Across each of the front and back of Duff House there are three statues. On the front of the house, the south with the horseshoe stairs, are from left to right, Mars, Apollo and Minerva; and at the back as you face it from left to right, are Bacchus, Mercury and Diana. (NB, the Guide Book has Apollo and Bacchus swapped in it’s text!).
Lead statue of Mars originally on the front of Duff House now on display on 1st Floor
Glass fibre statue of Apollo before putting in place on the outside of the House in 1995
Lead statue of Minerva originally on the front of Duff House now on display on 1st Floor
These have an interesting history. They were originally made as outdoor statues to decorate the Bowling Green at Airlie House, now the lower part of what is called Airlie Gardens. This austere building and land was bought by the Duffs, and in 1743 we know the statues were moved to Duff House, where they have been placed above the pediment.
These statues were made of lead and are very fine work indeed. Today, the versions on the outside of Duff House are glass fibre reproductions erected in 1995 when the whole House was refurbished, but the quality of the originals can be seen on the two original lead statues (Mars and Minerva) now displayed at the bottom of the Grand Staircase on the 1st floor. The other four have all been refurbished but are in storage.
In the early nineteenth century they were apparently painted white; whether this was for protection or some other reason is not known, but it seems it all wore off!
There is also a first-hand story by a local resident that the statues may have been stored on the roof in the ‘40s and early 50’s, but we do know that by 1953 they were in place.
Mars – God of war, rage and passion
Apollo – God of prophecy and politics, patron of musicians, poets and doctors
Minerva – God of wisdom, war, the arts, industries and trades
Bacchus – God of wine, viniculture, creativity and revelry
Mercury – God of commerce, communication and travel
Diana – Goddess of the hunt, the moon and the underworld
Glass fibre statue of Bacchus before putting in place on the outside of the House in 1995
Glass fibre statue of Mercury before putting in place on the outside of the House in 1995
Glass fibre statue of Diana before putting in place on the outside of the House in 1995
The statues are attributed to a sculptor, Jan van Nost. Some people attribute them to Jan van Nost the Elder (who died circa 1729) and others to Jan van Nost the Younger, his nephew, who may have made them in about 1740. An interesting further fact however is that the 1743 account refers to the statues for Duff House, but also for “the temple”. The only temple for Duff House is “Temple of Venus” on the top of Doune Hill, and just by the name the other statue therefore must have been of Venus! Sadly, the whereabouts of this statue are unknown.
Nowadays there are hundreds of church organists, though fewer than there were, and hard to replace. In the 18C they were very rare indeed. The Church of Scotland did not believe in instrumental music. There was a precentor with a tuning-fork. But Scottish Episcopalian churches always wanted an organ, if they could afford one. So an Episcopal chapel would earn the nickname a ‘whistlin’ kirkie’. St Andrew’s, Banff, from the 1730s, gloried in its organ. It cost money both to buy and to keep in repair (I remember a bill for ‘skins for the Echo Bellows’). If need be, they would have special collections for the organ, but the money came in. I noticed over the years between 1723 and 1746 that the minister’s salary never changed, but the organist did well. They had one unhappy experience when the poor man couldn’t balance his books and was caught fornicating, but after that the organist’s pay went up and up and up, and he got perks for the annual overhaul. The organist was paid about half what the minister was. The clerk and the beadle and the organ-blower were not in the same league. An organist was a high-status job, and the organist of the Episcopal chapel was an influential figure in the culture of the town.
What is particularly impressive is that after the government troops burned down the chapel in 1746, St Andrew’s came quietly back, took the oaths to King George, and they re-built the chapel. Mr Shand, the organist in the old chapel, came back. The church paid the Chapel Officers at St Paul’s Chapel in Aberdeen 2/- for hearing Mr Shand play the organ there, and then they even sent Mr Shand down to London to consult the organist of Westminster Abbey, no less, about buying an organ for the new chapel. The one chosen would be quite sufficient ‘if a Trumpet were added to it’, which was bought. So you can imagine say Trumpet Voluntaries by Purcell on the new organ. James Shand’s expenses in London were £23 (at a time when the minister might get £42 a year). As before, you could always get a classy subscription list to help pay for the organ.
