The Powis Hermitage

On a little hill at the rear of Hermitage Avenue, off Bedford Road, a curious wee building used to stand. Known as the Hermitage of Powis, it was an octagonal, harled tower with a conical roof.  It belonged to the Leslie family, the lairds of Powis; their estate stretched from Old Aberdeen’s College Bounds to modern-day Berryden.

Powis Hermitage as illustrated in David Grant's poem

Locals were puzzled by the odd little tower, and often speculated as to its purpose, especially as they sometimes saw a light shining from the tiny windows, or smoke emitting from the miniscule chimney shaft.  A hermitage must have a hermit, thus a great legend arose about a Leslie nobleman who lost his heart to a local crofter’s daughter, Mary Hay.  The story was popularised by David Grant in his poem The Hermit of Powis, first published in 1862.

The Earl of Leslie married his lowly sweetheart, despite warnings from her father that such an ill-matched couple would never know happiness.  The earl and his bride ignored the snobbish attitude of his noble friends who looked down on the crofter’s daughter, and were blissfully happy until he received a royal summons to take up arms in defence of the Scots crown on the borders.

Mary begs to accompany her husband in the guise of a foot-page, but he assures her he will return quickly. However, despite an easy victory for the Scots, Earl Leslie reckons without the amorous and ambitious Arabella Stuart — sister of the infamous Lord Darnley and thus, sister-in-law of Mary, Queen of Scots — who quite fancies the dashing Aberdeenshire laird.

Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley &
King Consort to Mary, Queen of Scots

Arabella Stuart - in later life

As the men celebrate their victory in Edinburgh, Arabella tells her brother Henry a tragic tale.  She claims that Earl Leslie has bewitched her with a love-spell, and she will not be at peace unless they are married.  The earl is summoned by the furious royal consort, who offers him a stark choice, wed Arabella, or be hanged as a warlock.  Earl Leslie admits he cannot marry, he already has a wife he loves, but when he tells Henry Stuart that she is a poor woman with no pedigree, the former retorts that such a person cannot be the true wife of a nobleman, thus Leslie must marry or perish as a criminal.

Leslie takes the difficult decision to marry Arabella.  He sends word to Mary, back in Aberdeen, who goes into shock when she hears.  She pines and starves to death, thinking never to see him again.  When the earl hears of her passing, he is horrified, believing he has caused her demise.  He warns Arabella that she cannot remedy the situation unless she can bring back the dead.  He flees from Edinburgh and disappears, leaving the lady with all his money, which she seems only too happy to spend in consolation.

Years later, a religious hermit appears on the Leslie estate, having constructed a tiny cell for himself atop a hill.  He is often seen praying and whipping himself as if trying to make penance for some unknown sin.  No-one is able to discover his identity or for what gross wrong he is attempting to atone, until he is found dead in his hermitage with a note beside his body, “This is the clay of Leslie the Earl, who sinned and suffered sore.” Unable to face his family or his father-in-law, he had ended his days in sorrow for the wrong he had done to Mary Hay.

A lovely fairy tale, yet it is just that.  Earl Leslie did not exist; the Leslies did not own Powis until the 1750s, almost two centuries after the time of the poem.  Alexander Leslie had the hermitage built in 1781 as a summerhouse which was used for parties and private concerts.  But, as the auld folk say “there’s aye water far the stirkie droons”; every legend begins with a grain of truth, so who knows what Alexander’s real purpose was behind the erection of the hermitage.  Sadly today there is no-one to ask, and the hermitage itself has long gone, having been demolished in 1927.

Powis Estate showing loci of Hermitage & Firhill Well (1818)

The Night It Rained Fire

Seventy years ago this April, Aberdeen experienced the worst air raid of World War II; over 130 bombs fell on the city, killing 98 civilians and 27 soldiers.  The servicemen were killed by a firebomb which ripped through the mess hall at the Gordon Barracks.  Only after the war would the full horror of that raid be appreciated; of the total civilians killed due to enemy action, seventy percent lost their lives during those few hours in Spring 1943.

Dornier 217 - the plane of choice by the Germans in 1943

From late in the evening of 21 April that year, a squadron of Luftwaffe Dorniers terrorised the streets, dropping high explosives and deadly phosphorous shells.  The latter were incendiaries; used because the phosphorous pentoxide gas burned brightly and provided a beacon for further airstrikes.  Use of such a weapon was in direct contravention of the Geneva Protocol of 1929 which banned the use of “asphyxiating, poisonous gases” in warfare.  A 50kg phosphorous shell landed in Stafford Street, on the Victorian granite tenements, the old lath-and-plaster walls going up like candles as the gas ignited.  As the timbers fell down it must have looked to outsiders as if fire was raining from above.

Swanson McKenzie remembers that night.  As a mere youngster, he and his father were attempting to get home to Belmont Road, Kittybrewster.  “We were baith flabbergasted,” he said, remembering the sight of a huge hole torn through numbers five to nine, Stafford Street, including the tenement in which his grandmother lived.  Describing the scene as “eerie” as the area was deserted, Swany and his father ducked into the doorway of number four opposite, when a surprising sound broke the silence.

Stafford Street after two incendiaries fell

“We heard the dog, Maxie, my grandmother’s dog squeaking!” With that, McKenzie senior boldly dug his way into the wreckage and discovered that his mother and her neighbours were all perfectly safe in the cellar of the house. 70 year-old Andrew Webster, a veteran of both Boer and Great Wars, had ushered them all down there when the air raid siren had sounded.  Deciding it was safer to stay there for the time being, Mr Webster promised to move everyone to the nearest air raid shelter, which was across the road at the rear of number four, as soon as the debris had been cleared.

Meanwhile, in that shelter, also a cellar, which belonged to the corner grocer, the residents of 4 Stafford Street, including 11 year-old John Mann, knew a bomb had fallen outside, but not the extent of the damage.  John recalls his mother being very agitated as her husband had been out on ARP duty and had not returned at the usual time.  They were eventually joined by Swany’s grandmother, Mr Webster and the others from across the road, who told of their excitement.  However, the old soldier was still only attired in dressing gown and pyjamas, it having been well after dark when the siren had howled ominously across the rooftops.  John remembered him going out of the shelter, apparently to retrieve his medals from the tenement, believing that it was unlikely the enemy would double-back this way.

Andrew Webster never did return.  A second incendiary fell on the house, trapping and killing him.  George Mann, John’s father, returned just as the all-clear sounded to tell them there had been another bomb.  Last year, one of his descendants, attending my “Aberdeen Blitz” tour, poignantly revealed that all Andrew intended to do was get a pair of boots as he had been standing around in his bare feet and didn’t want to catch a chill.  There are new tenements there now, but if you look at the wall of numbers four and six, you can distinctly see the pitted areas caused by shrapnel damage from that very night.  RIP Andrew Webster.

Mash-up of 1943/2008 images of Stafford Street