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Taken just before the rainclouds came in from the west.
Slains Castle is said to be the inspiration for Dracula's Castle in Bram Stoker's novel. Bram Stoker used to holiday at nearby Cruden Bay and went for walks to the castle.
The castle was a home (home of the Earls of Errol who were the chiefs of the Clan Hay) until the 1920s when the roof was removed to avoid paying tax.
The sprawling ruins of New Slains Castle lie on the coast near Peterhead on the North Sea. The tower dates to the 16th C, with many subsequent additions, the latest in 1837. It has strong connections to much of Scottish history and even has some connection to Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. It is a Category B listed building. The 2nd view is taken from the seaside.
27/11/2024 www.allenfotowild.com
This is a composite of two shots, I wish to make that clear, I am not claiming the moon was that big. I was just mucking about & kinda liked the result.
Slains Castle
Famous as the inspiration for the setting of Bram Stoker's "Count Dracula."
www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/crudenbay/slainscastle/ind...
Sometimes you just need time away alone in a beautiful place to figure things out...... After the last few weeks i've had this was my beautiful place....... Taken this afternoon on the edge of a cliff somewhere near Slains Castle with only the seagulls and the thunder of waves for company......<3
Slains Castle also known as New Slains Castle to distinguish it from the nearby Old Slains Castle, is a ruined castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It overlooks the North Sea from its cliff-top site 1 kilometre east of Cruden Bay. The core of the castle is a 16th-century tower house, built by the 9th Earl of Erroll.
Significant reconstruction of the castle has been carried out a number of times, lastly in 1837 when it was rebuilt as a Scots Baronial mansion. At one time it had three extensive gardens but is now a roofless ruin. Plans to restore the castle have been on hold since 2009. It is a Historic Environment Scotland Category B listed building. The castle is linked with the novels of Bram Stoker, including Dracula. [Wikipedia]
Slains Castle is said to be the inspiration for Dracula's Castle in Bram Stoker's novel. Bram Stoker used to holiday at nearby Cruden Bay and went for walks to the castle.
The castle was a home (home of the Earls of Errol who were the chiefs of the Clan Hay) until the 1920s when the roof was removed to avoid paying tax.
Cruden Bay, Abedeenshire. Scotland.
This is the family seat of the Clan Hay. Now a ruin, it overlooks the Noth Sea. Cruden Bay is also the ancestral home of the Murdoch family - Rupert Murdoch's grandfather was the Curch of Scotland's minister here. Bram Stoker (of Dracula fame) also liked this place and wrote two of his novels around it: ‘The Watter’s Mou’ and ‘The Mystery of the Sea’. He started writing ‘Dracula’ there too.
The locals of Cruden Bay fondly call Slains Castle Dracula's Castle. It is believed that Bram Stoker was so inspired by the Castle that it formed the basis for his most famous novel Dracula. Bram Stoker stayed in the nearby hotel, The Kilmarnock Arms, whilst he wrote his novel. Early drafts of his novel had Dracula coming ashore at Cruden Bay after his sea voyage from Transylvania.
From West to East: we normally say west is best, but we've gone to the other side for a change. And I'm on Dracula's coast.
(Lifted from The National)
‘THE ideas had long been brewing in Bram Stoker’s imagination but it was in Scotland that Dracula raged into the world,” explains Mike Shepherd, a Cruden Bay author whose books map out Scotland’s Dracula Coast.
We are battling to the gloriously Gothic ruin of Slains Castle, as Shepherd struggles to talk as the North Sea pounds a coast alive with shipwrecks and pagan ghosts; a coast where brave souls today can resurrect Dracula. Shepherd tells me: “You have to remember that Stoker was more famous as the manager of the esteemed Lyceum Theatre in London than as a writer when he came to Cruden Bay in 1893. He was searching for peace, to get closer to nature and for inspiration.” Stoker clearly found something here. He’d never been to Transylvania when he wrote Dracula but he returned at least a dozen times to holiday in what was then called Port Errol and in its environs. We know Stoker stayed at the Kilmarnock Arms and is thought to have worked on the first chapters of his gory time here. It’s a surreal feeling staying in a hotel with the same views out over the garden Stoker enjoyed, as he shut himself off from his family, the world and the polite constraints of Victorian society to bring his undead protagonist to the world. The more I read of Shepherd’s book When Brave Men Shudder – he has also written a book on Slains Castle with Stoker’s great-grandnephew Dacre Stoker – and explore this wild coast, the more I see beneath Dracula’s cloak.