There’s a Shand family table tomb in the old kirkyard, naming James Shand as organist.
https://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Forglen-organ-2.jpg1047758Banff Preservation and Heritage Societyhttps://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Two-Towns-Big-Ideas-PB-Grant-Fund-Logo-300x281.jpgBanff Preservation and Heritage Society2022-03-23 21:12:592022-03-23 21:13:02RATHER A SPECIAL JOB THEN
One of the landmarks in Wrack Woods is the Ice House, built as the refrigerator for Duff House. The exact date of building is not known but it was before 1800. Today it doesn’t look as though it would keep anything frozen or cold for very long, but when it was fully in use it was the best technology of the time. Built into the side of a hill (probably for ease of construction) it had several features to help it keep food cold.
Today, there is a modern grilled skylight so that the inside of the Ice House can easily be seen, but back when it was in use it would have been fully covered in probably at least 3 feet of earth, the dome shape of the storage compartment providing the strength; secondly the trees provided shade so the hottest sun was never on it; and importantly it had two “air-lock” compartments – three doors, while many of it’s contemporaries only had two. At the bottom was a drain, for the melted ice to be let out; and food could either be laid on the ice – or between layers of ice; or it could be hung from above or held above the ice from some foods that just needed to be cool.
We know that the Head Gardener in the 1870’s, Mr Mackie, kept a master list of what foods were stored where and when in the Ice House; that straw was put between different foods so that they could be split, and that access from the passageway was by ladder into the egg shaped storage compartment.
It is likely ice would be taken from the river and used in the ice house, where it would last for up to two years. By the second half of the nineteenth century, the ambient temperatures were slowly rising in general, and this may also have been the cause of the start of the demise of another source of ice.
Extract from 1763 map of Macduff
We know that in 1874 the “Cuddy” – the donkey – and it’s cart, were taken up to Star Loch for ice. Star Loch was one of two lochans on the top of Doune Hill but these no longer exist. Being still water, and higher, this would freeze more readily than the river water. Star Loch is named on some of the older maps that include Doune Hill.
The cuddy seemed to be an integral part of life at Duff House and was used for several jobs – even taking ice as far as Innes House (between Lhanbryde and the coast)! There is a photo of a donkey at Duff House – perhaps the same one that we know was walked up to Doune Hill!
Photo from early 1900’s showing a tethered donkey at the front of Duff House
https://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Ice_House_at_Duff_House.jpg11841500Ian Williamshttps://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Two-Towns-Big-Ideas-PB-Grant-Fund-Logo-300x281.jpgIan Williams2022-03-07 17:40:522022-03-07 17:40:55Ice and the Cuddy
In 1923 a new drill hall was suggested for Banff and by 8th May 1925 it was ready to be formally opened by Major-General A.B. Ritchie, C.B., C.M.G., commanding the 51st (Highland) Division, Perth. He stated that Banff had the honour of being the first provincial regiment of artillery formed in Scotland, with the exception of Midlothian. He also explained that the Territorial Army was of great importance as the regular army had been reduced by twenty percent.
In times past, the Drill Hall had been at 6 Castle Street in Banff, where Trend D.I.Y. is now.
This new hall was on Old Market Place and had an orderly room, officers’ room and a large billiard and recreation room on the ground floor. On the first floor, instructors’ quarters were provided.
There was also a drill hall, extending in to Princess Royal Park of 85 feet by 40 feet. To the south of the drill hall there was Princess Royal Park, which allowed the battery horses to be exercised and gun tests to be carried out.
