Photos and the City

Author: Ursula Schmitz

Burghead

Burghead – Hopeman´s lovely neighbour village was built partly on a very important Pictish Fort. Burghead lies on a peninsula going into the Moray Firth and most of the town is surrounded by water on three sides.

The present town was built at the beginning of the 19th century and about half of the Pictish city was destroyed, back then it was believed to be a Roman fort.

The easily defended headland was fortified during the early Iron Age and may have been settled considerably earlier. From the 300s what we now call Burghead became an important centre for the people referred to by the Romans as the Verturiones, who went on to establish the Pictish Kingdom of Fortriu: with, very probably, Burghead as its capital. (Undiscovered Scotland)

Over the next five centuries, a large fortress was built spanning over three hectares of land, the biggest centre of power in Scotland at that time.

In 884 it was captured by Sigurd the Powerful, the Norse Earl of Orkney, who rebuilt the fort and it became the centre of Norse power in Moray. The Danish called it Burghe and stayed until 1010 when the Scots came into power.

In the middle of the 18th century, the Stephen Family started to built boats in the small village that had found its place here.

Meanwhile, the spectacular earthworks that continued to stand on the promontory caused considerable interest among early antiquaries, who tended to attribute them either to the Norse or to the Romans, who almost certainly penetrated this far into Caledonia. (Undiscovered Scotland)

But this changed at the start of the 19th century when the village and the surrounding land was bought by William Young of Inverugie who had planned a much larger settlement with streets neatly laid out along a grid.

A harbour was built, warehouses and a coast guard station followed and Burghead became an important herring fishing port. Burghead was thriving but most of the Pictish fort was lost. Stones were used to building houses and the harbour. A Roman bath was roofed over and looks quite peculiar today. (To visit it you have to get the key from the Burghead Visitor Center, which was already closed on my second visit.)

The stone from the fortress ramparts was reused in the construction of the new harbour. During the destruction of the fortress 30 Pictish stones were discovered inscribed with pictures of bulls. Only six survive and it is assumed that the other 24 were simply used to help build the harbour. (Undiscovered Scotland)

Today only little remained of the former Pictish fort right on top of the peninsula. And the views from up there are stunning and are known for watching the sea life. The charming visitor centre gives a little glimpse in how life might have been more than 1000 years ago.

03/03/2020
Kinloss Abbey

I´ve driven by Kinloss Abbey a few times and decided to take a closer look. The ruins of the Cistercian abbey near Kinloss stand in the midst of a graveyard surrounded by fields. There isn´t too much left today but Kinloss Abbey used to be one of the finest and wealthiest of all of Scotland’s abbeys.

Kinloss Abbey was founded in 1150 by King David I of Scotland and he stayed long enough at the nearby Duffus Castle to direct the beginning of the building works. Then Cistercian monks from Melrose Abbey continued to oversee the construction and occupied it once finished. It probably was fully finished in 1214 when it hosted a meeting of the General Chapter of the Prelates of the Cistercian Order.

In 1217 a daughter house, Culross Abbey in Firth, was founded and another one in 1219, Deer Abbey in Aberdeenshire.

In 1312 Robert the Bruce granted the Abbey fishing rights on the River Findhorn and it had quite a few royal visitors.

In the years around 1400s the abbey became the subject of scandalous stories about the conduct of the monks and an envoy was sent from Cîteaux Abbey, the headquarters of the Cistercian order in France, to resolve matters. Expansion of the abbey followed in the late 1400s, though in 1492 a second scandal struck when a monk, William Butler, murdered a boy in the cloister. (Undiscovered Scotland)

Out of the 24 abbots of Kinloss Abbey, one of the most notable was Robert Reid, appointed abbot in 1528. Reid brought the Italian scholar Giovanni Ferrerio of Piedmont to Kinloss and they established a centre of academic excellence. But Reid also undertook diplomatic missions for James V and he spent time in England (discussing peace terms with Henry VIII) and France.

In 1541 he became Bishop of Orkney, as soon as he had arrived in Kirkwall he started an extensive rebuilding of the Bishops Palace. He also became Lord President of the Court of Session (the highest jurisdiction in Scotland) in 1543 and spent his time between Edinburgh, Kinloss and Kirkwall.

After Reid’s death in 1558, he left big funds for the founding of a seat of learning in Edinburgh, which later on developed into the University of Edinburgh.

Mary Queen of Scots stayed at Kinloss Abbey in 1562 and even after the Reformation the Abbey still seemed to have bloomed during her stay. But over the following years, the lands and buildings slowly declined until it was given to Edward, Lord Bruce of Kinloss in 1601.

Most of the stones of the abbey were later on sold to Cromwell’s army to built their citadel in Inverness.

Sueno´s Stone

Just a short drive from Kinloss Abbey towards Forres is the tallest and most complex piece of early medieval sculpture in Scotland.

Sueno’s Stone is a gigantic Pictish cross-slab measuring 7m tall. Its carvings are ornate and unique. We see here a rare and complex narrative depiction of a battle, and a wholly unique scene interpreted as a royal inauguration.

The stone would have once overlooked the marshy floodplains of the rivers Mosse and Findhorn. Unusually, it’s still associated with the place it was first erected, though we know little of its wider context. (Historic Enviroment of Scotland)

27/02/2020
Clava Cairns

Only a mile far from Culloden lies another link with Scotlands past, dating back to around 2000BC. A short drive along some minor roads will take you away from the busy visitor centre of Culloden to the very quiet and impressive Prehistoric Burial Cairns of Balnuaran of Clava, shortly called Clava Cairns, set on a terrace above the River Nairn.

Clava Cairns is a group of three Bronze Age cairns dating back around 4000 years.

The cemetery was used in two periods. At around 2000 BC a row of large cairns was built, three of which can still be seen today. A thousand years later the cemetery was reused and new burials were placed in some of the existing cairns and three smaller monuments were built including a ‘kerb cairn’. Traces of a smaller cemetery can also be seen at Milton of Clava, a short distance up the valley to the west. The cairns at Balnuaran of Clava extended along a gravel terrace raised above the River Nairn. (Visit Scotland)

The land was used for farming before the cairns were built and the stones were probably taken from demolished houses.

There are two different types of cairns and you can see both at Clava Cairns:

The North East and South West Cairns are knows as passage graves. Here the inner chamber remains linked to the outside world by a passage. Both are no more than a metre or so in height, but when originally constructed the cairns are likely to have been around 3m or 10ft in height. (Undiscovered Scotland)

Both of the passage cairns have a surrounding circle of widely spaced standing stones.

The central cairn is a ring cairn and has so connecting passageway linking the central chamber with the outside. And again it is surrounded by a ring of standing stones.

The Clava Cairns are a type-site for a group of around 50 similar cairns found only in the region of the Moray Firth and Inverness. The form of these burial monuments uniquely combines aspects of ring cairns, passage graves, and stone circles. (Historic Enviroment of Scotland)

Midwinter seemed to be an important turning point of time of the year for the Bronze Age society, the three cairns form a line running north-east to the south-west. The passageways are also aligned towards the south-west looking towards the winter sunset.

It is assumed that Clava Cairns inspired the fictitious Craigh na Dun standing stones, which send the main character of the books and tv show “Outlander”, Claire, back in time.

I met actress Mikaila at this magical place for some “Highlander” inspired pictures showing off her and her Scottish roots.

We continued in the surrounding areas and enjoyed some fabulous views.

25/02/2020