7/17/07 – Culloden and Standing Stones – Oh, Boy!

Tuesday was the day I had been waiting for. We had an optimistic forecast of “intermittently sunny” and our itinerary included two sites I had been looking forward to seeing – Culloden and standing stones. Our first stop was Culloden, which is the site of the battle which ended the Jacobite Uprising of 1745. We watched a short informational film, before venturing out onto the battlefield. The film gave a good summary of the conditions building up to the battle, and also the events immediately afterward. I had been unaware of the fact that Charles Stuart (otherwise known as “Bonnie Prince Charlie”) could probably have kept hold of Scotland, if he hadn’t gotten greedy and attempted to capture England as well. To the Scots, this war was much like our Civil War, and at the end of it, the old ways of the Scottish clans were destroyed.

We ventured out to the battlefield, first visiting a old croft that had been converted into a British command post. Then onto the battlefield itself, a bleak moor with a commemorative cairn in the middle, and two lines of stones, representing the fallen on both sides – brother against brother. I walked down the row of clan markers, and took pictures of those for Fraser and Cameron, not seeing any MacDonald or Farquharson (my own clan affiliations). Most other clans were represented by markers for “Mixed Clans.”

We then traveled to the Clava Cairns, which range in age from 6,000 – 1,000 BC. There are three large cairns (which are gravesites), each surrounded by a ring of 12 standing stones. There is one newer (1,000 BC) cairn that is not as big, and doesn’t have a full complement of standing stones. Although they have fenced the site in, one of the standing stones is still outside the fence, and I had to wonder why.

After that, we went to Cawdor Castle, the setting for Shakespeare’s MacBeth. We had lunch sitting in the courtyard of the castle, and I had one of those moments of “Gee, here I am in Scotland, in a castle!” The castle is only open to the public during the tourist season, but during the winter, the mistress of the castle is in residence (from October through March).

It has some lovely gardens, including a nature walk in back of the castle, with a peat-water stream running through it, and a labyrinth maze. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get into the labyrinth, but I could imagine them losing a few tourists from time to time.

After that, we made a quick trip to Ft. George. Although it was recommended to take 1 ½ hours to see it, we dashed through in 1 hour. The fort is set down into the ground, and is almost invisible until you are right on top of it, and it bristles with cannons. The purpose of the fort was to keep down the savage natives, after “the ’45.” As soon as it was built, it was obvious that it was unneeded, as the heads of clans, and other notorious trouble-makers had been executed, imprisoned, or exiled.