The Cave of Knockbrex is no longer lost!

I had decided to look for the lost cave of Knockbrex, not at the current shoreline but at the back of the ancient shoreline of the raised beach. I found the cave almost straight away, though I had passed this spot many times before. Ivy draped itself over the rocks round the cave. An ancient bough, above the mouth, had recently broken thus possibly exposing the cave for the first time in many years.


Inside it was one of the driest caves I have ever been in, the floor was so perfectly level, I suspect it had been made by the hand of man. The beaches in these parts were frequented by the Solway smugglers and almost certainly this one would have been piled high with casks of claret and rolls of tobacco from the Isle of Man. There were even flat rocky ledges to store a bottle or two! It may well be that the covering ivy had been "planted" by the smugglers for the purposes of concealment.


I paddled home with a sense of satisfaction that my short 9km pasddle had solved a long standing mystery. I think Lucy Walford would have written another novel about it.

09/06/2009

The amusing story of the novelist and the lost cave of Knockbrex

I paddled across Fleet Bay and took a break at the sandy cove of Knockbrex. Not far from the beach is a fine large mansion which was built by a Manchester businessman Mr James Brown in 1895. It was built on the site of an older mansion, which was part of the Selkirk estate but Knockbrex dates back to at least the 1650's when it belonged to the Gordon family.


The Scottish novelist, Lucy Bethia Walford (1845-1919), lived here for three years when her father took a tenancy from the Selkirks. She described Knockbrex (which was one of the the finest mansions in these parts): "though unpretending, was very much the kind of house we liked. Every window had a view : on the one hand, of a wild and storm-beaten district, wooded after a fashion on the hillsides, with the hills rising into mountains beyond ; while on the other was the famed Solway Firth, across which we could at times distinguish on the far horizon the faint outlines of the Isle of Man."


She and her brothers had "arrived at Knockbrex full of the wonders of a sea cave containing fossil remains said to be of great antiquity, of which he had heard as being in the neighbourhood." Despite much searching, she never discovered it. In her book, Recollections of a Scottish Novelist (1910), she recounts an amusing (though a century has not been kind to the humour) story of how she attempted to find it.


She and her family were all dressed in their finery on their way to a gala when they heard they were passing the house of the elderly man who owned the cave and looked after the fossils. There was a large number of carriages outside the man's house and they thought the fossil museum must be very popular. The house was crowded with men in black clothes and she thought they must be a gathering of ministers, though some looked very young. She became annoyed when her requests to be taken to the owner of the cave were ignored. Finally a young man ushered her in to a darkened room and said "This is the owner of the cave!"

The man was dressed in his Sunday best but was clearly well past his own best as he lay quite dead in his coffin. She recounts "We fled indignantly and precipitately ; nor did we once give way to mirth till far away and out of sight. But we never saw the cave, then or thereafter."

Well Lucy sounds very much like the kind of gal that describes a mansion as "unpretending"!

I have been visiting the Knockbrex shore regularly over the last 40 years and I have never found the cave either. It was a quite lovely afternoon so I decided to take another look for the wondrous cave....

09/06/2009

Seakayakphoto.com trip index 2009

For those who would like to follow the thread of a single trip, I hope this index will be useful. Unfortunately the Google "search this blog" function is not working properly at the moment so the link may not recover all the relevent posts.

2009 running total distance: 890km

December:
The Cumbraes, Firth of Clyde, 27km
The Mull of Galloway tide race, at full belt! 21km

November:
Sannox synchronicity: Portencross to Brodick, Arran, 31km

Maidens to Ayr, 20km

October:
A trinity of tide races: circumnavigation of Scarba 38km

September:
Fleet bay Solway Firth, 3km
Islay, Oronsay, Colonsay, Jura, Islay 109km

August:
Seafield, Ayr, Firth of Clyde, 7km
Lady Isle, Troon Firth of Clyde 9km

June:
Ardnamurchan to Coll, Gunna and Tiree
Inner Hebrides
15/06/09 Coll to Ardnamurchan, 18km
14/06/09 Gunna to Rubha Sgor-innis, Coll, 34km
13/06/09 NW Coll to Scarinish, Tiree, 40km
12/06/09 Ardnamurchan to the Cairns of Coll, 28km

A Solway smugglers' Ccave
Fleet Bay
09/06/09 Solway Firth 9km

Full Moon at Rumblekirn
Fleet Bay
08/06/09 Solway Firth 14km

Sea shells and egg shells
Fleet Bay
01/06/09 am Solway Firth 10km

The great dun of Carrick
Fleet Bay
31/05/09 pm Solway Firth 19km

Three Pillars of Knockbrex
Fleet Bay
31/05/09 am Solway Firth 12km

Plumage and blossom on the Solway
Fleet Bay
30/05/09 Solway Firth 13km

Sea eagles and coral sands
Loch Eishort
23/05/09 Isle of Skye 19km

A big day!
Portuairk to Mull and return.
10/05/09 Ardnamurchan Point 42km.

Surf's up on Ayrshire's Atlantic Coast
Finnarts Bay to Lendalfoot
02/05/09 Firth of Clyde 21km

Arran Direct, Firth of Clyde
19/04/09 Kildonnan to Brodick 19km
18/04/09 Lendalfoot to Ailsa Craig then Pladda then Kildonnan, Arran 41km

Dumfries to Southerness in search of the Nith bore!
13/04/09 Solway Firth 25km

The Islands of Fleet
11/04/09 Solway Firth 12km

Fairlie to Little Cumbrae
04/04/09 Firth of Clyde 20km

The Islands of Fleet
02/04/09 Solway Firth 11km

Troon Ballast Bank to Lady Isle
01/04/09 Firth of Clyde 11km

From Portencross to Bute and Arran
21/03/09 Firth of Clyde 31km

"End of the Winter timetable!"
By ferry to Loch Ranza on Arran and return to Portavadie
19/03/09 Firth of Clyde 30km

The Carrick coast, Maidens to Ayr
15/03/09 Firth of Clyde 20km

The islands of Loch Leven
01/03/09 Firth of Lorn 11km

Port Appin to Loch Leven
28/02/09 Firth of Lorn 29km

"Any port in a storm on Great Cumbrae"
21/02/09 Firth of Clyde 19km

Bute from Seamill.
15/02/09 Firth of Clyde 23km

Surfing from Turnberry Point to Carrick Shore
08/01/09 Firth of Clyde 9km

The MacCormaig Islands from Carsaig Bay
02/01/09 The Sound of Jura 35km