Genius Fan

There’s no mention of the visit to the Gardenston Arms Hotel, Laurencekirk, by James Boswell and Samuel Johnson on the commemorative plaque set above the front door of the flats built upon the site of the old hotel. The two travellers visited this hotel located at the northern end of the Aberdeenshire village of Laurencekirk, on Saturday 21 August, 1773. But the plaque does mention a visit by an equally famous ‘son of Scotland’:

GARDENSTON ARMS HOTEL

Here – originally the Boar’s Head Inn – Robert Burns stayed during his only visit to the land of his fathers in September 1787. Also meeting place of Glenbervie Burns Memorials Association which erected this plaque – 1972

It took three attempts asking passers-by in the main street for the former location of the Hotel…the third person, a fellow unloading his landscaping van, was confident he knew what I was asking when I explained and tapped a finger on my copy of Ronald Black’s To The Hebrides. Samuel Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and James Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. Outside the apartment block I was a little disappointed that the plaque didn’t mention Boswell and Johnson presence.

Boswell writes about the hotel for their visit: “Dr Johnson insisted on stopping at the inn, as I told him that Lord Gardenstone had furnished it with a collection of books, that travellers might have entertainment for the mind as well as the body. He praised the design, but wished there had been more books, and those better chosen.” (Another classic observation by Boswell!)