The horse bus

The stones in old Scottish graveyards often have symbols on them representing the trade or profession of the deceased. This is the gravestone of Sandy Blackhall who died in 1922 aged 83. For 50 years Sandy had driven the public bus backwards and forwards between Newburgh and Aberdeen, some 12 miles to the south. In his time the bus was, of course, powered by a horse. Today we moan a great deal about travel public transport. It used to be much, much worse!

Back in the 19th century, when roads were much less well made and maintained, travel speeds would have been lower and the dependent on the stamina and range of horses. An example from the winter of 1906 indicates the time journeys took in those days. In that year, Ann Gillespie, the mother of the great Aberdeenshire artist James McBey, committed suicide in Aberdeen. In his autobiography McBey describes taking his mother’s body home for burial in Foveran kirkyard, on the outskirts of Newburgh. He recounts that the hearse, accompanied by a single carriage, took some 3 hours to wind its way along the turnpike through 12 miles of deep mud; an average speed of 4 mph. Ah, the Good Old days!