Life in Newburgh on Ythan

By Talpa

Perthudden Bay, looking south to Aberdeen.

A spring on the slopes of Perthudden Bay was once the source of the water supply for the nearby village of Collieston.

In the large version of the photograph you can make out, on the horizon, offshore supply vessels queuing to enter Aberdeen harbour.

What can I tell you about Perthudden that might be of interest? Well, there was once a certain fishwife named Margaret Cruickshank who had a most venomous and filthy tongue. It was said that when she was spewing out her wrath one could hear her from Perthudden to the Needle's Eye. As this often occurred on the Sabbath, she was frequently put to her knees in sackcloth praying for forgiveness on the Stool of Repentance in the local Kirk! The Needle's Eye is a fissure 30 yards long, 4 feet wide, and 20 to 30 feet high, that runs through a huge rocky outcrop at Cransdale and through which, in an easterly gale, the waves rush with terrific violence. Since the eye is a full 800 yards from Perthudden, Margaret must have had some voice!

I was standing directly above the Eye when I took Yesterday's blip.

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