In the 1930s there are descriptions of the hall being decorated with garlands, flags, balloons and flowers, along with novel lighting effects for balls, held annually by the 223rd Banffshire Battery R.A. (T.A.). Around 2 -300 people attended these from across the North-east. In the Press of the time, you can find a list of everyone who attended.
During WW2, the hall was used as headquarters for training purposes. A soldier in The King’s Own Scottish Borderers described how the company of soldiers were sent to Banff and used the Drill Hall as their headquarters while being “accommodated in the spacious and elegant confines of Duff House” and others were located at Banff distillery which had been closed, although the whisky was still in the bonded warehouses. James McQuarrie described how “We had to run about three-quarters of a mile down to the sea shore, dive in and then run back again. It made us fit.”
By 1968 drill halls across the North-east were sold to the councils and in the case of Banff Drill Hall, it was to be used for education purposes and so it became the Community centre. Many local people will have fond memories of attending youth clubs and other clubs there or picking up skis from their store before heading off to the Lecht or Cairngorms.
https://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Banff-Drill-Hall-map-1940.png213354Banff Preservation and Heritage Societyhttps://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Two-Towns-Big-Ideas-PB-Grant-Fund-Logo-300x281.jpgBanff Preservation and Heritage Society2022-02-26 16:41:032022-03-05 15:38:32Banff Drill Hall
The last large-scale religious persecution in Scotland was in 1746. After that there were still penal laws on the statute book, and religious minorities often had reason to grumble, but never again were troops used to burn down churches. The heartland of the Episcopal Church was the north-east of Scotland, and the intention was to extirpate it. They said you could go from the Tay up and round to the Spey and beyond, and never be out of sight of the column of smoke from a burning Episcopal chapel. There was a fire risk in bigger towns, so the chapels in Stonehaven and Peterhead and Inverness were demolished, and the bill for the demolition was sent to the congregation.
Two of the chapels burnt down were St Andrew’s Chapel in Banff, and the chapel at Portsoy (New Durn). After about five years St Andrew’s was rebuilt on the same site, and the present St Andrew’s is a rebuild of the replacement. It may well be that a future archaeologist will find traces of burning in the foundations of the present church. St Andrew’s had to disobey its bishop in order to become legally qualified to rebuild. The new “Qualified” chapel by law had to have a clergyman ordained in England. For forty years they sent north-east loons down to England to be ordained. (One was ordained by an Irish bishop on holiday, but that’s another story). Then Charles III (‘Bonny Prince Charlie’) died and the Episcopal Church decided after all to pray for King George, and the “Qualified” priest at Banff happily became what he had always wanted to be, an ordinary Scottish Episcopalian. It took several years before the government recognized that this particular religious minority was no threat.
You might say that this religious persecution was political, not religious. The Episcopal Church was hunted down because, in conscience, they supported a rival line of kings. Historically, there have been cases were religious groups stacked guns in their cellars. But burning down churches, and saying by law that no minister may be in a room with more than five other people, are deeds of tyranny.
It is good to think that St Andrew’s Church is still there, in the same place on the High Street as when Cumberland’s dragoons burnt it down on November 10th 1746, and you can see, now on loan in the Museum of Banff, the chalice rescued from the ruins of the New Durn chapel.
https://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/20E.-St-Andrews-ext.jpg11531747Banff Preservation and Heritage Societyhttps://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Two-Towns-Big-Ideas-PB-Grant-Fund-Logo-300x281.jpgBanff Preservation and Heritage Society2022-02-14 13:25:472022-02-14 13:25:50When they burnt down the chapels
It was just a normal Saturday for me. My mother woke me up in time for my school hockey match – a home game against Fraserburgh Academy. I struggled out of bed and looked sleepily out of the window. Dark clouds were scudding across the sky and rivulets of rain trickled down the windowpane. Not a day for hockey or football but, unless the visiting teams had phoned to cancel the fixture, their hired bus would already be on its thirty mile journey to Banff Academy. I would have to turn up at the school in order to find out.
