Sandy's Blog
Cromarty Walks
by Casagrandeblog - 18:59 on 06 May 2013
After we had talked about the pubs and clubs and tennis club dances, and after Gladys had explained how shredded paper towels pinned to your knickers could add a touch of class to your can-can, we got on to talk about favourite walks around Cromarty. This was the second of our ‘Memories’ sessions, last week in the Brewery, and the focus was on ‘Social Places’. Going for a walk can be a solitary pastime, but when it’s one of the Cromarty classic walks then it becomes a shared experience.
We talked about the Ladies Walk, above the Church Street houses, and debated whether it stopped being the Ladies Walk at the point where you entered the Estate policies, and whether it continued to the Lodge on the Denny or back past Cromarty House to the Castle Brae. Clem reminded us that the latter option would have taken you over the bridge built by Polish soldiers in 1945. That bridge had collapsed last time I looked, but the concrete pillars are still there, complete with plaques in English and Polish recording that the work was done by the Polish Pioneer Platoon of the 24th Silesian Infantry Brigade. (see photo below). 
We also talked about walking along the shore to look for gulls’ eggs on the rocks. On one of the Courthouse audiocassettes I have been listening to, Annie Davie recalled how, when the Fleet paid its Spring visit to the Firth, the sailors would climb the rocks looking for eggs and, almost every year, one of them would fall to his death. I wonder if anyone else can confirm that.
MacFarquhar’s Bed remains a popular walk. What a pity that fine avenue of beech trees has been allowed to decay. The photos from the Cromarty Image Library show what it looked like in the 1920s and what it’s like now.
There is another walk that I would love to know more about, and that’s the walk along the shore to the Red Burn. I think there was some sort of public garden there at one time (where Highland Council now stores road salt and gravel). John Bain’s ‘Cromarty News’ in May 1891 reported plans to clear and level the ground to create a tennis court and general pleasure ground. He said the area was known as ‘Little Andrew’s Garden.’ In 1937, to mark the coronation of George VI, the Town Council planted sixty-two trees along the shore road at the west end of town (beeches, birches, maples, geans, laburnums, poplars, etc.) and this would have made a very pleasant walk to the Red Burn. I wonder what happened to the trees? I’m guessing they fell victim to a road widening scheme, but maybe someone can tell us more.
Nearly forgot to mention the walk up the Sutor. Whatever you do, do not - ever - refer to this as the '100 Steps'. That was something completely different, and I know at least two folk in Cromarty who go berserk when people get this wrong. You have been warned!
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