Culloden & the Clava Cairns

17/01/12
Today we drove up to Inverness. It was much bigger than we expected and had a large shopping centre. We didn't find a main street or look around much, as our sights were set slightly further afield....
To Culloden.
The battle of Culloden was in 1746 and was the final confrontation in the Jacobite rising. Between 1500 and 2000 Jacobites were killed or wounded compared to the 50 dead and 259 wounded in the opposing side. It seems that a very under prepared highlander army fought on a horrible boggy landscape against the superior firepower of the government. We pulled up at Culloden and weren't really sure what to expect. Most disappointingly was that the visitor centre was closed for renovations... again! We have chosen a terrible time to visit things, it seems. So we started walking around the massive open field.

There is a cottage built on the edge of the Field where the English fought. It is a replacement cottage but actually dates from 1760

You can peer in the windows but there seems to be only barrels and thing like that

As you walk out onto the battlefield there are walks with signs with (we felt) extremely vague descriptions of what happened with very little evidence. However, when we went home and looked it up online, there was a wealth of information. So perhaps we missed out on a great deal of info at the visitors centre.

One of the walks takes you all around the edge battle field and you come across many memorial plaques and clan headstones

One of the clan headstones

There are many headstones like the above dotted around the field showing where clans fought and died together. It is a very barren and large area and the historical society of Scotland is slowly turning the area back into the way it would have looked in 1746- a whole lot boggier, poor Scots.

The Scot's famous highland charge was used to great failure in this battle, as the order was given late, and the ground was horrible and boggy to run over, meaning that the Jacobite's were slaughtered by the enemies firepower before they even got close.

There wasn't much to take photos of, just acres of windswept land. But it was a bit eerie and very sad.
After Culloden we headed down the road a wee way to the Clava Cairns, which were bronze age burial grounds with circular tombs and standing stones dating back 4000 years! It seems that only a couple of bodies were buried in each of three arrangements. There is a large circular mound of rocks that you can walk into and standing stones around the outside and range from small to taller than I.

The stones range in size so that the smallest are at the front to face the sun. Originally the centre chamber was enclosed, and on the winter solstice, the morning sun would light the inner chamber creating one effect, and the evening light would create another. For the rest of the year, the inner chamber remained dark. Some of the stone had curious cup marks dug into them and were worn very smooth over the years. The stones were also placed with their colour in mind, so many years ago. They were extremely fascinating and a lot of fun to look around, especially as we were alone and it was very quiet.

Melaina & Graham xoxo