Standing at the unsheltered bus stop, with the wind whipping around my legs and the rain soaking my thin trench-coat, I was sure that the whole thing would have been called off. But as I rushed up the school brae, I saw, to my horror, a blue Alexander’s bus sitting at the gate. Our opponents had arrived! “The match is off” was the cry, as I staggered into the cloakroom. Our teachers had apparently decided that even we hardy northeast scholars could not be expected to play football and hockey in such weather. That was a relief! The not-so-good news was that there had been no time to cancel our school lunch, which was an integral part of the sporting arrangements in this rural part of the world. After all, we sometimes had to travel forty miles or more to our matches, and a school dinner was part of the deal.
It was probably a mistake to make us hang around just for the sake of a school lunch. But the food had been bought, the cook had arrived and it seemed the sensible thing to do. How were our teachers to know that an extremely deep depression situated off the coast of Norway was rapidly heading our way? Our school hall was completely surrounded by classrooms and, in this cosy cocoon, we entertained our visitors while the meal was being prepared. It wasn’t until we ventured out to the canteen that the full force of the storm hit us. We hastily gobbled up our mince and tatties, gathered our things together and set out for home.
My friend and I raced down to the ‘Plainstones’ to catch the 12 o’clock bus. Wet and windblown, we sank into our seats; but our relief was short-lived. The bus driver didn’t appear to be taking his usual route. The river Deveron had burst its banks, he explained, and he would have to take us through the private grounds of Duff House.
Collie Gate – opposite to Collie Lodge now the cobbles in St Mary’s Car Park – was the entrance into the Duff House estate.
The caretaker at the lodge opened the big wrought-iron gates for us and we headed for the bridge over the already swollen river. We should have turned left along the coast road but huge waves, created by the wind and exceptionally high tide, were crashing over the sea wall and rebounding off the steep hillside at the opposite side of the road.
The blue line being the route the bus took, through the private roads of Duff House, as Bridge St, Bridge Road and Princess Royal Park were underwater!
Instead we turned right along the ‘Howe’, a tree-lined country road popular with Sunday strollers. Not today, though! The wind screeched through the bare branches of the birches, beeches, elms and rowans, bending them over until they were almost horizontal. We crouched in our seats, terrified that, at any moment, a tree might get uprooted and come crashing down on top of us. Once the driver had negotiated the corner at the cemetery, we knew we were out of the woods and that home was only a few minutes away.
My mother wasn’t too surprised when the electricity went off in mid-afternoon. “Power cables”, she said – in a knowledgeable sort of way. At teatime, the gas for the cooker fizzled out as well. Only a few years after my mother had acquired her fancy new domestic appliances, we were plunged back into the middle ages, with only a few candles and a coal fire for comfort. At bedtime, I had to find the way to my attic room in the dark. The wind was still rattling the panes of the dormer window and I pulled the covers over my head to shut it out.
Sunday morning brought a curious calm. Under a pale grey, watery sky, we ventured out to inspect the damage. At the harbour, almost half the town seemed to be staring in bewilderment at a fishing boat sitting lopsidedly in the middle of the street. Further along the road, the sea had completely undermined the foundations of the petrol station, which now dangled precariously on the rocks. And the coastal road, which we should have travelled along the day before, resembled a boulder field.
It is the custom for people to be drawn together at such times, united in commiseration or in simple curiosity. And so, small groups of local folk were dotted here and there along the sea-front, viewing the devastation with disbelief. On our meanderings, we discovered that the gasometer in Banff had been washed into the sea, which explained our lack of gas.
Shows the gasometer that used to be at Banff Harbour.
I also met some of the football boys, who had missed the last bus out of Banff at lunchtime on Saturday. They had apparently decided to walk back home and had been forced to struggle over the Hill O’Doune to escape the rising tide. Crawling on hands and knees, clinging on to bushes and to each other, they managed to avoid being blown away and reached the relative safety of Macduff with nothing more than a few scratches and a thorough soaking.
