Those of you who know Aberfoyle probably already know that this is Rob Roy country so the name of this particular tearoom is maybe not that surprising. The reason for us being here is once again down to R B Cunninghame Graham. You may remember, he wrote about the Princess of Buckhaven in a previous post. In another of his stories, ‘A Braw Day’, written in 1900 about his last day at his home in Gartmore House. He makes a passing reference  .. ‘the curious moondial, with its niches coloured blue and red’.

If you Google ‘moondial’, unsurprisingly, it tells you that it is an instrument for telling the time using the moon rather than the sun. It also says it is only accurate on the night of a full moon. One week before or after a full moon it is more than 5 hours out! Why on earth would you bother? 

We thought we should try to find out if it was still there and to see what sort of form it took. You’re probably thinking, “this pair couldn’t find a harbour the last time they went looking, what chance a tiny moon dial?” Turns out you would not be too far wrong. This particular moondial is no longer telling the time at Gartmore House .. it had been used to help fill in a harbour in Fife!! No, no,no, no, we did eventually find it tucked away round the back of the local Parish Church in a plot dedicated to the Cayzer family who bought Gartmore in 1901.

How to work a moondial

There it was .. not at all what we expected. A couple of hundred years ago, someone, somewhere spent a lot of time and effort designing this thing and presumably it must be more accurate than the Google one assuming you know how to read it. It’s an extremely complicated piece of kit. It cries out for explanation by some of you repositories of useless information. Yes, we are thinking of the Ludbrokes and Hopwoods of this world! Having spent some considerable time trying to figure it out, we concluded that, rather than get up in the middle of the night and go out in the dark to find out what the time was, we would just keep using our iPhones in that traditional and time honoured manner.

Now, if you have ever been engaged in hunting down moondials, you will know that time passes quickly. Before we knew it, it was late afternoon and we hadn’t yet had a scone. The solution was a couple of miles away in Aberfoyle where it was great to see everyone still sitting out at all the roadside cafés, in the mid-October sunshine. However, time was pressing and we just managed to catch Liz MacGregor’s Coffee Shop before it closed. We got the very last scone.

Rather than fight about it, Pat made the ultimate sacrifice and opted for a piece of coffee cake. I, the winner, set about my fruit scone. It came with a pot of jam and a very generous portion of cream. Not that much of a winner though. Perhaps, because it was the last one, it did not seem as fresh as it should have been. Not bad though, I enjoyed it but no ‘topscone’ award. It’s always a wee bit unfortunate when you get a place that’s just about to close. You end up the only ones there and feeling as if you are holding up proceedings. Not that anyone tried to rush us in any way whatsoever .. but you just get that feeling. But, with everything taken into account … lovely weather, a scone, a moondial … an all round ‘braw day’.

A Master of Life

On the nearby Cunninghame Graham memorial the epitaph reads “Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham 1852-1936 – Famous Author – Traveller and Horseman – Patriotic Scot and Citizen of the World – As Betokened by the Stones above. Died in Argentina, interred in Inchamahome – He Was a Master of Life – A King Among Men”. He is still hugely venerated in Argentina which has its presidential elections today. Something, being the politician that he was, would have hugely interested him. Canada also goes to the polls to today, it will be interesting to see if Harper’s Putinesque administration can survive. Let’s hope it’s a ‘braw day’ for the folks in Argentina and Canada as well.

FK8 3UG    tel: 01877 389376      Liz MacGregor’s Tearoom TA

ps: Why don’t you Google the word ‘subsequently’, it has a great explanation.