Laurencekirk & area

Farming Travels in Laurencekirk

by Janice Hopper

Laurencekirk is a small town in the Howe of the Mearns, situated between Aberdeen and Dundee. Many people drive past it, whizzing from one city to another, but if you have time for some rural relaxation, Laurencekirk and its surrounding villages offer learning, literature and libations in the tranquil Kincardineshire countryside.

For something different make your first stop the Flower Field. Many travellers have experienced pick-your-own-fruit but few have picked their own flowers. Just off the A90 is this unexpected farming nugget, offering blooms from spring though to late summer. The season starts with daffodils, tulips, iris and alliums, followed by sunflowers, gladioli and dahlia. A display board advises visitors when and how to pick each flower, and costs range from 40p-£1.00 per stem.

From the customer’s point of view, this small field offers a colourful oasis of flowers to choose between, at a reasonable price point. I found it a calming experience to spend time selecting blooms at my own pace. From the farmer’s point of view, it’s a relatively simple business model featuring a few cutting implements, info boards, an honesty box and PayPal account, yet no staffing costs.

The Flower Field is part of N J McWilliam & Co farm, which has evolved over the last 130 years from a traditional mixed farm of cereals and livestock to a 500 Ha intensive arable unit made up of cereals, potatoes and flowers. Alongside pickyour-own flowers, McWilliam supplies winter barley and winter wheat for feed, spring barley for malting, oilseed rape, cut flowers for supermarkets, daffodil bulbs destined for the USA and Europe, and potatoes heading as far afield as Egypt, Israel and North Africa, as well as England.

From a field of blooms, our next stop was the ‘Farming in the Field Education Centre’ at Burn of Balmakelly Farm. This venture offers a learning experience primarily aimed at schools and nurseries, schoolchildren with additional needs, the Scout movement, pension groups and care home residents, but any family that would like to give it a try are more than welcome. Look out for family friendly events over the summer months, such as farming treasure hunts. At Farming in the Field Education Centre children are introduced to the knowledge and skills of farming, which they can transfer back to their home and garden.

The centre is run by Marie Thomson, a farmer’s daughter who studied and worked in the care profession. Now she combines these two skillsets and passions, working primarily with local pupils with active assisted needs, giving them hands on experience and rural education. We dropped by with our own two mini volunteers (aged 8 and 7). The kids had fun meeting the pet Kunekune pigs, Pinky and Dotty, but the educational angle was always present. The children had to monitor the pigs’ gait as they watched them run for the feed, check the animals’ skin and hair,

and learn more about how pigs live, and what pigs are fed, when and why. We were also asked what we imagined a ‘pig sty’ would look like? Marie suggested that it’s probably tidier than the children’s bedroom. When we peered inside the sty we all conceded this point.

The next stop was dropping by Marie’s rescue donkeys, Keiran and Johnny. These donkeys are being trained to follow a simple obstacle course, ably led by our children, and the aim is to enable them to tow a cart, and ultimately allow wheelchair users to guide the donkeys around the course too. All participating youngsters at Farming in the Field are allocated jobs throughout their shift, because they have to learn teamwork and be able to constructively help and contribute. My boys were filling troughs, watering plants and pushing wheelbarrows wherever Marie required them.

After ‘working the land’ it’s time to reward mini farmers with a hearty lunch, or drink and a cake at Balmakewan Farm Shop. As you drive up Balmakewan’s dirt track, a large herd of deer are quietly grazing in the surrounding fields. Inside the farm shop discover local produce (including venison pie), a range of rural homewares and gifts, toys tractors, plus an expansive café.

Once fed and watered, a key destination on any Laurencekirk itinerary is the simple but hugely informative Grassic Gibbon Centre. This attraction neatly sums up the life and works of famous Howe of the Mearns author, James Leslie Mitchell, better known as Lewis Grassic Gibbon. Youngest son of a Kildrummy farmer’s daughter and an Insch crofter, James Mitchell was born in Hillhead of Segget in Auchterless, before moving to Bloomfield croft, an isolated and remote but beautiful spot two miles above Arbuthnott. As a young man Mitchell wrote for the Aberdeen Journal and the Scottish Farmer, and his first books were published when he was in his late twenties. ‘Hanno’ came out in 1928, followed by ‘Stained Radiance’ in 1930. But it was the moving and sensitive ‘Sunset Song’ of 1932 that captured the world of north-east farming beautifully in prose, and caught the attention of readers and critics alike.

The tale of ‘Sunset Song’s heroine, Chris Guthrie, exposed the raw beauty and exhausting struggle of farming life. Lewis Grassic Gibbon poignantly conveyed the poverty, toil, harshness of religion and oppressive reality of life for working men, but particularly women, at a period when WW1 loomed large and farming technology was changing the agricultural world forever.

The Grassic Gibbon Centre screens a 15-minute documentary about the writer, alongside providing a host of information boards covering his life and other key works such as ‘Cloud Howe’ and ‘Grey Granite’ (that make up the renowned ‘Scots Quair’). Also on display are personal items belonging to James Mitchell, and local artefacts from early twentieth century rural Aberdeenshire, summing up the brief but prolific life of this Scots writer who died aged only 35. The informative centre also offers a gift shop, playground and a friendly café.

For those inspired by the books and wish to appreciate the landscape further, take a hike up the Hill of Garvock or the Cairn O’ Mount to view the surrounding countryside. Other key stops and producers in and around Laurencekirk include the Spud Hut at Westerton Farm, for all your tattle requirements. For local produce drop by the Westerton farm shop and refillery, Farm to Table. Also consider Burnside Brewery and Fettercairn Distillery. Lastly, if you do wish to leave the land behind and head seawards, then the picturesque harbour town of Johnshaven and the expansive sweeping sands of St Cyrus are only a fifteen minute drive from Laurencekirk. These intriguing locations are a little under the radar and off the beaten track, making them ripe for quiet exploration this summer.

The Grassic Gibbon Centre FACT BOX The Flower Field - njmcwilliam. co.uk/copy-of-our-people

Farming in the Field - farminginthefieldeducation.co.uk £6 per person.

Balmakewan Farm Shop - facebook.com/Balmakewan

The Grassic Gibbon Centre - grassicgibbon.com Entry to the exhibition is £2.75, but free if you make a purchase at the café.