# A Sunday walk around Banff



## Capt Lightning (May 29, 2016)

Beautiful day so we went for a walk around the nearby seaside town of Banff.  Banff has an interesting past that I'll write about sometime.   Till then here are a few photos....

1. My nearest distillery - the MacDuff Distillery.  The towns of MacDuff and Banff lie on either side of the Deveron river.  The MacDuff distillery produces 'Glendeveron' whisky.  Untill recently this was all exported, but is now available locally.



2. A view over Banff from above the distillery.  In the foreground is the River Deveron and behind,  Duff House Royal golf club.  The red canopy to the right is at the town  football ground,  "Princess Royal Park", home of Deveronside FC.



3. The path winds round to the west of banff and crossed the Deveron at the Bridge of Alvah..  Here's Dianne admiring the view from the 60ft high bridge built in the 1700's.



4. And this is the view..


----------



## Goldfynche (May 29, 2016)

Beautiful. I hope to get up around there for a poke around eventually.


----------



## Buckeye (May 29, 2016)

Looks like a great place.  For now, I'll have to be happy with your pics and Google maps.  

Thanks for sharing.


----------



## Falcon (May 29, 2016)

Beautiful pictures Capt.  Thank you.


----------



## Shalimar (May 29, 2016)

Thanks Capt. Beautiful scenery.


----------



## jnos (May 29, 2016)

I've heard of how beautiful Banff is. Isn't Lake Louise there too?


----------



## SeaBreeze (May 29, 2016)

Lovely photos Capt.!   Jnos, you're thinking of Canada, these pictures I believe are from Scotland.


----------



## Capt Lightning (May 30, 2016)

Yes, the UK, Canada and the US share a lot of place names...
This particular Banff is a sea  port, royal burgh, and the former county town of Banffshire, now part of  Aberdeenshire.  The town stands on the west bank of the River Deveron , facing MacDuff on the east bank of the river. Banff  is built on a series of terraces cut into the hillside above the   harbour.


                  The town has a  long and varied history. Back in the 12th century it was part of  the Northern Hanse, an alliance of northern ports that traded with Scandanavia and mainland Europe.  Banff Castle was built to guard the entrance to  the harbour from Viking raids, and in the 12th century it served as a  royal residence. Little remains of the castle beyond sections of curtain  wall.  The new 'castle' that you can see today was  built around 1750.

Monks from Arbroath built a  Carmelite priory at Banff, and the houses that now stand on the south  side of Carmelite Street are on former monastic land. There is a very  fine merkat cross, dating from the the early 16th century.  On Low Street, the Biggar Fountain stands on  the spot where, in 1701, Jamie McPherson played his fiddle in a last  defiant act before he was executed for piracy.  This is a fascinating  and largely true story of a real life "Robin Hood" character.  I may  have written about it when I first joined this board, but I might  re-tell it some time.

There  are many examples of 17th century architecture surviving, but  Banff's real claim to fame was as a fashionable 18th century resort  town, and much of the period architecture dates to that time. One of  the most striking pieces of civic architecture is the octagonal Town  Steeple, built 1764-66.  Although the town has lost much of its prestige,  it is plain to see that it was once a wealthy place.  In recent years, some of the old delapidated buildings have been sympathetically restored to provide modern town housing.  In later years the railways came to Banff and in the 1800's it was one of the largest herring  fishing ports in the county.   During WW2 the nearby village of Whitehills was the site of RAF Banff - the home of RAF strike wing which attacked German shipping and U-Boats in Norwegian waters.

The railways and the herring have gone, but Banff still thrives as a holiday location with a good beach and a prestigeous golf course - and of course,  a distillery.

Banff beach...  with Whitehills in the distance.  The tide was full when I took this photo.  When out,it reveals a long, beautiful sandy beach.


----------



## Phoenix (Jun 1, 2016)

Lovely scenery.  Booze makes me jittery, so it's pointless for me to go to the distillery.  Do you have any picture of the town of Huntly?  My family on my dad's side came from there.  It's the family name, although the spelling changed once the Huntly brothers moved to the US way back when.  I looked up a map of Scotland and neither of the places showed up.


----------



## Shalimar (Jun 1, 2016)

Beautiful pic. I enjoyed the history also.


----------



## ossian (Jun 2, 2016)

Great pics and I see that you enjoyed our excellent weather.  Banff is somewhere that I have never visited. It looks great. I hope you enjoyed that walk.


----------



## Capt Lightning (Jun 2, 2016)

Pheonix, sorry no pictures of Huntly itself, but here's a pic of a massed pipe band at Huntly castle.  There are plenty of pictures on the web, so look for Huntly, Aberdeenshire.


----------



## Capt Lightning (Jun 2, 2016)

Another pic from Banff commemorating Jamie MacPherson.  Appropriately, it's on the wall of the 'Broken Fiddle' cafe.


----------



## Phoenix (Jun 2, 2016)

Capt Lightning said:


> Pheonix, sorry no pictures of Huntly itself, but here's a pic of a massed pipe band at Huntly castle.  There are plenty of pictures on the web, so look for Huntly, Aberdeenshire.


Thanks.  I've looked in the past and found some.  I assume Aberdeenshire is the state or province.  I'll look some more.


----------

