Mapping Out Stonehaven (Cultural Proof #3)

Location: Stonehaven

Time: October 16th, 2018

Map of Stonehaven, UK

Analysis: 

          The small village of Stonehaven may appear to quite, but there are plenty of the sight-seeing points of interest around the town, as well as the most praised fish and chips shop in Scotland. To make this map, I talked to a couple of the locals walking around as a well as explored the streets to try and discover how much of the town was residential and how much was used for business purposes. 

           To begin the process of discovering the village, I started off with a few simple questions. These sample questions are outlined below:

• Are you a visitor or a resident?
• What is your favorite part of the town? 
• Do you shop around Stonehaven or outside of town?

Photo of The Bay Fish and Chips shop (My photo, taken for Viva Trips)

The purpose of these questions were to establish a basis of how well the person may know the town, where local "popular attractions" were, and whether the few shops around Stonehaven were satisfactory for those that lived in Stonehaven or if they needed to go outside of the village to get their basic needs met. After preparing the questions, I approached five different people and posed the questions. Out of these five, three were natives and two were not but had just visited to go and see the famous fish and chips shop as well as the nearby Dunnottar Castle. Of the three residents, two agreed that Stonehaven's businesses has enough to support them on a weekly basis and did not have to travel outside the village unless they had a specific piece item they required. The third resident said that they lived outside the boundary of the village in what's known as "Stonehaven North", an area that's at the very edge of the main portion of the town and consists of mostly farmland. The man, named Hamish, said that most of his supplies could be bought at more specialized stores. All five residents did respond that their favorite place to walk way at the seawall along the bay.

          Posing questions and getting to walk around helped me to understanding the village more because I was able to see why Stonehaven has become such a big attraction on the eastern side of the country. While many come for the famous Dunnottar Castle, the fish and chips shop that I highlighted in yellow on the top right side of the map has also gained notoriety due to the amount of people that have come to visit the town after seeing the ruins nearby. Another rather beautiful attraction for the town is the bay walk, which has a green line around the edge of it to indicate the increased amount of people that come to walk along it and leads down to the path towards the War Memorial. While the town does host a variety of activities to do, I was surprised at how simply the people lived. Many of the "mixed use areas" on the map above were mainly dominated by residential homes but had intermittent businesses and shops between them. The businesses that do surround the main shopping street, Ann Street, were a mix of small grocery stories holding only a few varieties of fresh fruit and produce, car repair shops, post offices, a hotel, and a couple other small restaurants. People that live here were able to get most of their needs met by the Spar store by the river and seemed to be fine in sustaining themselves with little variety. The reason for why the residents sustain themselves on so little variety is because Aberdeen, Fife, and other major cities with bigger stores (M&S, ASDA, etc.) are about a half hour away. After exploring the village and getting to interview some of its people, I was able to learn more about the way that the community lives.

Dunnottar Castle overlook (My photo, taken for Viva Trips)