JACO BITES OFF MORE THAN A HAN' OVER IAN

 Appropriately for March, we were marching round a battlefield!

In this case we were at Culloden. Culloden as a Highland place name is interesting. Generally speaking, the English version of Gaelic placenames takes a step away from the original spelling. For Culloden, the name in Gaelic is nowadays given as Cuil Lodair. However, it was originally known as Cuil Lodain - the nook of the small pool or marsh. The original Gaelic name had been corrupted by the 18th Century.

However you say it, the battlefield marks the brutal end of the Jacobite Rising against the Hanoverian Crown. The Jacobites sought to restore the Catholic Stuarts to the British throne, but this ambition failed and 1600 men were killed at the battle in April 1746 - 1500 of those killed fought on the side of the Jacobites. After the battle, survivors faced imprisonment or death and the destruction of their homes and lands. Subsequent Acts of Proscription led to the destruction of the clan system and the suppression of Gaelic language and culture. In turn, this paved the way for the Highland Clearances. The effects were profound and shape much of the Highlands to this day.

It is, therefor, a bit ironic that the English battlefield name is closer to the original than the ancient Gaelic form.

Here we are gathering on a very cold morning ready to set off. In true Highland style, we have parked in the free spaces, rather than paying! Dave, I hope, is fiddling with his jacket zip!

Soon we were ready and off we went, heading to the Government lines, without fear of being stopped by any foe. It was a wee bit muddy, though!

Almost immediately, we were beside Leanach Cottage. There is some debate about whether this building, or its predecessor were standing at the time of the battle. Whichever building was here, it was thought to have been used as a field hospital by the Hanoverian army. To hark back to the original Gaelic name of the battlefield, Leanach means swampy or marshy.

The battlefield is owned by the National Trust for Scotland and it is seeking to return the site to the condition it was in at the time of the battle. Given the Gaelic name, this will involve significant removal of trees and shrubs and return to a more swampy appearance. To that end, they have used Shetland Cows to graze out some of the unwanted vegetation.

This is a little ironic, in that after the battle, up to 20000 sheep and cattle were driven off and sold at Fort Augustus. The victorious soldiers split the profits, whilst the defeated clansmen, their families, and innocent inhabitants were faced with penury and starvation.

The Shetland cows are used here as they are very hardy and less in need of grass than other, more modern, breeds. They are rare, though, and only 180 calves are born on average each year across the world!

The cows are normally black and white, but about 10% of the world herd is red and white. Weirdly, 5 pregnant cows and one bull were sent to the Falkland Isles to replace cattle killed during the Falklands War!

There is no doubt about the importance of the battle in British and Highland history, but there seemed to be no enthusiasm to commemorate, or indeed to celebrate, the battle. The cairns marking the site of fallen men were only erected in 1881.

This one is supposed to mark the burial of the "English" or Hanoverian fallen. However, more recent archaeology has determined that there are no bodies under the grass!

I don't know if the same is true of this grave, which may or may not contain some of my ancestors. Given they were mainly Lochiel's clansmen, it is entirely possible.

The large cairn was also erected in 1881, although some of the carved stones set into the cairn were carved some years earlier. The memorial was not built through lack of funding.

From here on, once we pass the Jacobite lines, we depart from the route that most tourists who visit the the battlefield would follow. We are really passing through the lines of the Irish and French supporters of the Jacobites. It was still cold!

It might well be cold, but there are signs that Spring is on the way. If only it would hurry up!

After leaving the NTS owned battlefield, we pass on to land with a scatter of houses. Looking across the fields we spot a deer. It seems unconcerned by us, which is not surprising, because it isn't real!

We also get a bit of a view over the Firth towards the Black Isle and beyond. It would have been much more attractive if someone hadn't put these poles in front of the view!

After passing by Blackpark Farm and a row of blackthorn (sloe) bushes, we enter Culloden Woods and quickly come upon St Mary's Well. The well is a healing well or clootie well. These are found throughout much of Celtic Britain. They are assumed to be quite ancient and to derive from the ancient Celtic practice of leaving votive offerings to water spirits. Healing wells work on the basis of leaving a rag or piece of clothing tied to a sacred tree at the well to aid healing. As the rag disintegrates, so the ailment fades away. St Mary's Well was thought in the 1800's to be named after a nearby St Mary's church, but most of these wells could easily pre-date Christianity. Sometimes clootie wells were the subject of ritual visiting on May Day. Until relatively recently, this was a big thing and there was an ice cream van stationed at the lower car park for the occasion.

This is the well itself and the site has been improved, with the removal of a two metre high enclosure, making it tidier and more pleasant than it used to be. The colour of the spring water would suggest it is a chalybeate spring. Chalybeate springs tend to be very high in iron and have long been thought to have healing properties.

Forestry and Land Scotland helpfully point out that only biodegradable materials should be used to cure ailments, because they will decay with time. Polyester won't help cure any ills.

Nobody would admit to any illness needing cured and certainly nobody was in a hurry to take a knife or scissors to their walking gear, so off we went through the forest.

These are mature trees and some of them have fallen victim to storms over the years, lifting huge root plates as they have been blown over.

It isn't all a tale of woe. There are signs of new life, with frog spawn in many of the roadside ditches. Despite appearances to the contrary, the large brown objects at the bottom of the photo are spruce cones

                                                                                        

The forest did open out a bit to allow views across to the Black Isle, although the view will disappear in a few year's time.

People were getting a bit hungry, in fact they were looking a bit menacing without access to their sandwiches and the like.

Luckily, there was a bench right by the Prisoners' Stone. It was here that 17 wounded Jacobite soldiers were said to have been summarily executed beside the stone. The soldiers were wounded during the battle, and had been kept at Culloden House for three days before being taken in carts to the stone and then shot at close range. Just the place for a spot of lunch!

After our hearty lunch, we set off along forestry roads and that is when we got a little damp as the rain fell. It had been threatening up until then, so we had been quite lucky. Even more luckily, it did not last for very long.

See, I told you so. Blue skies were much in evidence, once we emerged form the trees and on to the Balloch road.

We walked up the fairly newly tarred path on the edge of the woods.

It doesn't take long to get back to the battlefield and we walk past Leanach Cottage to get to the visitor centre café. Whilst it is not certain that this building was standing at the battle, an associated barn was standing a little to the west, but it is no longer evident. That might have something to do with the tradition that this was where wounded Highlanders were carried and over whom the Duke of Cumberland ordered the building to be burnt to the ground. This and subsequent brutality led to Cumberland, the third son of King George II, being labelled as Butcher Cumberland. In 2005, he was selected by the BBC's History Magazine as the worst Briton of the 18th Century!

The cottage is quite quaint and is probably photographed by most of the people who visit the site, oblivious to its past.

It is amazing how distance in time from the events that took place here 280 years ago make it much easier to enjoy a cup of tea and a piece of cake! Nobody who was there then, would recognise it now, nor would they understand what the world had become. Tea and cake on a battlefield, indeed.

Thanks are due to Dave and Sandra for arranging everything today. I think everybody had a good day out despite the horrors of what once happened here.

Next up is our April weekend away.