Tag Archives: Stenhousemuir

Plough Hotel

8 March 2020 billpaterson1@me.com 2 Comments

Back in the 2nd century, before even I was born, Emperor Antoninus Pius built a wall through central Scotland. The Antonine wall came to represent the northern extremity of the Roman Empire. Some think that was because it was too difficult and unwelcoming to venture further north however we think he just enjoyed life in Falkirk. He just wanted it for himself undisturbed by unsavouries from Stirling and the likes.

Diagram of Arthur's O'on — Arthur’s O’on

As an example of how wonderful their lives were they even built a giant stone oven, Arthur’s O’on, presumably for the making of scones. Okay, we just made up that last bit but there was indeed a fabulous round stone house of that name. It was considered to be unique and the best example of Roman construction in Britain. It stood until 1743 when it was demolished by a local aristocrat who used the stones to build a dam. This wonton act of vandalism was roundly condemned at the time and still is by antiquarians all over the world.

Roman scones

All this is simply to let you know that today we are in Stenhousemuir, part of the Falkirk conurbation. The village gets its name from Arthur’s O’on, the ‘stone house’ that once stood here. Not sure how it became known as Arthur’s O’on. There was no one called Arthur. Most likely it’s a derivation of ‘Art’ an old Gaelic word meaning ‘house’. And it was actually a temple rather than an oven. The local folk just thought it looked like a big oven. Still, it’s nice to think of Roman’s lounging around by the banks of the River Carron eating peeled grapes and partaking of tea and scones.

For our scones, we are at the Plough Hotel. Circumstance had dictated that we were here for a function and as luck would have it, we found ourselves in the presence of scones. Our very happy waitress assured us that they had been baked that morning in their own kitchen so we were eager to try. They came with a wee pot of jam and a huge bowl of cream. This was both underkill and overkill all on one plate. They were nice enough but a bit on the sweet side for our taste. Good, but not quite a topscone.

Sticky stuff

Stenhousemuir is also famous for its football team and its cricket club. The football team, rather oddly, has lots of Norwegian fans who regularly travel over for the games. The stand is even called the Norway Stand.

Advert for McCowan's Highland Toffee — McCowan’s Toffee

Since 1922, of course, this was also the home of McCowan’s toffee factory, just across the road from the Plough Hotel. There can’t be many people in the UK who haven’t lost a filling or two while chewing on one of their Penny Dainties. They also famously produced the Wham bar and the Irn Bru bar.

Sadly, McCowan’s no longer exists but dentists everywhere can breathe a little easier. Not that we are breathing any easier. With Italy going into coronavirus lockdown we have just learned that the virus is sexist. It prefers to kill men … particularly men of a certain age … aarrgh!

FK5 4EY tel: 01324 570010 Plough Hotel

///cunning.aboard.onwards

Scones, Top

Singl-end Café & Bakehouse

13 November 2019 billpaterson1@me.com 4 Comments

Duke of Wellington statue at Singl-end Café, Glasgow — Glasgow Council, after years of removing the traffic cone from the Duke of Wellington’s statue only for it to reappear the next day eventually gave up. Now a major tourist attraction and emblazoned on memorabilia like this tea towel

For those not familiar with Scottish vernacular, or, to be more precise, Glasgow vernacular, a “singl-end,” or single-end was the name for a tiny tenement room into which large families were packed back in the good old days. Toilets were on the landings and could be shared with up to ten other families. This was a dreadful way of life which thankfully no longer exists. The term “singl-end”, however, is still sometimes used today to remember with misty eyed fondness those times. Times of close community when everyone knew everyone else and looked after each other. As a way of life the singl-end probably gave rise to Glasgow’s unique friendliness. A sense of humour was the minimum required to survive in such conditions and combined with a down to earth irreverence and an ability to laugh at themselves, Glasgow is like no other city.

Posh?

Pat, a proud Weegie, wasn’t brought up in a singl-end, rather a “room and kitchen”. Having a separate kitchen didn’t exactly make you posh but it was definitely one up from a singl-end!

When we came across the Singl-end Café & Bakehouse it just had to be done. And what a find! It’s in a basement so is virtually invisible from the street. Not that that is holding it back, when we arrived it was busy busy … and it’s nothing like a singl-end at all, it’s huge! It has what we would describe as a kind of hip feel about it so naturally, being pretty hip ourselves, we felt at home straight away. It’s veggie and vegan friendly without being at all shoutie about it … brill!

Creme de la creme

The staff were an absolute delight and they soon had us set up with some absolutely delicious lunch. The problem was that there was so much delicious lunch that we feared we might not manage the scones we had spotted earlier. Undeterred, however, we let our tummies settle down for a while then ordered our scones. When we asked for cream with our scones a funny thing happened. But first let us ask a question. “What cheese would you use to hide a horse?” Don’t think about it too long … it’s mascarpone, obviously! When we asked for cream our waitress said “It’s mascarpone cream” followed by “Its nice” when she saw our consternation. It’s veggie so it fits with their ethos. So the final order was a fruit scone for Pat and a blueberry and pistachio scone with blackcurrant jam and mascarpone cream for me. Life on the edge.

One very noticeable thing about this place is that the service is almost instantaneous. lightening quick! So, almost immediately, our scones were in front of us served up on wooden chopping boards. They were really good and the mascarpone cream was really good as well. We loved everything about Singl-end Café & Bakehouse. There is another Singl-end nearer the city centre but we wish they would venture out to the provinces and open one nearer us.