It’s an elemental place – the big skies are a joy but when they glower black the sea can snatch a soul in seconds. And souls have been snatched here for millennia – fisherfolk and shipwrecked sailors alike. Shepherd writes of a coast “deeply embedded with the supernatural; a place where mortal human beings confronted the demonic and had done so for thousands of years past”.
Descending to Cruden Bay’s sandy beach, I’m walking with ghosts. Not just the fisherfolk, with their pagan beliefs, and those terrified sailors, but also the Vikings. In 1012, a Norse landing party was bludgeoned on the sands in a battle so brutal they fled without their dead. In the years just before Stoker’s arrival, workmen uncovered 100 human skeletons just a stone’s throw from the Kilmarnock Arms. I’m walking with Stoker, too. Bella Cruickshank, who worked in the Post Office then and met Stoker, revealed in Shepherd’s book: “He got all his ideas for his stories when he was on holiday in Cruden Bay, walking the sands to Whinnyfold.” It’s to Whinnyfold I head. The sea is so savage the fisherfolk used to haul their boats up towards the relative safety of the village. Stoker was particularly beguiled by the appositely named Skares, rocks that judder out the surf; the death of many a ship. And many a man.
Stoker would have heard first-hand accounts of real-life drama here, far more compelling than the Lyceum’s theatrics. He captured the rocks in his novel Mystery of the Sea. I push on to Collieston, which inspired Stoker, too. Overlooking the picturesque village and the beach with my cousin, Colin McKelvie, who joined me from Aberdeen, he observes: “If this was Cornwall it would be on all the TV shows and full of holiday homes.” It’s a pretty spot indeed, as is all this coast, but a bloody one too. During the smuggling years, local man Phillip Kennedy had his skull split open by the cutlass of an exciseman. The bench he bled to death on survives in a part of the world where the past and the present constantly intertwine.
Back at the Kilmarnock Arms, I dine on hearty cullen skink in the cosy wooden snug in the bar dedicated to Stoker. His portrait watches me as his writings chime all around. I feel closer to Stoker. Closer still when Elizabeth Penny from the Inn unearths the musky original guestbook Stoker signed.
“I didn’t know much about Dracula until I worked here”, she says. “I got to meet Dacre Stoker and he told me our Slains Castle is the castle, which amazed me”. I make a final visit to Slains Castle. I’m arrested en route by The Watter’s Mou’. Shepherd had told me this treacherous rocky inlet fascinated Stoker, who found the “white cluster of rocks looked like a ghastly mouth opened to swallow whatever might come in touch”. The theme of the sea and nature as something conscious and alive runs through the pagan legends of this coast, legends Stoker learned from the fisherfolk.
I reach Slains and stand all alone, bar the sea: Stoker’s “devouring monster”. It’s later than I’d planned and the sun is losing its battle with the waves. It’s too dangerous to delve into the ruin these days, but the drama is admiring it on its craggy clifftop granite perch. It’s home to the windowless octagonal room that is described in detail in Dracula.
The light is failing. My mind is starting to wander. Is that a cloak-clad figure crawling the sheer stone walls? I turn and walk briskly back towards the welcoming, warm embrace of the Kilmarnock Arms. The ghost of Stoker haunts behind me, here on Scotland’s Dracula Coast.
(10 frame panorama)
The trip east with Steve ended at Slains Castle close to Cruden Bay.
