Culture, History, & Deep Fried Chocolate in Stonehaven

On the east coast of Scotland, 18 miles south of Aberdeen is the town of Stonehaven which was originally a fishing village. It's now a very popular tourist destination. We went to Stonehaven for a very specific reason that the title of this post might have given away - we'll get to that in a moment.

It's a fairly typical Scottish seaside town with large caravan parks on the edge of town, lots of takeaway shops, and quirky little boutique shops like the one this very colourful pushbike was outside.

The harbour is very pretty and there were lots of people around enjoying the fine day we'd been granted with.

Now the reason for our visit. The rest of the UK often joke about how the Scottish will deep fry anything as the traditional diet used to leave a lot to be desired and as a result Scotland has the highest rate of heart disease per head of population in the UK.

Through these comments about deep frying anything the deep fried mars bar was born and The Carron Fish Bar in Stonehaven was the birthplace of this Scottish 'delicacy', so of course that's where I wanted to try this sweet treat.

And here it is in all it's glory, a mars bar fried in the same batter that the fish is coated in. I can't imagine how many calories are in it but we're not thinking about that.

Did I enjoy it? I would say yes. I mean what's not to like, crispy light batter surrounding melted chocolate and runny caramel - slightly odd but still scrummy. My beloved wasn't very keen but he did have one mouthful and I wish I'd taken a picture of his face as it wasn't a very happy one. It's not something I'd necessarily eat again but I'm glad I've tried this bit of Scottish quirkiness.

Lobster pots piled up on the harbour.

The two of us - the building to the far right of Ken is the oldest building in the town and now houses a museum.

A Mercat Cross is the Scottish for market cross, the place where markets were allowed to take place and often where announcements were read out to the locals.

We saw a couple of barometers whilst we were in Aberdeenshire and they were both pointing to 'change' - I think this must be quite a common forecast for this part of the world.

Looking from near the harbour along to the main town where there is a lovely walk along the front.

As we walked along the sea front we discovered some really interesting sculptures made out of metal. The boats that have fish as the workmen were really cute and so intricate.

Note that the fish worker is wearing a knitted beanie and smoking a cigarette.

A selection of the other sculptures including a wonderful lighthouse that if you look in the windows you can see fish in bed, and in another room they're sitting on a couch watching tv.

Just outside of Stonehaven, on a dramatic outcrop of stone, sits Dunnottar Castle where there has been some sort of fortress since about 400 AD - a long, long, long, long time ago. It's such a stunning setting and one day we'll go back and actually explore the castle - it was getting a bit late in the day when we got there and the sign says that it takes at least two hours to do it justice.

We did however have time to stop in at Dunnottar Church graveyard - well it would have been rude not to.

There are some really old graves and amongst them were these two that really intrigued us as we'd never seen quite this shape before. I'm going to have to do a bit of research, which isn't a hardship as graveyards are one of my favourite things.

My beloved reading the Covenanters stone which is the memorial to the 122 men and 45 women that were imprisoned in the castle in 1685 and all died. There crime was to adhere to the belief that God was the head of the church in Scotland and not the King of England.

This small building beside the church was built in 1582 and is called the Marischal Aisle. It was built by George Keith, the 5th Earl of Marischal, for his family's burials. He died in 1623 and is buried in the aisle and there is the below plaque to commemorate him.

A damaged plaque that was leaning against the building.

Beautiful autumn leaves on a tree in the more modern part of the graveyard.

That was our lovely day out to Stonehaven - culture, history, and 'fine dining'. What do you think, would you try a deep fried mars bar?

Until next time, be good, stay safe, and have a really lovely week.

Pamela & Ken
xxxxxxxxxxxx