A Dracula-themed walk to a great pub: Kilmarnock Arms, Cruden Bay

Dracula is 125 this month. This walk takes in the castle and treacherous coast that inspired Bram Stoker, and ends in the pub where he began writing the book

‘And here one day, to the sound of the sea on the Scottish shore, Count Dracula made his entry,” wrote Bram Stoker biographer Harry Ludlam.

Dracula’s creator had never been to Transylvania when he fled London for the bracing North Sea wilds of Cruden Bay in the twilight of the Victorian era. In Aberdeenshire, Stoker finally found Dracula’s world of raging sea and glowering sky – a world of fisherfolk whose pagan beliefs the railway had yet to dim. On this shipwreck-strewn coast, where the mournful cries of seals haunt the night, Count Dracula emerged undead from the granite cliffs of Slains Castle.