A Royal Flush – by Duncan Harley



Recently rebuilt following a disastrous fire, the timber-clad railway station at Ballater was at one time frequented by the Royal family in the days when the journey north to Balmoral involved rail travel.
When the Deeside line closed to passengers in 1966 the building found new use as shop units and even incorporated a Tourist Information Centre and a restaurant.

A part of the building was turned into a museum and visitors could, if they were lucky, meet up with a tartan-clad mannequin dressed up as Queen Victoria’s loyal ghillie John Brown on the station platform. A second mannequin, representing an ageing Victoria in black mourning dress, could be seen glowering in the private Royal Apartments of the station building.

Those Royal apartments naturally featured a Royal Thunder-box complete with an ornately decorated porcelain pan, replete with Acanthus leaves and brightly painted woodland flowers. The loo was of course off limits to ordinary travellers.

In more recent times however, subject to an admission charge of course, the receptacle for the Royal Poo was made available for public gaze. However, after several visitors had succumbed to the allure of using Victoria’s Throne as intended by the manufacturers, VisitScotland were forced to add a cling-film cover as a deterrent.

When the station building burned to the ground in May 2015, the Royal Thunder-box perished in the blaze.

Visitors to Ballater can however  view Victoria’s backup Royal Loo at the Deeside Inn on Victoria Road.  Based on the design of the Royal Waiting Room Loo at Sandringham, the Royal Throne Room at the Ballater hotel lies partially hidden in an upstairs cupboard. But staff are generally delighted to provide a guided tour of the tiny facility.
   
A hotel spokesperson once commented that "we asked the Royal Protection Squad to flush out any concerns regarding the authenticity of the loo and have concluded that it is the genuine article.”



Duncan Harley is author of several books about Aberdeenshire: The A-Z of Curious Aberdeenshire, The Little History of Aberdeenshire and Long Shadows - Tales of Scotland's North East.
All three titles are available from Amazon.


Location: Ballater AB35, UK

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