisher's electric blue would have fitted nicely into such a day. Sadly, it did not materialise, but there was plenty of other bird activity around me, flocks of tits and finches and the occasional angry wren.

Bridge over Motray Water. Intriguingly called No. 10. NO3621

Once over the bridge I couldn't seem to find a way to stay on the railway line, so descended to the aforementioned road and headed south towards Rathillet. Thus ended my travels along the North Fife/Newburgh Railway Line for the day. The rest of my walk would be through fields and woodland and along roads.

Road to Rathillet. NO3521

Ahead I could see the junction where I would turn right towards Newburgh. There was another bridge over the Motray Water here.

Bridge over Motray Water at T-junction near Rathillet. NO3520

That was my brief sojourn in NO3520. I had visited this gridsquare several years ago, before my quest began, when a different quest was under way - that of visiting places associated with the Covenanters. This was to see the birthplace of David Hackston's of Rathillet at, you guessed it, Rathillet. He was one of the Covenanters responsible for the murder of Archbishop Sharp's murder - but, seeing as I did not actually go there today, that story will have to save for another day!

Today, I turned right onto a slightly more major minor road where I returned to NO3521 (the most dipped in and out of square of the day) and daringly turned onto the driveway of Montquhanie House. There were no off putting private signs, but I still felt very conspicuous as I wandered along the broad driveway towards the grand country house.

Sign and entrance for Montquhanie House. NO3521

Drive to Montquhanie House. NO3521

But then I saw a welcome bench, plonked by the side of the road. No why would there be such a bench if not to rest the weary legs of intrepid hikers? I asked myself as I gladly dropped my heavy rucksack onto the bench, sat down and got out my flask.

Bench on driveway to Montquhanie House. NO3521

No, I know what you're thinking. This is when a car pulls up and ask you what the **%$* you think you're doing on their land? Right? Wrong. I was troubled by no-one and nothing other than a slightly guilty conscience about the possibility I shouldn't be there. But I pushed these thoughts away whilst I sipped my tea and drank in the fresh, invigorating winter air.

I continued on my way, checking my map every 5 seconds to make sure there was no alternative route as I got closer and closer to the imposing house with about five cars parked outside and my chosen route going directly in front of the house. My slightly dented confidence now became too dented to continue. I just couldn't do it, despite this looking like the most interesting part of the walk. I would have to head back and find a secret way through the woods. My only consolation was that I wasn't going to miss out on any gridsquares in doing so.

Once back on the road to Cupar, I breathed a sigh of relief and walked nonchalantly along the road to the farm, where I paused to take a photo for the gridsquare.

Mountquhanie Farm - NO3421

It was now that I began to realise what a great gridsquare this was - and I'd missed half of it, through fear, justified or otherwise. The farm building was, after all, attractive in itself with its red windows and door and opposite on a concrete gatepost was my first benchmark of the day.

Benchmark on gatepost, Mountquhanie. NO3421

As if this wasn't enough excitement for one gridsquare, there was more to come - in the form of Mountquhanie Castle. Now this really is something I need to investigate further. Is it possible to access this ruinous castle, I wonder?

Canmore has this to say about this fascinating historic dwelling place and its associated buildings.

The ruin of this 16th century fortified house comprises an oblong tower-house, formerly of three storeys. There is a courtyard to the west, open to the north and walled to the south. There are two-storey buildings on the west side of the courtyard, the corner tower of which has a conical roof. The courtyard buildings are now occupied as a house known as Feather Cottage.

The castle was deliberately ruined after the completion of Mountquhanie (or Mountquhannie) House in the 1830s. A small single-storey 'Gothic' laundry was constructed to the east of the tower-house. Feather Cottage was used for estate workers' housing and the upper portion of the circular tower was converted to a dovecote. The vaulted ground-floor chambers were converted to an estate slaughterhouse and butcher shop. The slaughterhouse occupied the east chamber and had a large tree trunk built into the walls to support it just under the vault. This was used to hoist the carcases during the slaughtering process. The west chamber contained the butcher shop and two of the blocked window recesses were converted to smoke kilns for the curing of meat.

The cattle were driven from Balquhidder to Mountquhanie each Martinmas and a butcher was brought from Cupar to slaughter the animals and cure the meat This practice continued into the fIrst half of this century when the slaughterhouse was abandoned.

There is also a small domestic icehouse a little to the west of the farm buildings.

To complete the romantic image the ruin was planted with ivy. Its position on the brow of a hill helped to achieve its utilitarian function of disguising these estate buildings and screening the farmstead from the mansion house.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Fife and Tayside’, (1987).

Who wouldn't want to go and explore some more with an ice house, a feather house, a slaughter house, a doocot as well as a castle? All I saw on this occasion were the ruins of the castle, although, having seen a similar looking doocot at Lundin, I wondered whether the small building in front of the Castle was the doocot.

Mountquhanie Castle. NO3421

The excitement of that gridsquare was now all over, however; it became quite dull after that. I walked westwards and then northwards along the minor road to Hazelton, just dipping into NO3321.

