Tag Archives: Rudolf Hess

Ordinary, Scones

Tudor Coffee House

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In our previous post from Nithbank House we mentioned the extraordinary love between Lord and Lady Nithsdale. That was back in the 18th century but the place we are in today is dedicated to love. It’s their secret ingredient! We are at the Tudor Coffee House in Strathaven (pronounced Stray-ven).

External view of Tudor House Coffee Shop
Three metre long side on the side of the building
Love is all you need

They even give advice on how to achieve it. In 1362, Archibald the Grim became the first Baron of Strathaven. He did it through marriage to Joanna de Moravia. This is a small miracle in itself because, by all accounts, Archie was of unrefined stature and pot ugly. We can only think that he must have visited the Tudor Coffee House and took some lessons in the art of love. Pedantic readers need not write to point out problems with this timeline.Love poster

The cafe’s not very big so we decided to sit outside in the sunshine so that we could watch Strathaven in action. Internal view of Tudor House Coffee ShopWe’ve passed through the town before but never noticed how pretty it is. The large square in the centre is a car park now but it used to be common pasture and is still called ‘The Green’. The surrounding buildings are harled in a variety of colours that give it an overall pleasing effect in the sunshine. It used to have a thriving weaving industry but the number of passing tractors seemed to indicate something more agricultural these days. 

A scone at Tudor House Coffee ShopWe wanted a fruit scone but they only had plain left. The lovely girl who was looking after us offered to toast it and seemed, judging by the knowing wink, to think that was a good idea. Who were we to argue? Turned out to be sound advice because we thoroughly enjoyed it. Eventually though we thought it was just slightly short of a topscone … shame.

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Crash landing

Strathaven was also home during WWII to music hall and vaudeville hero, Sir Harry Lauder. He was responsible for such classics as Roamin’ in the Gloamin’ and Keep Right On To The End of The Road. Lots of love. At the same time Hitlers deputy Rudolf Hess was supposed to land his plane at the Duke of Hamilton’s residence, Dungavel House on the outskirts of Strathaven. At the time the Duke was thought to be a Nazi sympathiser. In foul weather he missed Dungavel and crash-landed in a farm a bit further north. That was the end of his freedom . He died, 46 years later, as the sole inmate of Spandau prison in Berlin.

Dungavel house is still there but now it’s an Immigration Removal Centre for folks awaiting deportation. Some of the poor sods floating across the English Channel in rubber dinghies will probably end up there. Not a lot of love. Maybe they should close Dungavel and use the Tudor Coffee House?

ML10 6AH.   tel: 01357 529487       Tudor Coffee

///fights.premiums.walks

Ordinary, Scones

The Royal Hotel in Comrie

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In recognition of the fact that Canada came to our rescue in the last post, Second Cup, we thought we would come here to Comrie because it is twinned with Carleton Place in Ontario. Actually, that’s rubbish, it’s entirely coincidental, we are really visiting an aunt who lives nearby. The twinning bit is correct. But first, please bear with us if we digress a little.

Declaration of war 1914This is how the start of war was reported the day after it was announced in 1914. According to the headline, Scotland was not at war with anyone, yet somehow that trifling piece of misinformation didn’t matter. Scotland was most definitely at war. There is some equivalence in the here and now where, in spite of Scotland overwhelmingly wishing to stay in the EU, it is leaving anyway. Simply because England wants to leave. We mention all this for no other reason than the fact that it was brought to mind by a trout.

It had spent the day when WWI was announced quietly swimming around Loch Earn, presumably just minding its own business. Perhaps it was the last living creature to have died never having heard the words “World War”. That, along with its size, makes it pretty special.

20lb trout caught on Loch Earn at the Royal Hotel, Comrie
A bad day for this trout and the world. It couldn’t have imagined that the same fate awaited 17 million soldiers and civilians.

By way of compensation, however, this brownie has spent the intervening 100 above the fireplace in rather comfy surroundings here at the Royal Hotel in Comrie. If it could talk, we think it would have a few stories to tell. 72 years earlier Queen Victoria may have sat in the same lounge during her stay in 1842, hence the name “Royal Hotel”. Maybe she was eating a scone?Reception area at the Royal Hotel, Comrie

Flambeaux

Comrie itself is a picturesque little village which, amongst other things, boasts a New Year Flambeaux procession involving birch poles of burning tar being marched through the village. Somewhat akin to Burning the Clavie at Burghead. The procession is followed,  in the wee small hours, by a fancy dress competition. Sounds like fun, one of these years we might give it a try? A scone at the Royal Hotel, ComrieAlso, the village, by virtue of its location astride the Highland Boundary Fault, experiences more earth tremors than anywhere else in the UK. It is often referred to as the ‘Shaky Toon’. Unfortunately our scones were a bit ‘shaky’ too. There was no cream but other than that there was nothing particularly wrong with them. Just nothing particularly right with them either. Sadly they missed out on a topscone award.

Picture of HMS Inflexible and HMS Devastation
c1890 pictures from the hotel. HMS Infexible could be used by PM May on her outward journey to EU negotiations and HMS Devastation  for the return journey.

POW gratitude

Let us finish by continuing with the wartime theme. Comrie is home to the WWII Cultybraggan POW camp where Rudolf Hess is rumoured to have been held. Not something of which a village would be unduly proud, you would think. Last year, however, Heinrich Steinmeyer, a former Waffen-SS prisoner of the camp, left the village £384,000 in his will. It was an expression of “my gratitude to the people of Scotland for the kindness and generosity that I have experienced in Scotland during my imprisonment of war and hereafter.” It is now over 70 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps but they had rather different stories to tell. Well done Comrie!

ps: In the same edition of the Telegraph featured in the headline at the start of this post, a correspondent in Harrogate recorded his disappointment. “War is somewhat upsetting the season, and a number of visitors have left for home”. How utterly British.

PH6 2DN         tel:01764 679200         The Royal Hotel