By evening the electricity supply had been restored but, with no prospect of gas in the forthcoming weeks, my mother’s shiny ‘New World’ cooker now supported a pair of decidedly ‘old world’ Primus stoves. With our immediate needs taken care of, our thoughts now turned to the outside world. We had been cut off from the rest of civilization for two whole days and we had no idea how the rest of Britain had fared.
It was Monday morning before we became aware of the full impact of the storm. Newspapers and radio reported that; in East Anglia, 2,500 square miles of land lay under water and 307 people had perished in the floods at King’s Lynn; one sixth of the Netherlands was also under water with more than 2000 lives lost. In the south-west of Scotland, 133 people had been drowned when the British Rail ferry, Princess Victoria, had sunk in Belfast Lough on her crossing from Stranraer to Larne. Much closer to home, six men of the Fraserburgh lifeboat drowned when their boat was caught by a giant wave and capsized at the harbour mouth. The seas were so fierce that it was impossible for any of the witnesses to enter the sea to rescue them. For us and others around Britain, the forces of nature had taken their toll.
https://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Feature-image-with-caption.jpg6951119Ian Williamshttps://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Two-Towns-Big-Ideas-PB-Grant-Fund-Logo-300x281.jpgIan Williams2022-02-07 19:30:102022-02-07 19:30:14The Great Storm 31st Jan 1953
In the Museum of Banff there is a new exhibit, a map of Banff in 1826. This is a coloured map with great details of the town shown, including who owned parts of the town, at the time. Large areas of Banff were owned by the Earl of Seafield but areas were owned by organisations such as the “Gardeners Society” and “St John’s Lodge” At this time Banff is almost two separate towns – the Sea town, the area from St. Catherine Street North and the rest of the town, covering Low Street, High Street and the surrounding area. It stops short of Duff House and its grounds. This can be compared in the museum with a 1756 plan of the town and an 1823 map, by John Wood. These maps were produced by independent map makers or land surveyors, before the days of the Ordnance Survey.
The 1826 map was created by Alexander Irvine Ross, a land surveyor from Mains of Tyrie. He was involved in the production of a series of maps created by James Robertson (1783 – 1879) of the shires of Aberdeenshire, Banff and Kincardine in 1822. James Robertson was referred to as “the Shetlander who mapped Jamaica and Aberdeenshire”. Alexander Irvine Ross also produced a four sheet map covering Aberdeenshire and Banff in 1826, mentioned in the New Statistical Account, written by the Reverend Francis William Grant in 1845. This possibly refers to the maps which were published in John Thomson’s Atlas of Scotland, 1832.
The map came in to the possession of the late Bob Carter who donated it to Banff Preservation and Heritage Society. It was in poor condition and in need of conservation work. The map was cleaned and relined by the High Life Highland Conservation Service, with a grant from the Area Initiatives Fund. This meant that a unique and valuable part of Banff’s history has been preserved for future generations. The map is best viewed in person at the museum but if that’s not possible it can be seen on our website – https://www.bphsmob.org.uk/collection/various_items/1724_1826_Map.html
The great poet Lord Byron spent part of his childhood in Banff. His mother’s family lived here. His great-grandmother, Lady Gight, lived in rather an ugly house where the Sheriff Court now stands on Low Street. His first sweet-heart was Mary Duff, who lived on the High Street. There was a public outcry in the 1960s when that house, a really historic 17C tower house, was demolished and replaced by what is now McColl’s. It was because of that philistine decision by our local councillors that the Banff Preservation Society was founded.
Mary was a Duff of Hatton, a very prolific Duff family, cousins of the Earl Fife, and a distant cousin of Byron. She was a few months older than he was, both born in 1788, and they met at a dancing class in Aberdeen. The little boy was lame from birth, so dancing was probably purgatory. But he loved sitting billing and cooing with his pretty cousin.
