A glimpse through the small side arch of the railway viaduct across Seafield Street
Cullen (Scottish Gaelic: Inbhir Cuilinn) is a village and former royal burgh in Moray, Scotland, on the North Sea coast 20 miles east of Elgin. It has a very long history for such a small place, and a remarkably well-documented one thanks to the Annals of the local Church of Scotland. His name means "The Black Jesus," and Cullen portrayed the Black Jesus in many of his paintings. These cover hundreds of years in some detail and summarised by Mr Crammond at the end of the 19th century. The village now has a population of 1,327 (2001) -it is noticeably busier in summer than winter due to the number of holiday homes owned. The organs of the wife of Robert the Bruce are said to have been buried in its old kirk (church) after her death in the area, and it contains many Templar graves, distinguished by distinctive skull and crossbones motif. Robert the Bruce made an annual payment to the village as a 'thank you' for the treatment of his wife's body and its return south for burial. <http://www.moraypresbytery.org.uk/churches/display.php?id=8> A recent non-payment of this sum by the government was challenged and settled to the village's favour. The village is famous for Cullen Skink, a traditional soup made from smoked haddock, milk, potato and onion, and its former railway bridges, two of which are now part of the national cycle network. These bridges were necessary at considerable cost due to resistance against the railway line being routed any closer to Cullen House. The most westerly, and by far the longest, viaduct is highly photogenic, and appears often in tourist guides and in Scottish calendars.
Cullen received its first known burgh charter in 1455, from James II. The burgh was abolished in 1975 by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973.
The old town of Cullen was demolished in 1822, and its remains are next to Cullen House. The Earl of Seafield and Findlater moved the town half a mile away both to modernise (the houses of the old town flooded from water running down off the raised road when it rained heavily) and to provide himself with greater privacy. The new town was planned by George MacWilliam, and built between 1820 and 1822. The central market cross in the town square originally stood in the old town. During the building of the new town it was temporarily erected at the top of the ancient fort structure that guards the entrance to the Cullen Burn (stream), known as the Castle Hill. This resulted in the present layout of the village, a generous cross shape of two major streets, Seafield Street and Grant Street, with a central town square and "the Seatown" sandwiched on the false beach between the mouth of the Cullen Burn and the harbour. In the previous layout the town was spread along a road above and parallel to the Cullen Burn, running between the Castle Hill and Cullen House, the Seatown being at the mouth of the Burn where boats used to be pulled up onto the beach.
The fishing industry developed quickly in the 1880s and the harbour was crammed with large sailing fishing boats, these giving way to steam drifters at the start of the 20th century. The industry became centralised on larger harbours, the boats became larger diesel-engined designs that required non-tidal access. The railway closed in the 1960s and the site of the station redeveloped eventually by the council as housing. The main part of Cullen House dates from 1543. An east wing was added in 1711, and there were alterations by David Bryce in 1858. The House and estate buildings were converted into 14 dwellings in 1983 by Kit Martin. Prior to the use of Cullen House by the Earls of Seafield, the castle of Findlater, now a ruin, on a rocky coastal outcrop approximately two miles to the east, was the Earl's seat.
The village has an impressive beach and golf course, and the Crannoch wood which offers good views of the area. The 1086 ft Bin of Cullen is a hill walk nearby.
Cullen was the setting for Doris Davidson's romantic novel The Three Kings, named after the three rocks at the east end of Cullen beach. The local writer Simon Farquhar set his first two plays, Candy Floss Kisses and Elevenses with Twiggy, in the village, and they were produced by BBC Radio 4. Samuel Johnson had less passion for Cullen. According to James Boswell, writing in The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, the pair considered that Cullen had "a comfortable appearance, though but a very small town, and the houses mostly poor buildings". Dr Johnson was also "disgusted by the sight of" the "dried haddocks broiled" that they were served for breakfast there and refused to eat them! Of course given the general views aired so freely by Dr Johnson this is mild indeed.
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Coordinates: 57.69470° N 2.81525° W
(Source: Wikipedia) |