The mystery of the Glenfinnan Stone

There are three or four spots at Glenfinnan which vie for the title of the place where Bonnie Prince Charlie raised the Standard.

One of them is particularly intriguing.

A heather fire which broke out on a hillside at Glenfinnan in 1988 revealed a large, flat boulder with an inscription in Latin which reads: ‘MDCCXLV, in the name of the Lord, the Standard of Charles Edward Stuart was set up in 1745, triumphant at last.’

There were three sets of footsteps carved out on the stone, a crown, a cross and the names ‘Cameron 827’, ‘Hugh’ and ‘Trdine’.

Were these denoting Lochiel and the number of men he brought? Was ‘Hugh’ Bishop Hugh MacDonald? And ‘Trdine’ the Marquis of Tullibardine? Other carvings were an arrow and the number ‘four’. Was this the direction of, and the number of steps to the spot the Standard was actually raised?

There are local stories that this is the spot where the Standard was raised, carved perhaps within living memory of the event, but there are also stories that the carvings may have been executed much, much later.

Near the boulder was a stone, about 12 inches in diameter, with a hole at its centre, which it was presumed was the place where the pole of the Standard would have rested.

In 1989 this smaller stone disappeared, and it wasn’t until 2009 that a woman contacted Lochaber historian Iain Thornber after watching the TV programme Countryfile, realising that the historic stone was sitting in her son’s rockery in Hartlepool, England, a gift to her many years before when she was living in Scotland.

The ‘Glenfinnan Stone’ is now on display in the West Highland Museum.