We know about this because some years later, after inheriting a peerage and going to Harrow, the great English public school, Byron heard that Mary was married. He was a teenager, with his first proper girlfriend (though he said he’d had fifty) and his first proper falling-out with his girl-friend, and he felt totally betrayed. There was his childhood sweetheart, his first love, abandoning him too! It is all in his journal. It did not help matters that his mother then told everyone she met about George’s star-crossed love with Mary Duff.
Here is the story from Byron’s own journal. “I have been thinking lately a good deal of Mary Duff. How very odd that I should have been so utterly, devotedly fond of that girl, at an age when I could neither feel passion, nor know the meaning of the word. And the effect! My mother used always to rally me about this childish amour; and, at last, many years after, when I was sixteen, she told me one day, “Oh, Byron, I have had a letter from Edinburgh, from Miss Abercromby, and your old sweetheart Mary Duff is married to a Mr Co’e.” And what was my answer? I really cannot explain or account for my feelings at that moment; but they nearly threw me into convulsions, and alarmed my mother so much, that after I grew better, she generally avoided the subject—to me—and contented herself with telling it to all her acquaintance. Now, what could this be? I had never seen her since her mother’s faux pas at Aberdeen had been the cause of her removal to her grandmother’s at Banff; we were both the merest children. I had and have been attached fifty times since that period; yet I recollect all we said to each other, all our caresses, her features, my restlessness, sleeplessness, my tormenting my mother’s maid to write for me to her, which she at last did, to quiet me. Poor Nancy thought I was wild, and, as I could not write for myself, became my secretary. I remember, too, our walks, and the happiness of sitting by Mary, in the children’s apartment, at their house not far from the Plain-stanes at Aberdeen, while her lesser sister Helen played with the doll, and we sat gravely making love, in our way. How the deuce did all this occur so early? where could it originate? I certainly had no sexual ideas for years afterwards; and yet my misery, my love for that girl were so violent, that I sometimes doubt if I have ever been really attached since.”
The Mr Co’e was a Robert Cockburn, from a rich family of wine-merchants in Edinburgh – yes, it’s Cockburn’s port. Mary had a happy life, and she outlived Byron by 30-odd years, to die in 1858. She comes into one of Byron’s poems too.
https://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/MARY-DUFF.jpg480377Banff Preservation and Heritage Societyhttps://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Two-Towns-Big-Ideas-PB-Grant-Fund-Logo-300x281.jpgBanff Preservation and Heritage Society2022-01-17 18:10:472022-01-17 18:10:51Lord Byron’s Mary Duff
This was the day of a huge milestone in the history of Banff and Macduff, an event that was intended to, and did, cut through the normal competition between the two towns.
“In the evening a huge bonfire was lighted on the Hill O’Doune, when there was a further opportunity for a public demonstration and general jubilation. During the afternoon a very large quantity of brushwood was carted to the hill, and was piled on top of several barrels of tar and paraffin. At seven o’clock the match was applied by Mrs West [wife of the Provost of Macduff]. A very large number of of the inhabitants of both communities assembled to witness the conflagration, which, fanned by a strong breeze, soon assumed considerable dimensions. The fire burned furiously till a later hour.” “A large number of rockets were sent off from the hill, and the opinion was generally expressed that it was a long time since so hearty enthusiasm was displayed.”
The event earlier in the day had been enough not just to give rise to the bonfire, but an impromptu closing of the schools, flags and bunting were erected all over both towns and shops closed – what was reported as “a general holiday was observed for the rest of the day.”
And the event that caused this: the extremely generous donation by the Duke and Duchess of Fife, of Duff House and a large part of the estate, to the two town councils. This had been announced at a meeting that morning of both town councils. During 2021 there has been some mention of the written terms of this gift, and perhaps 2022 will give rise to more discussion, but the undertaking of Provost Alexander of Banff, made as part of his acceptance of the gift, may also be relevant.
