Banff’s Pop Star

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Sandi Thom

Alexandria Thom, better known as ‘Sandi Thom’, born and raised in Banff, became widely known in 2006 after her debut single, “I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (With Flowers in My Hair)”, topped the UK Singles Chart in June of that year.  Surely you remember?

I was born too late into a world that doesn’t care
Oh, I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair

In 2004, Thom moved to London, initially, to pursue a song writing career, that soon turned into a performing one.  She signed a record contract with the record label Viking Legacy, where her mother was director.  The label released her début single, “I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (With Flowers in My Hair)” in late 2005, but it did not attract attention.

In early 2006, Sandi Thom decided, instead of endlessly driving to small venues around the country, she would publicise herself via a series of 21 shows to be performed every other night from the basement of her Tooting flat in South London. Being a small flat, the audience was in single figures.  The trick was to video the half-hour shows and broadcast them free of charge via her website.  By the middle of the second week, she had a peak audience of 70,000 online, had become an internet sensation, was given a major record deal and soon after topped the charts with her 2005 single.

People were amazed to think that there could have been punks in Banff.  Nonetheless a few had been spotted, but none with flowers in their hair. 

Since then the sun has set on Sandi’s UK chart career, but the star has risen to a performing career far from Banff.  Where, you ask, would a Banffer replicate Banff’s resplendent sea and sand.  Would you believe Bahrain?

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What connects Banff Bridge and a possible French Invasion?(Banff and the Turnpike Roads part 3)

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Francois Thurot

From 1702 until 1815, the French and British were involved in six wars. In the wars, merchant ships suffered heavy losses off of the North East coast. The merchant ships were attacked by privateers of mainly French origin, although privateers of American and Dutch origin were active too.

Privateers were privately owned ships, commissioned by governments to attack the merchant shipping of enemy countries and disrupt their trade. The fate of ships captured by privateers varied – their cargoes and the ships themselves could be sold, refitted or burnt. Often their crews were allowed to return home. The Moray Firth was a busy shipping route at this time as ships would sail around the top of Britain to avoid trouble in the English Channel.

The most noted incident was in 1757. On the 5th of October, Francois Thurot, in command of the frigate Marischal de Belleisle and several other ships, appeared in Banff Bay, much to the distress of the people of Banff. The plan seemed to be to invade Banff, plunder and destroy it with a force of 1100 men. The people of Banff were saved though, by a storm, a gale which forced the ships to cut their cables and flee.

In 1777 the Tartar of Boston, an American privateer, captured Lord Fife’s ship – the Anne of Banff – (amongst others). Lord Fife feared he would not be safe living at Duff House “We shall be burnt and plundered”

By 1781, in response to the threat, a very fine battery of 9 eighteen pounders were erected at Banff above the high ground above Banff harbour. This is where the name Battery Green comes from. As well as this soldiers were stationed along the Moray Firth coast.

Ultimately, the focus of transport shifted from the sea to overland routes and led to the building of the first bridge at Banff.

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Banff and the Turnpike roads, Part 1

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1783-milestone-on-the-road-south-from-the-first-Banff-bridge-in-Montcoffer-WoodsBPHSMOB

Part of a map from Taylor and Skinner’s Atlas – 1776

Aberdeenshire council fills 31.000 potholes in three years. On reading Dr James McIntosh’s thesis “Roads in the Vale of Deveron from 1750 to 1850” I realised that the state of the roads has always been an issue.

As early as 1555, the need for road maintenance was recognised – highways connecting market towns and ports should be “observit and keepit”. In 1718 early Road Acts identified seaports, market towns, parish kirks, noblemen’s houses and bridges as important points to keep well connected. In this area Banff and Portsoy were the main ports for general cargoes and Down (later Macduff) and Gardenstown were well established fishing villages.

In Banffshire, in common with other areas, prior to the 1700s the roads were narrow tracks, along which most people walked and only the well-to-do rode on horseback. The Inverness to Aberdeen road which came through Banff was referred to as a currach road, one suitable for horses laden with creels or currachs.

