So, when we last left our delightful (ahem) heroine (yours truly) and her
Robert Louis Stevenson was related to the Dale family, descendents of the family who owned Seacliff. Supposedly his book The Wreckers is based on stories he heard about the wreckers in this area.
Standing next to the stream that runs across the beach, looking down the coast and out to the North Sea.
The ruins of Auldhame are very conspicuous at this end of the beach.
There's another mysterious ruin to be explored. Warning; if you're on a slow connection, there are quite a lot of pictures:
Reflections on the beach as the tide was going out. The height of the cliffs meant this end of the beach was in shadow, which is why half the breaking wave looks overexposed.
Being all artsy; here's the reflection broken up by the foam. I rather like the way this turned out, with the random patches of foam inside the water as it ran up the beach.
This is in contrast to the apparent gentleness of water in the two photos above. The wave noise on the beach was impressive; there'd been an east wind for a couple of days, so large waves were rolling in from the North Sea. We did need to speak up to hear each other over the noise of the waves. At my parents' house, I can hear the wave noise from the family room which looks over the beach, and when it's stormy I can even hear it in my room, which is the other side of the house (though I need to crack my window open to hear it).
Breaking wave.
I've always been an insomniac. When I was little, I'd wake up late at night, after my parents had gone to bed and the house was in darkness. Unable to sleep, I'd lie and watch the place on the wall in the hallway where the light from the lighthouse flashed through the window (I slept with my door open). Eventually I'd get up and - clutching my bear - I'd walk silently across the dark hallway to the family room, and sit down on the windowseat there. I'd open the window just a crack, and in the dark, I'd sit and listen to the waves, and watch the lighthouse, and the beach. Eventually I'd get cold and go back to my room to sleep.
My parents still gently tease me about my insistence on wearing my favourite brown woolley cardigan to bed. I saw it as common sense: If you're going to lurk on windowseats in the dark, in front of open windows, you're going to need a nice thick woolley cardigan over your pjs. This one was my favourite because it also had a hood.
In my memory, I can always see myself as a little ghostly figure, with pale pyjama trousers and my brown cardigan looking grey in the light from the windows, curled up in the corner of the windowseat.
Here's an accidental arty shot. I looked behind us and our footprints were just filling with water as we'd crossed a damp patch. Lovely! And what made it even better was the white fluffy cloud just reflected in the water.
When I sat in the dark and watched the waves breaking on the beach, highlighted for a moment by the lighthouse, I always used to think that the beach was mine; I was the only one in the whole world, it seemed, and I always wanted to go down and walk through the surf. I never did, of course - I was far too little to do that at first; sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night when you're seven seems like a big thing to do. Later on, although I was old enough, the fear of the seven year old lingered in me.
Behind us there was a slightly lower section of the beach that was covered in water. It was mostly still and reflected the trees and ruins of Auldhame against the sky. When particularly large waves ran up the beach they reached the water and broke up the reflection with swirling patterns, which I liked, hence this photo.
I played with my zoom lens as I followed my parents along the beach. Thus we have photos of waves as they break.
Look at the ripples on the surface of the wave.
The same wave, a second or two later. I'm so pleased I was lucky enough to catch that middle section before it curled over - you can see the spray being caught by the wind and pushed back.
Waves with St Baldred's Boat (and cross) in the background.
More playing with the zoom lens. Can I have too many wave photographs?
Apparently the answer would be no. Although, this one is rather pleasing, I like the water on the top of the wave. We won't go into how many shots I took to get these two good ones…
May Island. This is actually over on the Fife side of the Forth estuary. It can normally be seen on a clear day, but I'm seriously impressed with my zoom lens; the detail it managed to catch is amazing.
And yet more waves.
This might be the last one.
This is what May Island looked like to the naked eye.
Another wave photo? Surely not! But I'm allowed this one because just look what the foam/water is doing!
The sun kept going behind the clouds. St Baldred's Cross and the rocks looked rather more sinister in the shade.
Bass Rock, with the lighthouse and prison being quite visible.
More spray being blown off the waves.
Now we get to the fun part. I'd been so busy looking out to sea that I'd not really paid much attention to the rest of the beach and inland. At this point we're about half way down the beach, just past where it curves. For some reason I looked up and away from my camera and the sea, and looked to my right, inland. Above the tops of the trees I could seem some chimneys, which I'd actually spotted back at the harbour. You can see them here if you look closely at the trees near the centre of this picture.
