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Cullen Bay East Cave

E of Tarlair, Macduff, Aberdeenshire (Banffshire).

A very small raised beach sea-cave facing SSW and half way up a scree slope. It extends further than one might expect and looked as if it might well be the top of a much larger cave if it were not nearly full of scree. Entrance width is 1.8 m. It had two cave spider egg sacs and there was some pale green lichen just inside the right of the entrance. The cliff face above it has a stacked 'V' pattern on it which matches Wm Forbes description (below) for appearance and location. There is no way that it is currently large enough to house one person, let alone six or more 'Ishmaelites'. But his description is about 130 years out of date and it is credible that the floor level of the cave could have filled up by 2 m in that time. If that is true, then, like Adam and Eve Cave, it is very well protected from north weather and rather better protected from the south.

"When we ascend the ridge on the far side of the shore of Cullen, and look across the narrow inlet, we have presented to our view a splendid specimen of a lion couchant - a great piled-up mass of clay-slate, with the softer parts honey-combed on the face. We see the strata rayed like the letter V, its base acting the part of key-stone to an arch of a small cave - one of those rock shelters used by humanity before they acquired the art of making the underground yird houses. Very recently, a half dozen or more of those Ishmaelites might have been seen in possession." [William Forbes]

Alternative Names: None recorded.

Notes: Access: Park at Loch Craig (as for Tarlair open air swimming pool. Go past the pool and up the path which leads to the 14th Tee of Royal Tarlair Golf club. Cross the fairway and go NE until you see the Bay of Cullen. Go down to the beach and then find the footpath over the next ridge and follow the footpath to the next ridge after that. The cave is then a little bit north, on the west facing slope.

Measured 7/9/24 by N Feilden. Altitude is ASL and is a visual estimate.