Culloden Moor
We visited Colloden Moor on our first visit to Scotland, but the new museum and 'cultural center' that they built on the site was interesting enough to pull us back for an hour or two. The moor is stll just a moor -- a field, marked here and there with stone memorials or flags.
But the museum is marvelous, and wel worth the time to visit. No pictures inside, unfortunately.
It's just a moor - a field - but the history here is palpable
Egotist or National Hero?
Site of the disastrous battle on April 16, 1746, between the underfed, tired, and badly armed Highland army and the English. This bleak, wet moor marked the end of the Jacobite rebellion under Bonnie Prince Charlie. The English, under the command of the Duke of Cumberland, King George II's younger son, butchered the ragged army after Charlie decided to make his stand on this marshy ground, in defiance of his advisors. He wanted to be able to see the batte, you see, and was ignorant of any actual tactical plans.
It is a very moving experience to walk through the paths on the moor and see the stone markers -- it's hard to imagine what happened here, early in the wet, cold morning, as they marched against the better equipped and better organized English. The timelines and audio/visual stuff in the museum does a great job of showing the battle and the political and cultural changes that led up to it, including a large-scale mockup of the battlefield and troop movements. To then walk outside into Drumossie moor to see the flat, marshy, hillocked land that they fought on was almost shocking.
Charlie went on a year long ego trip that was paid for in the lives of the soldiers who followed him, because he was a stupid, arrogant boy. Still, he's a national hero, despite his ignomious defeat here at Culloden and his flight back to France after hiding out for months.