The Lewis Grassic Gibbon Centre, dedicated to the memory and dissemination of the works of J Leslie Mitchell – better known as Lewis Grassic Gibbon – lies in the Mearns village of Arbuthnott.

We took the good lady’s blog friend Peggy there when she was over from the States. It contains items from Gibbon’s life and memorabilia of the times he lived in.

I picked up several informative brochures, including one with pictures of the covers of the first editions of his books. The one for Stained Radiance might have caused some raised eyebrows when it was published in 1930.

We had a delightful lunch in the café at the front of the Centre before heading off to the churchyard where there is a memorial to Gibbon beside one to members of his family.

Arbuthnott is a village in the Mearns, the area south of Aberdeen and north of Montrose.

It is most famous for being the home of writer J Leslie Mitchell (Lewis Grassic Gibbon.) Its War Memorial is on a wall of the local hall.

In Arbuthnott graveyard there is a memorial to Lt Col Hew Blair Imrie who was killed in Normandy 1944. His name does not appear on the main memorial though.