Provost Alexander described in glowing terms the house and grounds, and then goes on to say: “Then we have the invaluable fact of the subject of the gift being absolutely unrestricted in its administration.” Such a term does indeed exist in the written Gift, but so too do the underlying purposes of the Gift by the Duke, and these are fully acknowledged by Provost Alexander. He describes in some detail some of the plans as of that time for the grounds, “golf courses, bowling greens, tennis courts, and croquet lawns” which he sees fully in accordance with the “heads of pleasure grounds and places of recreation” as laid out in the Gift. “I feel with the exercise of sound judgement … we will be able to complete a scheme (in the formation of which we are unfettered) which will adequately accomplish the objects underlying His Grace’s munificence.”
Hence, certainly in 1906, the Town Councils involved had a clear understanding of the purpose of the house and land gifted to them, and appeared to have every intention of doing just that.
Postcard from the first years of the 20th century showing the Duff House gates on the Banff side of the bridge, the drive to Duff House and “Canal Park” to it’s right.
There is on other interesting aspect too. The written acceptance of the Gift includes that the two town councils “respectfully request the gracious permission of Her Royal Highness [the, Duchess, Princess Louise] to the Canal Park being henceforth known as the Princess Royal Park.” Although such permission was granted, it seems this aspect of the Town Council’s undertakings haven’t been honoured in all of the present day wording by Aberdeenshire Council!
https://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Macduff-Doune-Hill-from-Banff-Beach-card.jpg7611073Ian Williamshttps://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Two-Towns-Big-Ideas-PB-Grant-Fund-Logo-300x281.jpgIan Williams2022-01-10 15:33:502022-01-10 15:33:54Bonfire on Doune Hill
In 1873 a young local man became an apprentice gardener in Banff, living in the Bothy just behind the Vinery in what is today known as Airlie Gardens, but used to be one of the kitchen gardens for Duff House and the Lord Fifes. Forty years later the same man was in New York, still working in the same industry, but now owning two acres of downtown Manhattan.
John Donaldson had decided he wanted a career in gardening and seemed to take it quite seriously. After a year at Duff House learning his trade, he took a job at Vogrie House near Edinburgh, and from there to a larger estate in Yorkshire, before moving to one of the largest nurseries in the UK at the time, Veitch Nurseries based in London. After a spell at Regents Park Zoo (then called the Zoological Gardens), with his wife he emigrated to New York in 1893. He learnt more of the nursery trade with two large nurseries there, before starting his own business on Long Island, growing flowers, particularly carnations and lillies. We even know some of the preferred varieties that he grew, which of course were those popular amongst the rich of New York. At the beginning of the twentieth century New York, a very crowded place, was a very smelly place, and flowers were one of the means that the better off could do to have a better smelling atmosphere!
Many of these were sold on the street at flower markets in New York, but wanting to improve sales and provide more certainty, John became one of the founders of the “New York Cut Flower Exchange”. By 1912 he became the President of that organisation. This still exists, centred around W 28th Street, between Manhattan and Greenwich Village, not far from the Empire State building (although that was only built in 1931).
Today it may seem strange, but of the two acres he owned in Manhattan, flowers were still being grown. John lived there himself, and had only six other houses on what amounted to 28 city lots; the rest of the land was still productive, although he also had a nursery at Elmhurst, about 3 miles to the east on Long Island.
He started to sell some of the Manhattan lots; one was sold for $60,000 in about 1912 – equivalent today of about US$ 2 million!
There is much more research to complete, but John Donaldson of Banff is one local lad that certainly did make his way in the world.
https://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/John-Donaldson-in-1912.jpg832591Ian Williamshttps://banffmacduffheritagetrail.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Two-Towns-Big-Ideas-PB-Grant-Fund-Logo-300x281.jpgIan Williams2021-12-12 17:03:592021-12-12 17:04:38From Banff to New York with flowers
Banff Preservation and Heritage Society and Museum of Banff