Here's what was looming up out of the trees on the cliff above us:
Impressive! This is Seacliff House, the residence of the people who built the harbour.
Here’s another view, with slightly fewer trees in the way. I thought there was something terribly romantic and slightly eerie about the smokeless chimneys rising above the bare trees; it reminded me of something out of a Daphne Du Maurier novel.
The feeling of being in a novel was compounded when I turned to look behind me. The ruins of Auldhame glowered across the beach, now that the sun was behind them. The bare trees added to this impression.
Here's the view of the harbour. The cliffs were all in such deep shadow that they appeared to be almost black.
In contrast, the reflections of the clouds were in delicate pastels that made me think of watercolour paintings.
I was busy trying to shake off the I've-wandered-into-a-Du-Maurier-novel feeling, when…horses! Two riders appeared from within the trees and bushes that bordered this end of the beach; there was no visible access to the beach, it seemed as though they'd just materialised.
The spell was broken somewhat when one of the riders took her horse down into the water for a bit of a paddle. The other horse was very evidently not a fan of getting his hooves wet. He tossed his head and made disapproving whickering noises when his rider tried to get him nearer the water.
Here he is, demonstrating disapproval.
Soon the riders headed back up to the trees. Here you can see what the ruins actually looked like from the beach; the previous two photos were taken with the zoom lens, so I didn't see the detail in them until I downloaded them from the camera.
My footprints on the beach, you can see where I was meandering about as I took photos of waves.
As we got closer to the ruins, the sun went behind a cloud again, and the sea changed colour, adding (thanks to my overactive imagination) a slight air of menace to our adventure.
As we got closer to Seacliff, it became apparent that despite the neatly ordered rows of chimney pots, the place was definitely abandoned. I began to insist on finding a way to get up there and investigate.
There was also a mysterious shed - perhaps once a boat house? Now engulfed by the scrub and bushes.
The hoofprints showed us where the path came down to the beach.
I convinced my trusty sidekicks to at least let us follow the horses to the other side of the scrub, to see what we could see. As we were about to disappear up the sandy path over what had once been dunes, the sun came out, so I paused to take a picture. It made such a difference to the colours, and brought such apparent warmth to what had previously looked quite foreboding.
The feeling of being in a novel didn't dissipate as we scrambled up a steep slope, between high walls of scrub. Underfoot the sand was loose, kicked up by the horses. The path curved, and ended suddenly in a clearing, evidently man made. A rough group of stubby trees surrounded the clearing, and in the centre there was one very old and gnarled tree with initials carved on it. The place was so overgrown that the branches met overhead. This place had everything! Two ruined mansions, a secret harbour, and now a mysterious and romantic clearing.
We emerged from the bushes onto a dirt road that ran along and round the side of a field, then up alongside the cliff, atop which was the ruined house. We walked along the road to the bottom of the cliff. There we found an old stone wall with a rusted iron gate hanging open, and a path leading up into the trees.
The path was too irresistible; it was clearly a way up to explore the mansion. It was also incredibly steep and very slippy. The cliff side was composed of dark rich earth out of which grew trees and saplings, each clinging tightly to the slope. The ground was completely covered in ivy, with exposed roots trailing across the paths, just waiting to trip an unwary explorer. I told my parents to wait at the bottom, just in case, as it was so steep.
I picked my way up the slope, following what appeared to be an excellent path. A path which swiftly petered out as soon as it had reached a good height, about half way up the cliff. I paused to take stock.
On my right, a bastion of some sort seemed oddly out of place; it was crenelated and vaguely medieval in style, but what it was doing jutting out of the cliff seemingly miles from habitation, who knew? It was definitely connected to the abandoned mansion above, but (from what I could see through the trees) it hadn't appeared to be very fortified.
I scrambled the remaining few feet up the slope; the cliff at this point suddenly got a lot steeper, and I found myself clutching ivy and scrambling/staggering up onto a narrow ledge that ran round outside a fence.
This is what I saw when I looked up. Seacliff: Totally worth clambering up cliffs for.
A shout from below made me turn: Despite strict instructions, my parents had decided to join me. I prefer to think that curiosity overcame their natural decorum!
The ground floor windows on the left were missing the glass, but the sash and casement were still in place, giving it an eerie half-inhabited look, as if it had only recently been lived in.
