After spending a night in Inverness we (Peggy, Evee, Jack and myself) went to visit Culloden battlefield which is nearby. It was the first visit for Peggy obviously but the rest of us had been there a few times before. Jack and I visited Culloden when we were on our honeymoon which it seems amazing to think was almost 39 years ago! Back then there was no visitor centre and I think the place was more atmospheric, probably for that reason. It was just a vast battlefield with grave markers dotted all around it.
Although they’ve tried to make the visitor centre’s architecure sympathetic with the surroundings, just the fact that there’s a modern building there detracts from the experience.
This is where the Jacobite Rebellion featuring ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ came to a disastrous end. The battle was fought in 1746 and was the last battle to be fought on British soil. You can read about it here.
There are red flags and blue flags around the site, marking the various positions of the opposing soldiers.
The whole area has lots of grave markers around it, where the various members of different clans were buried, as you can see from the photo below there are still people laying flowers at the stones, in remeberance.
The photo below is a close up of the cottage which you can see in the distance in the first photo. It has heather thatch, something you don’t see all that often nowadays and similar houses were there when the battle was being fought, which would have seen it all.
I love it. I could quite happily move in there, okay it needed a good sweep out with a besom broom but I could make a home out of it. A kind chap took photos of us all perched on the seat outside the cottage and I thought that he used our camera but I don’t have the photo so it must have been on Peggy and Evee’s cameras, I’m sure he took two. No doubt I’ll see a copy of it sometime.
If you want to see more photos of Culloden have a look here.
I’m sure it must have a most solemn atmosphere.
How very touching that tributes of flowers are being laid in remembrance to this day.
I always note the anniversary each year.
Valerie,
It is very touching and there were several stones with bunches of flowers on them. Do you have any links with the clans?
That part of my Scottish heritage remains undiscovered at this stage. My forebears came from Arran, and from the Borders generally.
Valerie,
I have the names McGregor and Logan in my family and I think they would have been on the Jacobite side, I’ve always leaned to that side myself, rather than those Hanoverians. The Borderers tended to be on no side but their own, an independent and violent bunch, making it a dangerous place to live.
We were there on my first trip to Scotland in 2003 (long before V moved there.) Couldn’t get my head around how men were able to fight on such tangled, uneven ground. Found my family (MacLachlan) stone though.
Pearl,
I suspect that the ground was some of the flattest around at that time. I had it in my mind that you were a Stout, one of my aunts married a Stout and I seem to remember seeing the name, maybe on your Facebook.
Paternal grandparents were Stout and MacLachlan, so my maiden name is Stout
Pearl,
I have some Stout cousins but their parents are dead now. It’s not a common name here.
When I was in college and studying abroad in England, my friend and I took a quick trip to Scotland. I’m afraid we had a very surface-level understanding of Scottish sights. We went to Inverness to see Loch Ness, of course. We had another half day or so before we caught a bus back to Glasgow, and asked the Inverness tourism office where to go, and they suggested Culloden. We had never heard of it before and had very little knowledge of Scottish history but we went. We learned some of the history via the visitor center and liked looking at the landscape, but it definitely makes a difference if there’s more of a personal connection, and if that connection had some time to grow before visiting a place.
Christy,
It sounds like you just had a wee taste of Scotland then. I hope you manage to get back for something more in depth in the future!
Me too!