page_title: Cruden Bay
section_title: Literary associations
hierarchical_section_title: Cruden Bay / Literary associations
caption_attribution_description: English: Plaque on the Kilmarnock Arms Hotel, Cruden Bay, celebrating the writing of the early chapters of Dracula there in 1895.
context_page_description: Cruden Bay is a small village in Scotland, on the north coast of the Bay of Cruden in Aberdeenshire, 26 miles north of Aberdeen.
  Just west of Slains Castle, Cruden Bay is said to have been the site of a battle in which the Scots under King Malcolm II defeated the Danes in 1012. Traditionally, the name was derived from the Gaelic Croch Dain.
  Today, Cruden Bay attracts tourists with its hotels and golf course. It has a long, unspoiled, beach made famous by Norwegian aviator Tryggve Gran who made the first solo flight across the North Sea.
context_section_description: The village has associations with various figures in literature.
  Dr Samuel Johnson and James Boswell were guests at Slains Castle in 1773. Johnson said that "no man can see with indifference" the sea chasm known as the Bullers of Buchan, which is near the village.
  Dun Bay, or Yellow Rock is also near the Bullers of Buchan, and is associated with Walter Scott's The Antiquary.
  Bram Stoker was a regular visitor between 1893 and 1910. Because he was a part-time writer, his Cruden Bay holidays provided him with the largest amount of spare time to write his books. He stayed at the Kilmarnock Arms Hotel in 1893 and 1894, and thereafter in cottages in Cruden Bay and Whinnyfold. The early chapters of Dracula were written in Cruden Bay, and possibly most of the rest of it was too. He also set two novels in and around the village, The Watter's Mou' (1895) and The Mystery of the Sea (1902).
  James Macpherson's poem The Highlander (1758) takes the battle of Cruden as its model.
caption: Bram Stoker plaque on the Kilmarnock Arms Hotel, Cruden Bay.
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