It was a visit of two halves, after one stroll to the coast for a few shots in 'daylight', we headed out to a different vantage point that looked more promising for sunset hoping for some colour in the sky behind the castle.
There is plenty of information about the castle here: canmore.org.uk/site/21149/slains-castle
Slains Castle, also known as New Slains Castle to distinguish it from nearby Old Slains Castle, is a ruined castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It overlooks the North Sea from its cliff-top site 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) east of Cruden Bay. The core of the castle is a 16th-century tower house, built by the 9th Earl of Erroll. Significant reconstruction of the castle has been carried out a number of times, lastly in 1837 when it was rebuilt as a Scots Baronial mansion. At one time it had three extensive gardens, but is now a roofless ruin. Plans to restore the castle have been on hold since 2009.
Slains Castle, also known as New Slains Castle to distinguish it from the nearby Old Slains Castle, is a ruined castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It overlooks the North Sea from its cliff-top site 1 kilometre east of Cruden Bay. The core of the castle is a 16th-century tower house, built by the 9th Earl of Erroll.
Significant reconstruction of the castle has been carried out a number of times, lastly in 1837 when it was rebuilt as a Scots Baronial mansion. At one time it had three extensive gardens but is now a roofless ruin. Plans to restore the castle have been on hold since 2009. It is a Historic Environment Scotland Category B listed building. The castle is linked with the novels of Bram Stoker, including Dracula. [Wikipedia]
...by the lip. Be still my heart.
I wish I'd repositioned his left arm, but I wasn't about to scrap this one.
Inspired by -gadgetgirl- who blew me away with the wide open nb shots of Remy.
Sitting on top a rocky outcrop Slains Castle has among other things, the reputation as being the castle that influenced the castle of Count Dracula, whilst Bram Stoker stay for a short spell at nearby Cruden Bay. Although now a crumbling ruin, the castle has been rumoured to be bought by various millionaires and developers, and also rumoured to become a Hotel, Residences for various rock stars and celebrities including among others Ozzie Osborne, however none of these ficticious entrepreneurs have believed to even have set foot in the place.
An den Klippen der schottischen Ostküste throntdie Ruine von New Slains Castle. Sie lädt förmlich zum Umherschweifen und Erkunden ein, was wir dann auch ausführlich bei bestem Wetter getan haben.
Slains Castle is said to be the inspiration for Dracula's Castle in Bram Stoker's novel. Bram Stoker used to holiday at nearby Cruden Bay and went for walks to the castle.
The castle was a home (home of the Earls of Errol who were the chiefs of the Clan Hay) until the 1920s when the roof was removed to avoid paying tax.
Slains Castle is a ruined castle just outside Cruden Bay in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It overlooks the North Sea from its cliff-top site 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) east of Cruden Bay. The core of the castle is a 16th-century tower house, built by the 9th Earl of Erroll. Significant reconstruction of the castle has been carried out a number of times, lastly in 1837 when it was rebuilt as a Scots Baronial mansion. At one time it had three extensive gardens, but is now a roofless ruin. Plans to restore the castle have been on hold since 2009.
After Rattray Head we made a stop at the Bullers of Buchan. I was quite uncomfortable on the steep sea cliffs especially in the strong wind and both Iain and I chose to lie down at the cliff top to take our shots. It was only when walking around the other side side from our position that I noticed how badly undercut the cliff top was - quite a sobering experience! I was glad to move on to Slains Castle at Cruden Bay where the weather was also showing an improvement; some fluffy clouds in a blue sky and decent light eventually falling on the rocks and impressive ruin.
Slains Castle close to Cruden Bay was the final stop on the trip east for Steve and I last Saturday.
This shot was taken while the sun was low in a blue sky with broken cloud cover.
There is plenty of information about the castle here: canmore.org.uk/site/21149/slains-castle
New Slains Castle in Aberdeenshire around sunset.
