Culloden Means That There is a Hard Place in History for This Rock

A little bit of history for you now. That dreaded battle at Culloden took place in April 1746, when William Augustus Hanover, otherwise known as the Duke of Cumberland, defeated Bonnie Prince Charlie and his Jacobite army. For its sins, the Duke of Cumberland's Stone, dating from the last Ice Age, became forever linked to the battle's bogeyman. But surely it doesn’t deserve this bad press?

Following the victory at Culloden, there was a campaign to crush further Jacobite opposition to the government and the Crown. There were executions, imprisonments and ransackings of Jacobite supporters, earning the Duke the sobriquet of “The Butcher”.

Thankfully those times and the main participants are long gone, although the poor old stone continues to attract anger for the events of 267 years ago. Talk about holding a grudge! Without wishing to draw even more attention to its whereabouts, it should be pointed out that the big smooth lump of rock sits just off the B9006 Culloden to Nairn road. Now covered in lichen and moss, it sits in a little clearing on the edge of a small conifer plantation. Its surroundings are not salubrious, with a discarded juice bottle and snacks wrappers floating in a nearby muddy puddle.

Cumberland's Stone

Its unpopularity may be because it is said that the Duke of Cumberland had breakfast, or maybe his lunch, on the table-flat top of the boulder on the day of the battle. It has also been said that he stood on the stone to better survey the course of the fighting.

The words "Cumberland's Stone" are thought to have been carved into the rock in 1881, while metal rungs have been hammered into it so people could more easily climb up on to it. Modern times have butted in and the boulder has been sprayed with graffiti, while a fire was even set against it in a pathetic attempt to cause damage to it.

But is the stone deserving of the abuse? It wouldn’t even be in its present position if it wasn’t for the last Ice Age. It is professionally termed an “erratic”, an unkind word for a rock type that is different from the bedrock on which it sits.  The Inverness Scientific Society and Field Club made a visit to Cumberland's Stone in the 1870s, and they determined the boulder to be a large block of conglomerate, also known as pudding stone. The bedrock beneath it is also conglomerate, but of a different type. They suggested that it matched the geology of Stratherrick which lies almost 20 miles (32km) south of Inverness.

Speaking as if they were there at the time, they believe that the rock was torn from the ground at Stratherrick as a huge ice sheet crept out of the west towards the Moray Firth coast. Jagged edges were smoothed as the stone slowly rolled and shifted within the ice, and it was then deposited at Culloden 16,000 years ago when the ice eventually melted.

Prof Colin Ballantyne, of University of St Andrews' School of Geography and Geosciences, said erratic rocks such as Cumberland's Stone help scientists to understand glacial geology.

He said: "Erratic boulders like Cumberland's Stone are used by geomorphologists to trace the former directions of movement of the last ice sheet. This ice sheet reached its maximum dimensions about 22,000 years ago. At that time the ice sheet covered all of Scotland, including the highest mountain summits, extended eastwards to join the Scandinavian Ice Sheet in the North Sea basin and extended westwards to the edge of the Continental shelf, about 50km west of St Kilda."

Prof Ballantyne added: "Cumberland's Stone was carried a few tens of kilometres as part of a fast-moving body of ice within the last ice sheet known as the Moray Firth Ice Stream. Some erratics have travelled much farther. Erratics from Ailsa Craig in the Firth of Clyde, for example, have been recovered from glacial deposits in Wales."

Paul Lang, a living history re-enactor who has had interest in Culloden since working at the battlefield as a teenager, believes the Culloden stone's notoriety is undeserving, and wanted to play down the Cumberland connection "To me the Cumberland connection is a myth," he said. "Cumberland at the time was not the most mobile man. He was carrying injuries. The idea of him climbing up on to the stone to have his lunch seems crazy." Mr Lang said the duke was recorded to have been on horseback during the battle and took up a position between the first and second lines of his regiments. "That's a good 400 to 500 metres from the frontline," he said, adding: "The stone is too far away for Cumberland to have been able to see what was going on during the battle."

Mr Lang felt that if you went further back in history, then the stone's reputation could be a lot different. It is said to have brought together the early 18th Century society lovers Duncan Forbes and Mary Rose, a baron's daughter. "Duncan Forbes had a reputation for being a boozer and a party guy and the baron was not happy about his daughter seeing him," said Mr Lang. "The couple are said to have met at a large stone on the edge of Culloden Estate not far from the road to Nairn. Today's road is not far from where the old one ran and the only big stone close by - and on the edge of the estate - is Cumberland's Stone."

After training in law, Forbes married his sweetheart. Mr Lang said: "Duncan Forbes' attitude changed. He became focused on law and was dedicated to his wife, who died 10 years later." Forbes was Lord Chief Justice of Scotland at the time of the 1745 Jacobite Rising. He supported the government and made efforts to convince some clan chiefs not to risk ruin by siding with Bonnie Prince Charlie. Mr Lang said: "After Culloden, Forbes was saddened by what happened to his fellow Highlanders. He died the following year, some say of a broken heart."