Mickey Mouse

Each table in Singl-end has a glass top and underneath the glass is an array of odd and totally unrelated items – postcards, bits of hand written letters, drawings and sketches … a really fascinating miscellany of stuff. At my seat a stamp from Grenada caught my eye. Can you ever see the UK issuing a stamp featuring Donald Duck? We can’t imagine anything ever inducing the ‘stiff upper lip’ British government to do such a thing. One featuring Mickey Mouse might be appropriate though considering the present state of our politics. The other Donald seems to be pulling all the strings in our upcoming election. Acting on The Donald’s instructions, Nigel Farage has suddenly gone from all principled and powerful back to his usual sniveling self.

Another question “What cheese would you use to coax a bear out of a tree?” The answer – camembert! We know, the jokes are even worse than the politics!

G3 6TT tel: 0141 353 1277 Singl-end Café and Bakehouse

///pans.slows.simply

ps It is with great sadness that we report the passing of one of our correspondents who hailed from Stenhousemuir … the SteniBrainFart. He contributed to several posts like Brians Café and The Loft. We named him thus because of his uncanny knack of instantly coming up with oodles of useless information on just about any subject under the sun. He was proud of the name and signed his emails with it. He will be greatly missed.

Scones, Top

Airth Castle Hotel

1 September 2019 billpaterson1@me.com 3 Comments

We had actually been invited to Airth Castle Hotel. Who on earth would invite a couple of sad sconeys to a place like this we hear you ask? A.R.D. Consultancy Ltd is the answer. They are lovely people. We charge them with ensuring that we continue to live the indulgent hedonistic lifestyle to which we have become so very very accustomed. So far they have done pretty well. At least, as you all know, we can still afford the odd scone here and there. It just so happens that this is A.R.D.’s twentieth year in existence, hence the invite to help them celebrate this significant milestone.

Understanding

Although Airth Castle Hotel is only a ten minute drive from where we live we decided to stay overnight … just because! In order to make full use of our stay we arrived mid afternoon and after settling into our room we went exploring in search of a scone. Nothing is straight forward here! Initially we phoned up to reserve a room but were told that we couldn’t do that because the staff that do reservations had gone home?? We had to resort to the internet and Booking.com. It was a similar story with our scones. Having asked for tea and scones we were seated and then given a menu … what’s not to understand about a request for tea and scones? We settled on a cream tea.

What’s a cream tea?

Pat’s tea and my coffee arrived very promptly and then we waited for the scones, and we waited, and we waited … and we waited. About twenty minutes later, when we were just about to have our scones prorogued (it’s our new word) they arrived. They arrived complete with a plate of fruit kebabs (bits of fruit skewered on a stick) and a couple of glasses full of a pink yogurt like substance. When we asked what it was, our waitress said “Oh, is that not part of a cream tea?” and then, with a look of bewilderment “I’ve no idea what a cream tea is” … ehh? She took the kebabs away “to check” and we never saw her or them again.

Dilemma

By this time, as you can probably imagine, we were less than impressed. Dutifully, however, we set about our scones with as much enthusiasm as we could muster. In our heads these scones were already consigned to oblivion but, damn it, they were absolutely delicious. Warm and wonderfully crunchy on the outside and super soft on the inside. We had had to wait so long that my coffee had gone cold. When fresh stuff arrived, however, we thoroughly enjoyed everything we had. To begin with we thought that, given everything that had gone wrong, it would be impossible to award a topscone. Then, however, we decided that life was too short and awarded one anyway. Well done Airth Castle Hotel but please please get the rest of your act together.

Fat rascals

No, nothing to do with Boris and his millionaire buddies. After our scones we had to go back to our room and get ourselves dolled up for the evening’s festivities. And what and evening it was! Much fun was had by all. A.R.D.’s Yorkshire roots were on display. Everyone was given a goodie bag containing a teabag of Yorkshire tea, a chocolate guinea from Betty’s Yorkshire tearoom and a scone. No ordinary scone mind you … a fat rascal! Now the A.R.D. management were adamant that it was not a scone. They are aware of our dalliance with scones but maintained that this was a perfectly unique Yorkshire delicacy and totally unrelated to a scone. When we looked at Betty’s website, however, we found that it was indeed a scone, albeit a Yorkshire one … at least a distant cousin. Typically perhaps, they just do things differently down in England’s nether regions.

336 scones and still learning

A fat rascal has a cheeky smiling face made out of almonds and glacé cherries. It also contains citrus peel and juicy currants. Betty recommends that they be eaten warmed and buttered and that’s exactly how we had them the following day. They were markedly sweeter than a ‘normal’ scone but absolutely delicious … lots of buttery fruitiness. With a lot of scones under our belts … literally, and thinking there wasn’t much to add to our sconological knowledge base, along comes a fat rascal! Brilliant!

Is there something slightly disconcerting about giving someone all your money and in return they give you a chocolate guinea and a fat rascal? That grinning face? Should we be worried? Many thanks to A.R.D. for a great night and for expanding our wealth, sconologically at least .

FK2 8JF tel: 01324 831411 Airth Castle & Spa

///scorched.willpower.rolled

ps We are indebted to Duncan Comrie. He has launched a campaign to save the last five K6 telephone boxes from BT’s removal programme in Falkirk. He produced this photograph of a K6 in Stenhousemuir which is obviously in need of some TLC as a typical example. It was manufactured in Falkirk and is representative of Falkirk’s industrial heritage. Ways of preserving them, including a heritage trail are actively being pursued. Anyone interested in supporting his efforts can attend a meeting on 2nd Sept in Bainsford Community Centre at 7pm. Fingers crossed he meets with success.

Scones, history and a dollop of politics