I helped my parents up the last few feet, and soon we were all gazing at the ruin.
Despite walking all the way round the top of the cliff, it was difficult to fit the whole building into the photograph, at least without falling backwards down the hill. The architecture was an odd mix; Scottish Baronial and medieval, but with those huge, grand windows towards the right. These were joined by what looked almost like a fort: A long wall with very thin arrow-slit windows in it (you can see one in this photo). That wall fitted better with the bastion than with the rest of the building, which didn't look in the least fortifiable.
Beyond the ruin there seemed to be a stable block, which had subsequently been converted into accommodation.
Close up of what I like to think of as the picture window. There were tantalising glimpses of doorways and rooms beyond it. Note the windows on the left, with the windowframes weathered, but otherwise untouched. Several of the windows were like that, creating an eerie contrast to the destruction of the rest of the building.
The central part of the building had fallen in. I wondered whether there had been only a balcony there, or whether the whole frontage jutted out. In the turret at the top, the window had been boarded over though it looked as though there was some mullioned glass remaining.
The fireplace visible halfway up the wall had a fire-damaged cover. The mantlepiece, grate and tiling had long gone, though if you look at the
large size of this photo, you can still see where they used to be. I can't work out what that is in the fireplace itself though.
This would have been the back part of the house, though it would have had the choicest views. It faces north-west, so would have had afternoon and late afternoon sunshine. The trees growing on the cliff (with the low angle of the sun) meant that only the the topmost gables had any sunlight (or view). Judging by the windows though, the vegetation would have been kept well trimmed. It seemed as though the trees had been allowed to grow up around the building to hide it.
We decided that probably the building had been destroyed by fire; all the roofs and any internal walls that weren't stone had gone, but the rest of the building seemed remarkably undamaged, except for the central section. The fire probably started around there and had spread upwards, because the wooden window frames on the ground floor were almost all undamaged. It made for a very eerie effect.
In the gothic romantic frame of mind that I was in, the ivy climbing up and out of the window seemed to (fittingly) echo the flames which must have once streamed through the broken window.
There was a dead tree in the gap, but behind it we could see right through to the back wall of the house. There were tantalising glimpses of doorways leading elsewhere; this place seemed much larger than it initially appeared.
The ground floor seemed as though it had a very low ceiling height; perhaps it wasn't used by the family? At least in this section - the tall windows in the adjoining wing suggested otherwise.
As we walked round outside the fence, an animated discussion took place. I was all for climbing through the fence and zooming across the lawn to take photos of the inside of the building. The fact that this was someone else's house (the adjoining stable block had been converted and was definitely lived in - not to mention that the grass had been cut) was uppermost in the minds of my cohorts.
The cliff bent round and in towards the wall. The space between the fence and the drop got steadily wider as it did so. As we walked round, the rest of the building began to open up, and became steadily more mysterious. There was what looked almost like a military guard tower, beside which were huge windows that seemed to give on to what looked like a garden. The arrow-slot windows in the wall didn't fit with the huge picture window. And hten there was the boarded up/blocked up window underneath. Very odd! Not to mention that the windowsill was halfway between what would have been the ground and first floors of the rest of the building.
The mystery got more mysterious still. Just out of sight at the edge of this photo the wall turned to follow the line of the cliff.
At the corner there was what looked like a faux guardhouse, and most enticingly: An open doorway. That settled the matter of whether we were going to explore or not; an open doorway was too inviting!
We picked our way over the fallen trees and feral ivy to reach a set of ivy-clad steps that led up to the door.
As we scrambled through the undergrowth I paused to look back through the fallen wall into the heart of the building. A doorway showed another wall covered with ivy.
In the sentry box on the wall, the glass in the window had been broken, but the frame was still intact. In some ways it seemed as though the place hadn't been abandoned for long.
I went first up the steps, and through the doorway. I had expected steps on the other side of the wall, but it turned out that the ground level inside was much higher than the ground level outside. That accounted for the slightly squashed feeling one got when looking at the "ground" floor at the back of the building.
I got such a fright when I stopped looking at my feet and actually looked up and through the doorway. This is what was in front of me! It was as though I'd walked into Narnia. I'm not entirely sure what I'd expected to find, but to walk into a wood (and one which was broadly free of ivy) was not remotely on the list. This seemed almost to be a garden or a "prettyish sort of wilderness" belonging to the main house.
