I'm Bruce Fummey, and today I've brought you to a location used again and again in the hit tv series
Outlander, to tell you about the imaginary village of Cranesmuir, and the real village of Culross.
If you haven't watched Outlander, it's a tv series created from Diana Gabaldon's books, tracking a
time-traveling, English nurse on her adventures, with a devastatingly handsome, Jacobite Highlander.
If you have watched Outlander, then you'll have seen this place. On those steps just
leading up to the front door, the heroine, Claire Randall, pulled somebody's tooth out
without an anesthetic, oh!! In the room inside, Jamie Fraser, her clansman husband, promised to
go on from Derby with Bonnie Prince Charlie, when everyone else wanted to turn back to the Highlands.
In the gardens behind this building, our heroine, Claire, met with Gellis Duncan. Now there are other
places in and around the town, that were used in the series, but I'd like to tell you some history
of the real Culross. If you're interested in the people, places and events in Scottish history,
then click the subscribe button at the bottom right. In the meantime, let me tell you a story.
Now you can see how well this 17th Century village is preserved. This building, known as Culross Palace,
was built by George Bruce. As you can see, he became a wealthy man, but how? Black diamonds.
The area around here, and elsewhere in Fife, is known for coal, but that's not a 20th Century thing,
it's not even a 19th Century thing. From times long past, it was known around here, you could find black
rocks that would burn to give light and warmth. For centuries these black diamonds had been dug
by the monks from the monastery around here, long before that house was built,
but this is on the banks of the Forth Estuary. Now at the time, the estuary would have come
right up to the road there, just in front of the statue of Thomas Cochrane, Sea Wolf.
I've got a video about him. The land in which that park and the Stirling - Alloa rail line
sits is reclaimed land, and the area out there was used for salt pans. The ready supply of coal
would be used to heat salt water, which evaporated, leaving salt to put on your chips, accompanied by
vinegar in Glasgow and sauce in Edinburgh. Now one of the things that you also get with coal mining,
is steel works, and Culross became famous for a special type of griddle, travelling
soldiers used to cook oat bannocks over the fire. There's actually a record that Robert the Bruce
ordered some here for his men, but they tended to overcook the dough, which led to bannock burn!
Anyway, you can imagine that as the monks dug the coal, in time the seams flooded with the
water from the Forth, and the coal mine fell into disuse, and then in 1560 came the Reformation. Now
of course, ultimately that would have unintended consequences in terms of kings, crowns, Covenanters
and Jacobites, some of them of the Outlander variety, but in the short term, the Reformation
meant that the lands of Culross Abbey, passed in the lay hands of the Colville family, one of whom appointed
a smart relative, called George Bruce, to see if he could do anything with the mine, and did he ever.
He came up with an ingenious system for extracting water from the mine shaft,
allowing them to dig it deeper, and reopen the mine, hurrah! George made himself a fortune, as he
built this set to be used in Outlander. People came from all over James the Sixth's kingdoms, to find out
how to use this technology. James the Sixth himself visited on his only ever trip to Scotland
after gaining the English crown. George Bruce was trying to persuade James to give Culross,
Royal Burgh Status, so that he could export the coal abroad, and he arranged a tour of the mine.
Bruce's system involved building a man-made island out in the Forth, and as part of the
tour Bruce took the famously cowardly King underground, along a shaft and up to the island.
When James realised that he was stranded, and surrounded by water, he started shouting kidnap,
treason, help, help. Bruce had to calm him, and explain it was just a demonstration
of the mine system, and there was a boat ready to take him to shore with a boatman,
called Guy Fawkes. The last bit's just a joke. Eight years later three things happened;
James the Sixth died, George Bruce died, and the mine flooded again. It was never revived. Gradually
Culross fell into decline, and as surrounding towns and villages on both sides of the Forth forged
ahead with coal and iron production, Culross became nothing, but a derelict memory of the 17th Century,
but 400 years, later that derelict commercial and mining town, would become the village of
Cranesmuir in Outlander. Now if you've watched Outlander, then you'll recognise
this Mercat Cross, and you'll recognise that door, out of which Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser
exited with Gellis Duncan looking down from the window above, as a poor wee laddie (boy) stood with his
ear nailed to a wooden post, here at the Mercat Cross. Claire fainted just over there, causing enough
of a distraction, for the gorgeous Jaime to release the boy, without the crowd noticing.
Hurrah for the elegant, English woman and the humane Highlander, in the face of Presbyterian punishment.
Now this door has a National Trust symbol above it. As you go round the village, you'll see National
Trust symbols on a number of the houses. You see, at one point, the whole town was to be redeveloped
by the Stirling local authorities. You can only imagine the type of modern carbuncles that they
might have created, to replace these quaint 17th Century houses. The National Trust first bought
the Palace, and reinstated it, then bought houses around the village, renovated them and rented
them out, so now you have this period film set, that you can visit today. Personally, I pay £5.10 a month
for National Trust membership. That gets me into the Palace there, so long as I'm not filming this,
and lots of other fantastic, historical buildings. You can use my affiliate link in the description
below to join the National Trust yourself. Why don't you? Your membership would also get you
entry to Falkland Palace. Now Falkland isn't just used for several more Outlander locations,
it's also where I made a video about a real assassination attempt on James the Sixth.
It's called, 'The Day the UK Nearly Didn't Happen'. I'll leave a link at the end, but
I've got one more thing to show you, just outside the village, because in the title
I promise you a scene, and you'll be particularly interested if you've got a Glasgow connection.
This is the remains of St Mungo's Chapel. St Mungo is the Patron Saint of Glasgow, some say
the man who established Glasgow, but it all started here. You see his mother was a 6th
Century princess of Gododdin across the Forth, but she became pregnant by a foreign prince,
who was also her cousin, the dirty floozy I hear you cry! Cast her adrift in an open boat. Well that is
exactly what her dad, the King did, but by a stroke of luck, favourable currents, or the hand of God,
she drifted up the estuary, rather than out to sea. She landed here on the Pictish side of the Forth,
and on this spot, in 518 AD, she gave birth to a son. She named him Kentigern, although St Serf,
the local Abbot who took him in, called him Mungo. This was a miracle. If things had gone differently
Mungo could have grown up in a 1970s children's cartoon, with two friends, Mary and Midge, but
he grew up as a monk. Then he crossed the Forth to Airth, and there he met a dying
hermit, who asked Mungo to put him on a cart and push him as far as he could for burial.
Wherever he stopped he should set up a community. Well this was a second miracle,
because he managed to push that cart all the way to Glasgow, and he founded that dear green place.
Why not come and visit Culross, and why not use my affiliate link below, to join the National Trust.
In the meantime, my video on 'The Day That the UK Nearly Didn't Happen',
is coming up on screen now. Tha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.