This monument is situated at the roadside just north of Burntisland in Fife. It commemorates Alexander lll who fell off his horse and broke his neck near or at this spot.
He had been warned not to travel on such a dark and stormy night but he was a middle-aged man who was keen to get back to his new and much younger wife.
He was travelling from Edinburgh to Kinghorn and when he became separated from the other horsemen in his entourage, the accident occurred. You would think that they would have taken better care of the king.
There is a plaque by the side of the monument with an inscription in Scots lamenting his death.
I wonder if there were any conspiracy theories going around at the time. There certainly would be nowadays. His death brought on Edward I of England’s attempt to take over Scotland which led to the long set of wars to maintain Scottish independence involving William Wallace and Robert The Bruce.
The monument was erected to commemorate the 600th anniversary of Alexander’s death. As you can see it is in need of a bit of sprucing up, I think it suffers from being so close to the passing traffic.
We visited it on Sunday which was just two days after the 19th and I had expected to see a wreath there as they used to have a procession and a bit of a ceremony, but there wasn’t any sign of it. Maybe that custom has died out.
We walked to the monument from Kirkcaldy, taking the coastal path as far as Kinghorn. Then you have to go by the road to Burntisland.
It was a much longer walk than we had anticipated. We aim to walk for about an hour every day, just to keep in shape. However this took us over two and a half hours there and back, it probably works out at about 9 or 10 miles. We didn’t feel too bad considering it’s the first really long walk of the year.