Get carriage-d away to Royal Deeside

A life-size Victorian railway carriage is coming to Ballater – 100 years after the last Victorian carriages graced the scene, and some forty years since the last trains appeared in the Deeside town.

The Royal saloon carriage, as used by Her Majesty Queen Victoria to journey between Ballater and Windsor in the late nineteenth century, will be craned into the Old Royal Station - now a Tourist Information Centre and visitor attraction- on Wednesday 30th January at 11am.

Commissioned by VisitScotland, the carriage will complete the Victorian railway platform scene in the visitor centre, and fulfil a suggestion made by HRH the Duke of Rothesay to give the public a chance to see, at first hand, the extraordinary beauty and detail of his Great, Great Grandmother’s personal favourite form of travel.

The valley of Royal Deeside, in which the town of Ballater lies, is famed for its connections with Queen Victoria and her descendants, who are still regular visitors to Balmoral Castle. From its source high in the Cairngorm Mountains, the River Dee flows 85 miles to the sea at Aberdeen.

Queen Victoria found the locals genuine and friendly and described Royal Deeside as her ‘Dear Highland paradise.’ In deeside, you can follow in the Queen’s footsteps as part of the Victorian Heritage Trail, which leads to some of the many sights Queen Victoria enjoyed during her visits to the area including:

Braemar
Queen Victoria attended Highland Games here as early as 1850, when they were held in the grounds of Braemar Castle. The Braemar Gathering is held on the first Saturday of September each year.

Crathie Kirk
This tall cruciform granite-walled church replaced an earlier structure and was opened in 1895 by Queen Victoria. It is strongly associated with the Royal Family who, for generations, have attended services there while at Balmoral.

Fettercairn
The grand archway in the handsome village of Fettercairn recalls a visit by Victoria and Albert and their entourage in September 1861. From the Bridge of Muick near Ballater, the Queen’s party had taken to ponies to cross the ancient track, the Mounth Road, which crosses the high shoulder of Mount Keen.

The party then dropped steeply down to Glen Mark and then went by a small carriage to reach Fettercairn which, the Queen noted in her diary, was forty miles from Balmoral. The party stayed anonymously at a local inn and were even able to walk, late at night, through the streets unrecognised!

For further information on Royal Deeside log on to Visitscotland.com or Visitaberdeen-grampian.com

The project has been funded by VisitScotland, Scottish Enterprise Grampian, European Regional Development Fund, Heritage Lottery Fund and First Group.