Assemblage
Moray Speyside. November 2024 - January 2025
Assemblage is a series exploring the hidden histories of the landscape surrounding Carron and Knockando in Moray Speyside, delivered as part of a short residency with Moray Way Association and Arts in Moray.
About the Project
The Moray Way Association collaborated with five artists to reimagine HB Mackintosh’s book The Pilgrimages of Moray – A Guide to the County, a 1924 pocket guide featuring descriptions of walks across Moray. Discovered by the MWA Chair at Moray Waste Busters, this historic book was originally created to inspire both locals and visitors to explore the rich heritage of Moray. However, the author lamented the absence of illustrations, maps, and reference notes — elements that could have brought the book to life for a wider audience.
Building on the ethos of the Moray Walking & Outdoor Festival, this project aimed to breathe new life into these historical routes of Moray. By working with artists, the Moray Way Association hoped to create a contemporary interpretation of walks, engaging new audiences, while celebrating the stories of Moray.
Each artist collaborated with a member of the Association, walking the routes together. The artists then went on to refine or reimagine the routes bringing them to life through their perspectives, using creative and innovative approaches to share Moray’s rich heritage with a modern audience.
About my residency
My route followed a short stretch of the Drum Wood circular walk along the Spey Way between Carron and Knockando — a corner of Moray Speyside I’d barely explored before this project. Through documentary photography, found poetry, and reflective journaling, I approached the landscape as a form of ethnographic enquiry, seeking to uncover and illuminate the area’s rich, layered, and often hidden histories.
I walked the route three times: first with Diane A. Smith of the Moray Way Association, later with a friend, and finally alone with my dog, Murphy. Each journey revealed something new.
Using photography I focused on the small, incidental tableaux that emerged along the path — quiet moments, unexpected textures, traces of human and natural activity. Reflective journaling captured the thoughts, impressions, and fleeting observations inspired by each walk. For the poetry strand, I experimented with found-poetry and cut-up methods, drawing from maps, guidebooks, and materials provided by the Moray Way Association. Through these fragments, I explored the roots and limitations of local knowledge, following the liminal edges of fable, lore, and memory. The process became a way of mapping not only place, but also the beautifully absurd, contingent nature of history itself.
Poems, photographs and the journal were exhibited as part of the Arts in Moray Showcase held at Moray School of Arts in April 2025.
Assemblage at Dandaleith
At Dandaleith one takes
And climbs up the back of
A history which, alas, is lost to us
Where a fragment of a church
Is visible
With fishings on the Spey
And other pertinents
Leased, with consent
Small teinds and vicarages
[Regality of Spynie]
Then dwelling and pitifully plundered
A good mile west
This is a castle
I can learn nothing whatever about
And yet
The lady of the castle died
The letting of the blood awoke
Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk
[The dell of the monks]
Below which, by the railway,
This old chapel was carried away
By the Spey
To those who make a study of stone circles
A vicarage depending
It is said, on the parson
B.R.I.C.I.U.S
[The first of our Bishops]
Mother of
Sister of
[Eleven times they intermarried]
Two hundred Douglases
Feued by a James Ogilvy
For the support of the poor
And a Sang School
From the Kirdals one has a lovely run
But for the scenery
One sees the last vestige
A roughish road
Worth traversing
Not so very long ago
Found poem taken from Chapter XVI of HB Mackintosh’s ‘The Pilgrimages of Moray’.
Passages from Chapter Sixteen of ‘The Pilgrimages of Moray’ highlighted by Diane A. Smith
On the banks of the Spey, west of Carron village, is Dalmunach, the dell of the monks
Knockando House
the railway
When making the railway, a number of human bones was disinterred, and three symbol-bearing stones were transferred to Knockando
Pulvrennan, we
carried away by the Spey, and that on Christmas Eve its old bell used to ring out, perhaps, still does, the message of Peace and Goodwill
Druidical Circle,
Carron House
nearer to the farm of Upper Borlum, there was once a chapel of which we know nothing
The Knockando Church of Cathedral Days
The present Parish Church was built in 1757,
The Elchies tomb in the churchyard is said to mark the site of an
Symbol bearing slabs taken from Pulvrennan
Scandinavian runes of the
Siknik, be
Capanach Bridge
De Moravia
Drum Wood Circular
Nice easy circular.
Terrain: varied surfaces.
Distance: 10 miles.
Going: A mixture.
Long easy climb
And very scenic.
Soft and grassy
Speyside way. Safety
Permission is needed.
Very limited parking.
[Used by canoeists.]
More space here
Returns through forestry.
[Beware of forestry.]
Also less accessible.
From Carron follow
Markers eastwards crossing.
Follow for 50
Then double back
After Phones house.
[Depending on crops.]
Turn right up
Burnside and rejoin
On your right
Good grassy surface.
Cross the bridge.
Keep straight on.
Cut-up poem taken from Drum Wood walk guidance text on The Moray Way website.
///what.three.words
///near.circular.forestry
///drum.alongside.land
///waymarked.other.grantown
///miles.speyside.wood
///terrain.ascent.meters
///going.location.distance
///access.beware.surface
///public.private.otherwise
///parking.varied.minor
///accessible.carron.canoeists
///fork.railway.marypark
///thereafter.keep.limited
///depending.rejoin.burnside
///back.grassy.bottom
///elgin.straight.immediately
///crops.road.passing
///soft.blackboat.easily
///downhill.village.possible
Cut-up poem taken based on the pseudorandom geocode system what3words taken from the Drum Wood walk guidance text on The Moray Way website.