Road to Hazelton NO3321

I was only in the next gridsquare briefly too. and photographed the crossroads, where I turned right.

Crossroads at Hazelton. NO3322

I was now heading north-east and starting to think about lunch. There were excellent views to the River Tay from here, which took me a bit by surprise as I'd forgotten I was this far north in the county. 

River Tay from Corbiehill. NO3322

I realised I was approaching Tay Mount trigpoint and hoped it would be easy to access. You never know with trigpoints; they are often in farmers' fields with stock and I usually ask permission if this is the case.

I had no problem on this occasion, thankfully. There was even a path straight up to the trigpoint, which is situated next to pines on Tay Mount Hill at 189 metres.

Pines on Tay Mount Hill. NO3422

Tay Mount trigpoint. NO3422

And this is where my second unexpected bench came in. There amongst the pines, was a small enclosure with a memorial to a loved one, a Christmas wreath, and a bench. I hoped whoever put it there didn't mind my using the bench to eat my lunch.

Tay Mount bench. NO3422

I was also pleased to discover that the descent was easy too. There is no path marked on the map between the trigpoint and the start (or end) of the path to Stirton, which I'm always worried about, even if it is only a matter of a 100 yards or so., Those 100 yards have proved to be horrendous on past occasions. Not so today, however, and I skipped down the hill, through another gridsquare in glorious sunshine, to the start of the track.

Descending Tay Mount. NO3522

From here I could see North Hill, which I had walked round earlier in the day and took the opportunity to photograph it with a bricked in bath tub - not something you see everyday when you're out and about. On a nice summer's day I imagined this would be a lovely place to sit in the bathtub, but you might get some funny looks!

Bath tub and North Hill with Stirton in centre of photograph. NO3521

I had been in this gridsquare earlier, just before my escape from Mountquhanie and was now approaching the place where I would have ended up if I'd been tempted to cut my walk very short a few hours before.

Track to Stirton from the west with North Hill and Darklaw Hill in the background. NO3521

At Stirton Mill, I turned left and northwards to Grange, where I strode off to the north-east, initially taking a wrong turn by heading mistakenly straight for Fincraigs. Fortunately I realised my mistake almost instantly through my obsessive habit of checking the map every five seconds.

Stirton Mill. NO3521

Grange. NO3622

Shambleton Rocks from Grange. NO3622

I was quite excited about Shambleton Rocks. I thiknk it was the name that did it; it reminded me of one of my all-time heros, the great Antarctic explorer, Sir Ernest Shackleton. And maybe too, I rather like to word shambles, so I wondered what I might discover here.

Firstly though, I had another gridsquare to conquer, NO3623, not quite as difficult as Shackleton's conquest, admittedly, but this was my furthest north today and I did have to avoid some distant cattle. At the road, I turned left and hoped my next footpath would prove to be as easy as most I had encountered today. I'm glad to say, it did!

Road near Fincraigs. NO3623

I was surprised to discover a small pond at Fincraigs as it is not marked on my 2004 map. Unfortunately, there was no bird life here to see or hear.

Pond at Fincraigs. NO3623

Soon I was bathed in wintry light in Shambleton Woods with the glow of autumn embracing me.

Shambleton Woods. NO3722

This was a lovely part of the walk, although it was neither a shambles nor reminiscent of Shackleton! I wandered into the next gridsquare, breathing in the glorious wintry air.

Shambleton Woods. NO3822

When I reached the next gridsquare, I kept my eyes open for anything that might look like an important tree, for there is apparently a tree named Sir Walter Scott's tree here. Now, it was difficult to tell which one it might be. Apparently it is a Plane Tree in Ghoul's Den and 'was pointed out to each successive Forester by the Proprietor, for its Protection. The tradition is that "Sir Walter Scott when he paid a visit to the den or glen, struck this tree with a small mallet, pronouncing at the same time the words, "This is my tree." (OS Name Book 43, 21 [265])

I couldn't seen any likely candidates as I assumed Sir Walter Scott would have chosen a biggish tree and I couldn't see one that looked remotely big enough or old enough. Then I realised I was in the wrong den - it was the next one east, Ghoul's Den (a good name, I thought). Oh, well, that would have to wait for another time.

Ghoul's Den from track to Kilmany. NO3822

I was now on the homeward stretch and had completed all my gridsquares. I was still keen to look round the churchyard though and was glad there was enough light to do so.

Kilmany Church benchmark, only my second of the day. NO3821

Kilmany Church. NO3821

There were some old graves here, but nowhere to sit with my last cup of tea of the day, so I left the graveyard in peace and wished the village a Merry Christmas. It had been a wonderful walk of unexpected benches, history and sunlight.

Old grave, Kilmany Churchyard. NO3821

Christmas letterbox, Kilmany. NO3821

Number of miles walked: 10.3

Number of new gridsquares: 13

Number of trigpoints: 1

Number of benchmarks: 2

Walk worth repeating: yes, especially if can find way of getting to Mountquhanie Castle and finding Sir Walter Scott's tree.

Highlights: Mountquhanie Castle, Tay Mount, Shambleton Woods, Kilmany Churchyard