After a family funeral in Inverness this summer, we made a very brief tour of the battlefield at Culloden. It suited our sombre mood. The bench above, with its Gaelic inscription, is dedicated as follows to Gordon Thom:
Around the bench were memorials to the fallen, on both sides.
Culloden memorial
Culloden memorial
This is Leanach Cottage. A cannon ball is said to have been recovered from its turf wall more than a century ago.
I’m linking this post to Jude’s Bench Series which, for November, is looking for benches with a message.
Loved it.
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So glad!
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I’m catching up on reading blogs this morning. It seems fitting to read this one given the tragic events in Paris a few days ago. It’s a solemn reminder that violence and sadness are nothing new in this world.
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Yes, I had been going to publish it anyway but it does fit into the general sadness of 11 November, followed by Paris. It’s all equally hard to make sense of.
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The eerie quiet must have been deafening in such a place.
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Yes, it was eerie. Everyone walked about very quietly and respectfully.
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It looks so quiet there and yet such a battle happened eons ago. The little cottage looks homey to me-does someone live there?
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It is quiet – eerily so. No, the cottage is part of the site, I don’t think it would be habitable.
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We were there on a sunny, breezy day in June. As you say it is sad; spending time understanding the lead up and the tactics made the tour feel antiseptic until I stepped outside and realised how relatively small the area was and yet how huge and indiscriminate was the slaughter.
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Sometimes they can overdo the information! We were terribly boorish, we just had half an hour so went straight outside and skipped the exhibition. (The good thing about having a membership card.) Last time we visited (almost 30 years ago) the visitor centre was tiny and you were hit more or less straight away by the bleakness.
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The exhibition is very good so do catch it if you can
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Next time!
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It’s true, there’s a sense of lonelyness on the battlefiled. But I like it that follen on both sides are remembered.
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Yes, that’s a good point.
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Battlefields are strange places. As others have mentioned, sombre, desolate, sad. Thinking of all those men slaughtered. For what? Now the whole planet seems to be a battlefield, and not only soldiers are being slaughtered. Aside from that your cottage photo is absolutely beautiful, I’d be tempted to crop out that tree on the left-hand side, but otherwise a perfect composition 🙂
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Yes, it’s quite appropriate at the moment. Nothing is worth indiscriminate killing.
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What a desolate place, Anabel. The bench was a good find though.
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Desolate is an apt word. Battlefields always make me feel that. So much waste of life.
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I agree with you. I remember going to Little Bighorn Battlefield in Montana and seeing General Custer’s grave with the grasses waving in the breeze. That was also really desolate.
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Hi Anabel,
I agree with you about the sense of sadness around Culloden. That’s what is in my memory of a visit there long time ago.
Have a great Sunday,
Pit
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Thanks, you too, Pit.
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This bench doesn’t look particularly comfortable. But then, nothing about Culloden looks comfortable.
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No. It has a pervasive sense of sadness about it.
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