In the mid-1700s, the roads were in a terrible state, most of them turning to mud when it rained. Cumberland’s troops had difficulties on the way to Culloden, “getting cannon and heavier accoutrements across the Howe of Castleton”. One of the common complaints was that tenants with arable land on both sides of a road would plough right across the road.

Road repairs were undertaken by parishioners who in Banffshire were required to work on the roads for six days per year from 6am to 6pm, with two hours recess in the middle of the day. In 1769, all men aged from 15 to 70 had to take part. Notices telling people when they were needed were issued by the Sheriff and Justices who met in May and decided on the repairs and improvements needed and a District Convener organised the work – in the Banff District this role was carried out, from 1774 to 1795, by William Rose, factor to Lord Fife. The announcements of where and when people were required were read out at the Kirk on a Sunday. If people refused they were ordered to pay 18d a day and if they didn’t pay, a Constable with a warrant would go to their homes and remove objects up to the value of the money they owed.

After Culloden, the need for decent roads grew, for ease of the military moving around the country and also for the growing trade taking place, for example the linen manufacture around Banff.

In 1776, G. Taylor and A. Skinner created Scotland’s first road atlas. This was designed for the growing number of travellers and could be folded to make it easy to carry. These show the main roads around Scotland in narrow strips, three to a page. The road we are interested in is the one from Edinburgh to Inverness via Banff. https://maps.nls.uk/view/74400384

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King Edward castle

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This is one of my favourite places. It is beautiful of course and it has seen so many wondrous, historically important and sometimes terrible things. There are stone circles and Bronze Age cairns dotted around the countryside. There have been people here for a very long time indeed.

The Celtic Mormaers, it is thought, ruled this land for centuries from here, the principal seat. Bede Cruithnech, the Pict, the first Buchan man mentioned in history, lived here, and listened to St Drostan’s words about 520 AD. It is a formidable defensive location ideal for a castle, and so enter the Norman barons, the Comyns. Like so many other Norman nobles, the St Clairs or Sinclairs, Meldrums and Cheynes were invited to settle in the North East of Scotland by King David I. The King was enamoured with the feudal system and wanted to subjugate the Celtic folk.

Margaret, the only child of Fergus, the last Mormaer of Buchan, married William Comyn who became the first Scoto-Norman Earl of Buchan and he built a Norman keep right there in the 12th century.

The Comyns ruled Buchan from here for more than 100 years and played a very important role in the history of Scotland. After the death of the Maid of Norway, John Comyn and his cousin the Lord of Badenoch, the Black Comyn, were among the thirteen barons who could lay some possible claim to the throne of Scotland. But King Edward I of England had a desire to make Scotland a part of England. The Black Comyn died and his son the Red Comyn took over his claim.

Lots of battles and events preceded this but Edward invaded Scotland in 1296 and on July the 23rd 1296 King Edward I of England and his entire northern army came from Turriff to King Edward Castle to be entertained by John Comyn before moving on to Banff.

Edward invaded Scotland again in 1303 and marched through Buchan from Aberdeen and arrived in Banff on the 4th of September. The son of the Red Comyn who was one of the chosen Regents of Scotland fought a guerrilla war against Edward I of England, alongside William Wallace and Simon Fraser. He was famously slain by Robert the Bruce after a quarrel before the high altar of the church of the Minorite Friars in Dumfries. Bruce stabbed his rival because he believed Comyn had passed secrets to Edward.

John Comyn, the Earl of Buchan, and cousin to the Red Comyn, was now one of Robert the Bruce’s most deadly enemies and the most powerful noble of his time. He held court here in Kynedor Castle.

Bruce fled to Norway and came back to Scotland in the spring of 1307 and then the tide of battle turned in his favour. Bruce, a general of consummate ability, gained victory after victory in decisive battles, several of them near here, such as at Aikey Brae, Bruce Hill, Slains and the battle of Barra in the parish of Bourtie less than a mile from Oldmeldrum.

To make certain there would never be opposition again from such a powerful baron, Robert the Bruce wreaked a terrible vengeance on the people of Buchan. All Buchan was devastated including Kynedor Castle. Robert the Bruce is known by a few names but the Scottish hero is also called ‘the Bane of Buchan’.

