Findlater Cave

W of Findlater Castle, between Cullen & Sandend, Aberdeenshire, (Banffshire).

"A large natural cavern, in the cliff. on the sea coast; immediately west of Findlater Castle. It is accessible, only at low water." (1)

The entrance faces NNE and is only partly visible from land on the E side, from as far N along the Findlater Castle promontory as you can easily get. (photo 1 ) It is probably also visible from the next promontory to the W.

Looking inward, the first 30m or so sweeps gently left pointing due S, before turning right back onto SSW. The cross section in those 30m is a bit like a bun - curved at the sides and fairly flat across the top. Further in it becomes lower and in the end, triangular in cross section; ending in a small rift.

Notes: Access: from the path to Findlater Castle, down to the beach and a clamber over the rocky foreshore in the bottom third of the tide. There are a lot of rock pools and the easiest route stays close to the cliff. The cave entrance cannot be seen until you get over the rocky spur on the E side of the entrance.

This cave is unusual in having almost no red crust algae (like Hildenbrandia rubra) on the walls of the first part of the cave. But it does have a remarkable amount of the olive drab green lichen verrucaria mucosa covering the boulders and intertidal surfaces from roughly 10-15m outside to a similar distance inside. See photo 3.

Links and Resources:

1. OS Namebook for the parish of Fordyce, Banffshire p13
2. From the New Statistical Accounts for Fordyce p179. "There are several caves which run more or less into the rocks; but none of them are of any great extent. The chief of these are, Dove Cave, Kitty's Cave, The Bow Cave and Cloutty's Cave between Portsoy and Sandend and Findlater Cave close by the old Castle of the same name."
The chief of these is Findlater Cave which is more than double the length of any of the others.
3. Aerial view for the castle on the right and the cave on the middle left.
4. 1st Ed OS 25in shows a cave outline which scales to 25m - which is not quite as far as the first corner; where it gets quite dark.
Photo1 shows a side view of the cave entrance taken from far along the castle promontory, at high tide.
Photo 2 shows the entrance, looking SSW from as far N as is convenient to go without standing in a rockpool.
Photo 3 looks into the cave from the entrance. The sandy colour is not sand, but a rather grubby seafoam left there by the last ebb tide.
Photo 4 looks out from about 30m inside.
Photo 5 a slightly out of focus view towards the entrance from about 38m in. The skeleton of a spindly tree can be seen, stuck with its cut trunk pointing inward.
Photo 6 the far end of the cave, now 1.3m wide and 1.1m high.

This entry was last updated: 2021-05-06 18:54:28

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NGR:	NJ 54073 67210
WGS84:	57.69236, -2.77204
Length:	44.5 m
Vert. Range:	12.5 m
Altitude:	3 m
Geology:	Findlater Flag Formation
Tags:	Cave, SeaCave
Registry:	main

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