The wood was absolutely silent, except for the cracking of twigs and rustling of leaves under my feet as I made space for my companions to emerge from the doorway in their turn. Then I got such a shock! I caught sight of what seemed to be a body, hanging from a tree over to my right. I jumped and did a double take. It was only a piece of white sack tied to a branch by a rope, and mooving in the breeze. Not entirely sure what it was there for; perhaps target practice of some sort?
The snowbells were very pretty.
We followed the wall to the left, where we found ourselves just inside the picture windows we'd been scutinising from the outside. The ground level was at the bottom of the windows, and the frames were still intact, though all the glass was missing. In places, there was plaster still on the wall.
What was also very odd was that there were two walls missing. Not fallen down, just not there at all in the first place. You follow the curtain wall, turn the corner, and find yourself looking at this window. To my right and behind me as I was taking this picture, there were no walls - this was all open to the garden. The roof, however, was still intact, though ivy had managed to festoon everything.
Through the window you can see the lawn, the Dread Ivy covering the fence and the ground at the top of the cliff, and the trees growing along the slope. Beyond that you can see the beach and the sea. On the far left the is the rock that the harbour is built into.
There were some large trees just behind me, so I couldn't get far enough back to take this picture propwerly, despite the wide angle attachment on my lens. I'm not peering through a peephole here, it's just that proper wide angle lenses are a few hundred pounds, so I use a wide angle attachment, which - if I zoom out all the way - appears around the edge of the picture. Still, it allows me to fit more in than otherwise. Normally I crop it out or zoom in enough that it can't be seen, but in this case I'd lose too much of the picture to do either. So I haven't.
Just beyond the big picture window in what I thought of as the "garden room" was the doorway into a tiny square room, with two long narrow windows. This was the guard post we'd seen from the other side of the wall. It too had a lovely view.
This is looking north, towards fife. I think this is the friendly tree which helped me stagger up the last bit of the slope.
Inside the room, the plaster was still intact on the walls, though suffering badly from damp and graffitti, some of which was rather old (the same age as me!).
Looking out of the other window, towards the harbour, and the fallen tree we had to climb over.
Standing in the "garden room" looking into the guard outpost. The floor of the garden room was dirt, but the guard post had a proper flagstone floor which was about half a foot lower down. If I'd had time, I'd have been tempted to dig down to see whether there was a flagstone floor buried where we were standing. Unfortunately, the sun was going down and it was beginning to get dark, so I didn't have long.
The curtain wall can be seen through the window on the left there. The trees mark the edge of the cliff; beyond is a field with horses in which slopes down to the beach.
The floor levels were fascinating! We'd gone up about four steps to go through the door (which is sort of beyond that pile of wood you can see through the window), and now the ground level is about three foot higher than the lawn outside. That meant that the "ground floor" windows we were looking at at the back of the house must have effectively been underground.
Late afternoon sunlight. This is looking at the front part of the building, now completely festooned with ivy. This is the part of the building that you'd have driven up to when it was in use. You can just make out a window through the ivy.
A charming Scottish Baronial turret festooned in ivy. If you were approaching the building when it was in use, this turret marked the far left hand corner of the frontage.
We followed the curtain wall along to the front of the building, which is where I took the previous two photos. At the side of the building, there was a small stone platform with two steps descending decorously into the garden. It looked as though this had been a small patio or maybe even a conservatory.
There was a door from the platform which led into...this.
This is the room with the very grand long and tall windows, which are just to the left of the picture. The levels are so odd - the floor level that can be seen very clearly here was effectively the ground level on the front of the house, but not at the back.
For some reason I kept thinking of this as the library; something about the room just suggested that it would have been lovely with lots of bookcases, and some nice chairs in the window where one could sit to read and write and admire the view.
This was a fireplace on the opposite wall to where I was standing. It still had the grate and fire surround, which looked sadly out of place now there was no floor.
I'm not sure what the recess to the left of the fireplace would have been. It's a bit large for the side of the floor joists, but the top of it is level with where the floor would have been. Perhaps it was for a very large beam.
The floor joists for the main level were completely charred, but the wooden support for the plaster in the room beneath was untouched. It looks like the fire started on the main floor, which would work with why the ground floor windows at the back seemed to be untouched.
