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<\/a><\/p>\nNot knowing whether there is going to be a next year, I decided to go up it. \u00a0I was with two other soloists, Andy and Lindy. \u00a0 We walked along the north shoulder of the hill until a trampled path appeared going up through the heather. \u00a0They weren’t tempted to go. \u00a0The path was steep, it was hard to judge the distance to the monument, and it was after 6 p.m.<\/p>\n
“I may regret this,” I said as I dumped my pack on the ground and the other two went on.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t as far as it looked and the view, unobstructed except for the monument, was spectacular. \u00a0The \u00a0monument is the usual brown and gray stone, with a plug-like cap in white stone, probably quartz.<\/p>\n It is built for the ages. \u00a0A narrow iron gate opened into a chamber where there were some soggy furniture cushions but nothing more. \u00a0The chamber is about 12 feet high and the monument 50, so it seems to be mostly solid rock. There was no plaque anywhere. \u00a0On the grass outside were stones arranged in strange, runic designs.<\/p>\n I was back at my pack 38 minutes after I left. \u00a0It was definitely worth the detour.<\/p>\n In the tent city on the green a couple of people asked me what the monument commemorated when I told them I’d gone up to see it. \u00a0I told them I didn’t know; there was nothing explaining its purpose. \u00a0The bar tender at the pub offered one, which I confirmed the next day at the museum down the road.<\/p>\n The monument is known as Maule Cairn, built in 1866 by Fox Maule, the 2nd Baron Panmure and the 11th Earl of Dalhousie. \u00a0He and his wife had no children. \u00a0His brother, who would have inherited the title, died of cholera in the Crimean War in 1854. \u00a0The earldom was “moving sideways” to a nephew. \u00a0The monument was to Maule’s soon-to-be-extinct line of the family.<\/p>\n The bar tender had added that there use to be a plaque on the monument. \u00a0But when the crofters had been forced off the estate to make way for sport hunting some of them had gone up and smashed it.<\/p>\n I couldn’t confirm the latter in a brief web search. \u00a0But from what I’ve learned of Scottish history in the last two weeks, it sounds credible. \u00a0In any case, it seemed like an Ozymandian memorial.<\/p>\n The next day, walking out of Tarfside, I passed another monument. \u00a0 From it you can see the Maule Cairn in the distance. \u00a0This one, however, was in memory of the local parish’s soldiers who died in World War I. \u00a0They were listed by rank, one sergeant of the Gordon Highlanders and 6 privates of the Black Watch, two of whom had the same last name.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n