My personal favourite character and hero for me is Isabella, the sister of Duncan, the Earl of Fife of the old line of Macduff, who was married to the Earl of Buchan, John Comyn. The right of crowning the Scottish Kings being hereditary to the family of Macduff, Isabella claimed this right. She, along with a body of retainers mounted on her husband’s war horses, arrived two days late for the ceremony at Scone. Because of her loyalty she was given the opportunity of again placing the Crown on Bruce’s head. Isabella was captured by the English and imprisoned, on orders from King Edward, in a wicker cage at Berwick Castle where she languished for 7 years, known as the ‘caged lady of Buchan’.

It is hard to imagine what King Edward would look like today if the events I have just described had turned out differently. At the height of their power there were no fewer than three earls, Buchan, Menteith and Athol and one great feudal baron, Comyn Lord of Strathbogie, with 30 knights owning land.

There remains no memorial for the Comyns in the land save the orisons of the monks of Deer, and places names such as Cuminestown.

There is not much of Kynedor Castle left just the stories. The masoned stones were used in the building of the Castleton Bridges in the 18th and 19th centuries and now span the burn instead of a drawbridge, but it looks affy bony. You can park at the picnic area and walk down a really good path to the old 18th century bridge, but watch yourself crossing the busy A947.

by Mark Findlater

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Banff’s Strait Path

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A view of the Strait path from Low Street
  • Strait Path Banff

When visitors hear a Banffer mention ‘Strait Path’, they hear ‘Straight Path’. When they look up or down the path this spelling is confirmed; the path which leads from the High Street to the Low Street, is indeed (more or less) straight.  However, straightness was not the most salient feature in the naming of the path; it was the narrowness of the path that caused it to be named ‘Strait Path’.  Notice both parts of the name imply narrowness; a strait is narrow, as is a path.  They could more simply have named it ‘Strait’, or ‘Path’.

There is a third dimension, height, which should have been salient to the namers of Strait Path; the Ordinance Survey puts its elevation at 13.91%.  To appreciate this number you only have to stand on Low Street, look up to the top of Strait Path and be awe struck by the very steep climb.  Standing there you can readily appreciate why Strait Path featured on the BBC’s website, ‘Is this Scotland’s steepest Street?’.  You might also agree that Strait Path could have’ been more appropriately called ‘Strait Hill’.

Not everyone is distressed by the climb.  Shopkeepers are happy to see people come up the hill, stop for a rest, and have a look at their shops.  The local council kindly erected stout railings to provide a support to lean on at various points in the climb.  That being said, it is not uncommon to hear visitors say, one to another, with what one assumes is ironic understatement: that brae is a bit steep.  The same visitors would find it hard to imagine that up to the 19th century Strait Path was a part of the main route in and out of Banff. 

For the most part the kind of shop on Strait Path has not changed much over the years; where you had a barber, now you have a beauty salon, and kilt makers have given way to tailor alterations.  As the French proverb has it: things change to remain the same.

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Trinity and Alvah Church

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The historic buildings of Banff all tell a story. It could be of the trades and crafts once carried out in the town, it could be of the families that once lived there. One building that tells the story of a revolution is the former Trinity and Alvah Church in Castle Street, now used by the Riverside Church.

This building is a monument to the people of the disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843. On 14th May 1843, the Reverend Francis Grant preached for the last time in the Parish Church and led the dissenters from the church. At first they leased Seatown chapel, now demolished.

The dissenters engaged James Raeburn, architect, from Edinburgh, but born in Boyndie, to draw up plans for a new church, on a site on the new South Castle Street that was being laid out at the time.

In a letter from James Raeburn on 16th May, 1843, promising a plan and sketch of the Free Presbyterian Church to be erected in Banff James Raeburn stated “I have kept in view comfort, strength and cheapness, even in the exterior arrangement.“ “I also approve of you adopting stone, rather than wood which will in the end be less expensive as well as more durable”

Donations to build the church came in from all over the country and in all amounts – varying from a few shillings to several pounds. E.g. Mr Lillie from Nottingham – 10/-, Mr James Wood – £5. The people who paid for the church were from all walks of life.

