The Moray Way Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to The Dava Way, The Moray Coast Trail and the Speyside Way

By Norman Thomson

The Moray Way consists of all or part of three previously existing routes: the Moray Coast Trail, the Speyside Way and the Dava Way. Together they cover a huge and varied range of landscapes.This book is the ideal guide to much of what this beautiful and richly historical part of Scotland has to offer. The largest town, Forres, is an ancient royal burgh. Between it and the next biggest town of Lossiemouth lie the coastal villages of Findhorn, Burghead and Hopeman, connected by some of Scotland’s finest coastal scenery and beaches. Eastwards, beyond intact remains of second world war defences, lie Garmouth and Fochabers, the former, many centuries ago, the main port of Moray Here the Moray Way turns south, following a course through the fertile Spey valley. Its many distilleries are part of the considerable variety of interest as the route continues to the resort town of Grantown. A final stage northward crosses the wild openness of Dava Moor, reaching eventually the spectacular Divie viaduct where there is a dramatic change to gentler woodlands and pastoral landscapes as the trail leads back to Forres.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781788855624

Norman Thomson

Norman Thomson has been charmed by the Moray countryside since first encountering it in boyhood. After some years teaching at Gordonstoun he moved to England but kept returning on holidays before making it his permanent retirement home. In 2009 he and Ann Dunn launched the concept of the Moray Way and later helped co-found Moray Walking Festival, which has now grown into the increasingly popular Moray Walking & Outdoor Festival.

Book preview

1

THE MORAY COAST TRAIL

In Sections 1 to 3 route directions are highlighted in green type to separate these from information about features en route.

Forres

Forres is the largest town on the Moray Way and there is a good deal to see there for those prepared to pause awhile. Forres has been a Royal Burgh since David I signed a charter at some time around 1140. This is no longer extant but a subsequent charter signed by James IV in 1496 still exists, as is acknowledged in the name of a High Street café. The medieval street layout of a single thoroughfare with long narrow plots running at right angles to it is shown in the nineteenth-century map on p. 18, separated by closes or vennels, whose courses can still be traced in the lanes leading off the High Street.

Houses were gable-ended to the High Street, with each frontage precisely measured in Norman times as 1 rod (= 24 feet 9 inches/7.5 metres). The intention of its founders was that merchants should be brought to the town to occupy feus, build houses and promote commerce. The houses of that period were built of timber, mud and rubble, with doors and windows facing east and a windowless west wall where there was an access passage to divide each property from that of its neighbour. This style can still be observed in the property opposite St Leonard’s church, even although it was rebuilt in the 1770s. No doubt each property had its dung heap at the far end from the house.

While Forres has always been a prosperous small town, there were periods within which the population increased greatly, the first between 1750 and 1790 when it went up from around 2,000 to around 3,000, and the second between the 1950s and the present, when it has doubled to around 10,000. In the first of these periods exports and imports through Findhorn as its port (see p. 35) helped to ensure prosperity, while within the town itself its minister reported in the Statistical Account of 1793 that ‘the inhabitants in general are disposed to industry’. Spinning linen yarn had for the previous twenty years or so brought in considerable amounts of money. The merchants sent the finished yarn to Glasgow where there was generally a ready sale, although a period of decline began in the mid-1840s due to the increased use of machinery in the south.

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Nineteenth-century street plan of Forres.

It is doubtful to what extent the common folk shared in this prosperity, although in financial terms they were better off by contrast with life in the hinterland. The Statistical Account goes on:

Happy for our country did we keep pace in virtuous improvement, with the extravagant refinement in dress and manners. 30 years ago 30 shillings would have purchased a complete holiday suit of clothing for a labouring servant; according to the present mode of dress, it will require at least £5 to equip him. In 1750 a servant engaged for harvest had 4 pence a day with his victuals, in 1790 10d. a day with two meals, that is 25 shillings for the whole time of harvest. A labouring man servant in 1790 had about £7 per year, a woman servant from £1 16s. to £2 2s.

The town’s tradefolk at the time included 52 shoemakers, 25 weavers and 23 tailors, which makes a statement about the durability of eighteenth-century clothing and footwear!

By the 1800s most of the traditional buildings in the High Street had been replaced with permanent structures, and the first High Street fronts were created. Until 1975 Forres had its own centuries-old Town Council with a Provost and bailies. This was dissolved by the Local Government Act of that year in favour of a single Council for the entire county of Moray. As in many similar towns, businesses have come and gone, some replaced by charity shops which use up to some extent the number of vacant properties of which there are almost invariably a few. Sadly the Falconer Museum, a nineteenth-century endowment to the town by Forres-born Hugh Falconer, was closed indefinitely in 2020 due to Council cutbacks, and its collections remain hidden from view. Hugh Falconer was a geologist, botanist, palaeontologist, evolutionist and friend of Charles Darwin. He became curator of the Botanic Gardens in Calcutta and agricultural adviser to the Indian Government, and was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society.

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Forres today.

The Council closures also included the Tourist Information Centre, although this sort of information is still available at the Town Hall which is under community ownership following a Community Asset Transfer from the Moray Council.

More details about Forres past and present are available in A Forres Companion by Norman Thomson (2015), costing £5 and available from the Washington bookshop in Forres, from Forres Town Hall or from Logie Steading (see p. 140). A very detailed account of Forres history is given in The Annals of Forres by Dr Robert Douglas (1936). If you locate a copy it is likely to be expensive.

A clockwise circuit of the Moray Way starting from Forres begins at the Tolbooth where you can either follow the official Moray Way route heading east out of the town, or head west, then north, on an alternative route. In either case you will come across two striking features in the centre of the High Street, which was voted in 2017 by the Scottish Towns Partnership to be the prettiest High Street in Scotland. These are:

Forres Tolbooth

The present Tolbooth complex was opened in 1849 to replace an earlier three-storey tower and courtroom. By this phase of building the present aspect of Forres town centre was largely established. Tolbooths were common throughout Scottish towns as places where councillors and magistrates met to formulate local policy and administer justice. A tolbooth included a jail, and in Forres the original cells still exist and can be visited between May and October — consult www.forresheritage.co.uk for details. The showpiece on such occasions is the lovingly restored courtroom, which functioned as such until as recently as 1975, when the Town Council was dissolved. The Tolbooth also has a railway room with a model of the demolished station (see p. 194) and photographs of early days on the Dava and Aberdeen lines.

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Forres Tolbooth and Mercat Cross.

Forres Mercat Cross

This miniature version of the Scott Monument in Edinburgh was erected in 1844, on the site of the previous Mercat Cross, which itself had replaced an earlier megalithic stone pillar reported to have been 20 feet (6 metres) high. Like similar Mercat Crosses throughout Scotland it would have been used for royal and civic proclamations, as well as having manacles (‘jougs’) attached to it in which prisoners were chained for crimes which fell short of meriting execution or burning at the stake. The ornamental corner pillars have fallen off from time to time, but a project in 2021 replaced some of them and restored the cross to its original glory. Some of the small carvings are worth a glance, such as the one illustrated here — a story in stone long forgotten! A time capsule from 1844 is buried in the base.

Illustration

Carving on the Mercat Cross.

From the Tolbooth and Mercat Cross open area the official route heads east along Victoria Road. The most notable features here