The same fireplace as earlier, but with more context. This would have been the upper floor, where the bedrooms would have been.
Looking up and to the right from where I'm standing. There was another black metal fireplace which matched the one on the opposite wall. This one was hiding beneath a curtain of ivy.
Looking down, the windows have been bricked up at some point, though whether ebfore or after the fire it's hard to tell. Possibly it was after, however, in order to stabilise the building. You can see the charred wood of the floor joist, with the untouched wooden strips for the plaster below it; the wooden beam for the top of the window is also untouched, yet it's at the level of the floor which burned, so it must have been put in later.
The wall and gable end to my left.
It was time to go, as it was nearly dark. We headed back the way we'd come. This is looking up at the side of the building. The ivy covered wall on the left is the curtain wall in which the "garden room" was. It joins the main building at this side, next to the impressive windows. The turret on the right in this picture is the turred I took a photo of earlier, from underneath. The doorway or window below and to the left of it (in the centre of the picture) is just above the doorway we'd gone through to look into the building.
The woods behind the wall, otherwise known as "Narnia". The "garden room" window can just be seen on the right.
The front of the building is just to the left of this picture. Next to that there was a field with ponies and jumps, and the road in to the stables. You can just see the road beyond the trees.
Looking back at the building. This end of it at least is completely overtaken by ivy.
Looking back at the curtain wall and the garden room and guard tower as we walked back round to find a way down the cliff.
The building was almost completely in shadow as we left. Having explored it, and looked down into what had once been a family's home, the building didn't seem as ominous as it had; now I felt that there was an air of sadness and regret about the place. It had evidently been so beautiful, such a lovely place to live - all destroyed in the space of a few hours, and never rebuilt. I thought it was a shame that no-one had had the means to restore it.
We made our way back onto the beach; it was definitely evening. Coming back through the wooded bit near the shore was very dark.
Looking west along the beach towards Auldhame. At this time of day the sea often appears to have a luminous quality as it reflects the pale blue of the sky, and the white foam of the breaking waves seems to have a ghostly quality.
Looking along the beach to the east. At the line of rocks the coast turns southwards.
I like contrast of the colours of the beach and sky to the pale pink and purple of the clouds.
St Baldred's Cross, the rocks, and May Island just visible in the background.
As we walked back, the sun had all but gone, but there was just a teeny pink tinge on the upper slopes of Bass Rock.
It got dark very quickly as we walked back along the beach. Everything took on pastel shades, and the sea turned that odd luminous colour it gets on clear evenings. There was just a teeny bit of red light on the rocks where the cormorants sat earlier. I took this because I liked the colours and the clouds.
Sunlight on the rocks.
Auldhame at sunset.
The cliffs, the Gegan rocks (where the secret harbour is), and Bass Rock.
The beach, taken from up on the road, where we waited for my father to bring the car down from the car park.
While waiting to get picked up, we sat and watched the light turn slowly redder.
The sun disappeared behind the cliffs, and the beacon became a smudge against the darkening sea. We hopped in the car, and headed home.
Here are some satellite images from Google maps. If you click on the photos, it will take you through to flickr, where I've highlighted where things are.
Auldhame, the secret harbour, slipway, and the cave and its channel from above.
Seacliff Harbour; no need to click through to flickr for the features on this one. I like the fact that two boats can be seen in the harbour.
Auldhame castle.
Seacliff from above; this really demonstrates the size of the place. The wiggle in the edge of the lawn is where the fortification is. The trees are hiding a very steep cliff.
Here's what the mansion looked like from the front. The original Seacliff House was built in 1750, by a man named Robert Colt. At that time, it was a long, low, narrow house. Later, it was bought by a man named George Sligo, who in 1841, had the architect David Bryce build a new house in the baronial style. This was built over and around the original building, which remained as the core of the house. It was subsequently purchased by a man named John Watson Laidlay, who had it extended in 1850. It was his descendant who created the harbour.
In 1907 it was gutted by fire. Later, the outbuildings were purchased by the Royal Navy; they established a "top secret" research base there during World War I. The station was known as HMS Scottish Seacliff, and was mainly used for navigation training and U-boat defence. I bet the harbour came in useful for that! This actually wasn't the first time Seacliff beach was used in war time; it was used by troops attacking Tantallon Castle, which is only half a mile away. During the Napoleonic wars, troops were stationed here against the threat of French attack.
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