Taken a year ago yesterday, shortly after an overnight low of -22 C marked the coldest night in the Highlands since 1995, this picture shows part of the Aberdeenshire village of Braemar, with Braemar Church prominent. It dates from 1870, though the village is considerably older – located on Clunie Water, a tributary of the Dee, it sits on the strategically important track known as the Elsick Mounth which carried both Picts and Romans through the Grampian mountains to whatever engagements were important to Picts and Romans. The ancient pathway was still in use well into the 18th century and certainly at the time that John Erskine, the ill-starred 6th Earl of Mar, raised the standard of James VIII and III in front of 600 supporters in Braemar on September 6, 1715, thereby initiating the first Jacobite Rebellion.

The village is equally famous for its Highland games event, the Braemar Gathering. Games have been held on the site since at least the time of Malcolm Canmore, King of Scotland between 1058 and 1093, though it’s a much later and very different monarch, Queen Victoria, with whom the games are most associated. In its modern form the Gathering has taken place every year since 1832. It has been visited regularly by the reigning British monarch since 1848 and in 1866 it was honoured with royal status.

Today, the Gathering is held in Braemar’s Princess Royal and Duke of Fife Memorial Park and always on the first Saturday of September. With the Queen’s summer residence of Balmoral just nine miles away, it’s rare for there not to be a member of the current Royal family on hand to watch the various events. These include track sprints, a three mile hill race, long jump, solo piping and massed band competitions, Highland dancing across all age groups, a tug of war and, of course, the events known as ‘the heavies’ – caber tossing and the like.

Picturesque and dramatic Braemar Castle, built in 1628 by the 2nd Earl of Mar, is currently closed while it undergoes a £1.6 million restoration process, though fans of history can enjoy its colourful past vicariously: torched during the 1689 Jacobite rising by John Farquharson, known as the Black Colonel, it was later forfeited after the ’15 and came into the hands of the Farquharsons of Invercauld. It’s still owned by Clan Farquharson today though it’s leased to a local community group which runs it.

As for the weather this weekend, if the Met Office forecast is correct temperatures overnight tonight shouldn’t drop anywhere close to freezing. For Braemar, that’s positively balmy.