The foundation stone of the new church was laid in August 1843, along with 111/2 d. The new church was opened in June 1844. A Day school was added next to the church in 1844 at a cost of £250 and in 1845, the manse was built at a cost of over £500. The church was enlarged in 1877 at a cost of £1500.

Trinity and Alvah church was built in the Ionic style, one of many designed by James Raeburn for the Free Church in 1843, is considered an unusually grand example of a Free Church.

  • South Castle Street in 1866
  • South Castle Street in 1826
Maps of Banff

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The Provost looks back

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Portrait of George Robinson

In 1817 George Robinson, the greatest of Banff’s Provosts, after 34 years of running the town’s affairs, presented the Head Court with a statement of what had been achieved in that time. It was an impressive list, and what was more, everything was costed, and the town was still solvent. 

Not everything had been plain sailing. His first move in 1785 had been to arrange for Banff to have its own Customs House, because until then every boat had to send an officer overland to Aberdeen to get the paperwork signed (that meant an overnight stay in those days). This excellent move was thwarted because Banff had two rival earls, each of whom wanted the right to appoint the local exciseman, and we had to wait till these two earls were dead in 1807 to find a compromise, and get our own Customs House. 

Other reforms came more easily. There was a new east quay at the harbour, a grand new parish church, new meal houses in the (Old) Market Place, and a new town house and jail. There were new turnpike roads, and the new entry to the town along Bridge Street. There was a new water supply for Banff. They put a new upper storey on the Academy, doubling its size. After the high tides of 1807, which washed away the shingle bar across the river mouth (it came back) there were new sea defences on Low Shore. Also money was laid out to bribe fishermen with boats and free houses, so that they would settle in Banff, hence the Seatown, as Banff became a fishing port. By matching funding, the Council had got a major public grant to enlarge the harbour further.   

Almost all of this had gone through on the nod. The Deacons of the Incorporated Trades would sometimes look at the accounts, hoping to save public money. Provost Robinson had found himself again and again defending the meagre pay given to the schoolteachers. As he said in his statement, “To that system which prevails in Scotland, and by which even the most indigent may receive the benefit of a classical education, is to be ascribed the pre-eminent success of our countrymen in all parts of the world.” He was right, and he had been a very effective Provost. At the north end of Low Street is the arch built for the entrance to the New Market, with his name on it.

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Banff’s old academy

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Old Banff Academy building on Institution Terrace, BanffBPHSMOB

Crossing the Deveron Bridge, what first attracted me to Banff was the prospect of the Old Banff Academy facing east on a rise above the High Street, overlooking the approach from the bridge.  The Neo Greek, single storey, 15-bay classical frontage by William Robertson (1837-8) of Elgin, spoke of Banff as a town which valued culture and learning, as indeed it does.  It also spoke of a darker side to Banff’s history.

 The 1837-8 building was financed by money left by Banffer, James Wilson, ‘late of Banff, in the island of Grenada, a charitable fund for the good of Banff … expended on the school’.  Mr. Wilson died in 1799 at the height of the slave trade in the Caribbean; it is likely that his legacy was directly or indirectly linked to the enslavement of Africans on the plantations in Grenada.  It is well known that many North East families owned plantations in the Caribbean in the 18th & 19th C.  One such was another Banffer, James Gardiner(d.1825), owner of the Swanswick plantation in Jamaica.

  Mr. Wilson’s will directed that the whole of his stock, after the decease of certain annuitants, be given to the magistrates of Banff, to be used for charitable purposes, according to their discretion.  The estate was sufficient for the construction of an infant school, a free school on the Madras system, and class-rooms for the grammar school, as well as, a library and a museum. 

 When the annuitants died, their descendants brought a case declaring the will invalid.  The case went to the House of Lords, which ruled in favour of the magistrates and so in 1838 Banff got the bequest and the town got its Academy.  By coincidence all enslaved people in Grenada were freed by 1 August 1838.

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What’s in a name?