Copyright www.neilbarr.co.uk. Please don't repost, blog or pin without asking first. Thanks
Slains Castle, also known as New Slains Castle to distinguish it from the nearby Old Slains Castle, is a ruined castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It overlooks the North Sea from its cliff-top site 1 kilometre east of Cruden Bay. The core of the castle is a 16th-century tower house, built by the 9th Earl of Erroll.
Significant reconstruction of the castle has been carried out a number of times, lastly in 1837 when it was rebuilt as a Scots Baronial mansion. At one time it had three extensive gardens but is now a roofless ruin. Plans to restore the castle have been on hold since 2009. It is a Historic Environment Scotland Category B listed building. The castle is linked with the novels of Bram Stoker, including Dracula. [Wikipedia]
In Norse mythology, a valkyrie ("chooser of the slain") is one of a host of female figures who guide the souls of deceased Nordic soldiers in one of two paths. Selecting among half of those who die in battle go to Fólkvangr, Freyja's afterlife, the other half go to Gods hall called Valhalla. There, the deceased warriors become einherjar (Old Norse "single (or once) fighters"[1]). When the einherjar are not preparing for the events of Ragnarök, the valkyries bear them mead. Valkyries also appear as lovers of heroes and other mortals, where they are sometimes described as the daughters of royalty, sometimes accompanied by ravens and sometimes connected to swans or horses.
Valkyries are attested in the Poetic Edda (a book of poems compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources), the Prose Edda, the Heimskringla (both by Snorri Sturluson) and the Njáls saga (one of the Sagas of Icelanders), all written—or compiled—in the 13th century. They appear throughout the poetry of skalds, in a 14th-century charm, and in various runic inscriptions.
The Old English cognate term wælcyrġe appears in several Old English manuscripts, and scholars have explored whether the term appears in Old English by way of Norse influence, or reflects a tradition also native among the Anglo-Saxon pagans. Scholarly theories have been proposed about the relation between the valkyries, the Norns, and the dísir, all of which are supernatural figures associated with fate. Archaeological excavations throughout Scandinavia have uncovered amulets theorized as depicting valkyries. In modern culture, valkyries have been the subject of works of art, musical works, comic books, video games and poetry.
New Slains Castle, Aberdeenshire near sunset.
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New Slains Castle
Ruins of New Slains Castle from the south
Built
after 1597
Built for
Francis Hay, 9th Earl of Erroll
Rebuilt
1836–1837
Architect
John Smith
Location in Aberdeenshire
Slains Castle, also known as New Slains Castle to distinguish it from nearby Old Slains Castle, is a ruined castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It overlooks the North Sea from its cliff-top site 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) east of Cruden Bay. The core of the castle is a 16th-century tower house, built by the 9th Earl of Erroll. Significant reconstruction of the castle has been carried out a number of times, lastly in 1837 when it was rebuilt as a Scots Baronial mansion. At one time it had three extensive gardens, but is now a roofless ruin. Plans to restore the castle have been on hold since 2009. It is a Historic Environment Scotland Category B listed building.
Slains Castle, also known as New Slains Castle to distinguish it from nearby Old Slains Castle, is a ruined castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It overlooks the North Sea from its cliff-top site 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) east of Cruden Bay. The core of the castle is a 16th-century tower house, built by the 9th Earl of Erroll. Significant reconstruction of the castle has been carried out a number of times, lastly in 1837 when it was rebuilt as a Scots Baronial mansion. At one time it had three extensive gardens, but is now a roofless ruin. In 1895 the author Bram Stoker visited the area, staying at a cottage near Cruden Bay, and he may have been a guest at Slains. The castle is commonly cited as an inspiration for Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula.
New Slains Castle, Aberdeenshire at sunset.
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Von Slains Castle aus führt der Weg an der Steilküste entlang zu den Bullers of Buchan. Viele Vogelarten brüten hier an der Steilküste und sind vom Pfad aus gut zu beobachten - wenn man denn keine Höhenangst hat...
extrait du livre "Alba, carrément ecossais" en vente ici lem's garage/tic tail store
from the book "Alba, carrément écossais" on sale here lem's garage/tic tail store