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A view of Canal Park from the Howe

Everyone living in Banff will be familiar with the name Canal Park, being the area of ground that was, for many years, the home to Deveronside football team. Where did the name come from? There are no canals around Banff.

The following quotes from the Minutes of Banff Town Council shed a bit of light on the subject.

In 1724 Lord Braco applied to the court “for sanction to straighten his marches by carrying up his canal in a straight line from the sluice in the new bulwark towards My Lord’s garden, “and seeing the place called the Dogie’s Pott is deap and wet ground he desires liberty to build a little farther down on the common betwixt him and the town to have his dyke on a sure foundation, and if he has any advantage he is to pay the value as agreed on”

In 1734 “Bracco is allowed to make a drain from the water of Diveron into a canal which he  is making out in his park, and which drain shall go through a piece of the town’s commonty”

This seems to be the beginnings of the name Canal Park in Banff, a canal built to carry the stones for building Duff House form the sea to the building site. On 11th June 1735, the foundation stone for Duff House was laid with the Duke of Fife and William Adam, architect, in attendance.

The stone for the north and south fronts came from a quarry in Morayshire and the rest from a quarry near Queensferry. In 1741 Adam’s account listed £468-1-0 5/6 d for stone and £2500-5-0d for carved stones. The stone from Queensferry came in to Banff as ballast in meal boats and then made the last part of the journey via the canal to Duff House.

It’s difficult to imagine how the sea front looked back then as the coast of Banff has changed over the years e.g. in 1699 nineteen and twenty one year leases were being offered on the “Salt Lochs” along the sea front to anyone interested in order to improve conditions for the salmon trade. Early maps don’t have sufficient detail.

In 1906 the Duke of Fife (6th Earl 1849 – 1912) gifted Duff House and its grounds including Canal Park (around 140 acres in all) to the people of Banff and Macduff. The Duke of Fife was married to the Princess Louise, eldest daughter of Edward, Prince of Wales.

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Banff Episcopal School

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A cross in the wallBPHSMOB
  • Banff Episcopal school and schoolhouse on Sandyhill Road. (built 1864)

Those of you who are observant will have noticed a stone cross, built in to the wall at the corner of Sandyhill Road and Bellevue Road. The date carved around the cross is 1864.

This cross marks the site of the Episcopal female school, opened in 1864. Thanks to old copies of the Banffshire Journal and General Advertiser, we are able to have a picture of the site in those days and have some fascinating details of the building.

The site of the new school was given by the Earl of Fife at the lowest possible feu duty and is described as “on Sandyhill Road, forming the south corner of St Ann’s Hill Lane”

We know that the school was built by subscriptions and that it was a “new female school for St Andrew’s church”. As well as local subscriptions, there were also subscriptions from London, Edinburgh and Birkenhead. The school was necessary because the old schoolroom in Boyndie Street was too cramped and this had meant that the roll had to be capped at eighty scholars.

The buildings included a teacher’s house which was a two storey cottage which was built on to Sandyhill Road with the school building behind it. The school was described as “substantial and commodious”, the schoolroom being 40 feet long, 20 feet wide and 14 feet tall. The entrance to the school was on the west gable via a porch, measuring six by eight feet. The school was “well lighted by three rolled plate glass windows. The building had ornamental finials and on the end facing the road, a stone cross with the date of erection. This building cost around £350.

The architect for the project was Mr James Booker of Banff and the first headmistress was Miss Marr of Old Deer. The school was supported by school fees and a government grant.

By 1921 the school was closed and in 1923, a request was made to let the school to the Girl Guides. In the late 1940’s and into the 1950’s, the building was the technical and woodwork department of the Academy.

In 1966, the school was used by Mr Thomas Woodham as a skirt factory. This business survived until a recession hit and all his staff were laid off in 1981. The factory sent orders as far afield as Canada, Australia and Austria.

The school and house were demolished in 1982 and all that remains is the cross in the wall.

  • Workmen are taking the slates off the roof of the old Banff Episcopal school which had been used by Thomas Woodham as a skirt factory.
    Banff Episcopal School being demolished in 1982
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