Today I want to take you to a place that oozes, not only Scottish history, but pre-history. There's
a place in Argyll, where the nation of Scots was formed, where you can see 5000 years of
history in a single glen; 350 ancient monuments, standing stones, burial cists and cairns, Victorian
engineering, a Dark Age hillfort, Renaissance ruins, rock art and a stone henge, all within
walking distance. If you're interested in the people, places or events in Scottish history, then
click the subscribe button at the bottom right at any time, in the meantime, let me tell you the story.
I'm Bruce Fummey, and I'm ashamed to say, that for most of my life, I had no idea that less than
a three hours drive from my Perthshire home, there was a valley like this one. Kilmartin Glen
tells the story of Scotland in its very landscape. I hope that I can whet
your appetite to visit, because in the time that we have, I can only scratch the surface,
but people had been doing that here for 5000 years. 5000 years ago, our ancestors were scratching
the surface of the very rocks of the earth, and we can see it today, but they didn't do it with modern
masonry chisels and tempered steel, these cup and ring marks can be found all over Scotland, but
nowhere is the sheer concentration of sites, or elaborateness of patterns, as in this glen.
What do they mean these markings that prehistoric Scots put so much effort into? We can never know
for sure. Hamish loves Mairi, Kilroy's a baw (ball) bag, Kilmartin Young Team. To my shame, for most of
my life, I had no idea this was here. For 12 years I've performed comedy shows about Scottish history,
some of which you can find in my shop at www.scotlandhistorytours.co.uk/shop
link in the description, but I knew nothing of this treasure trove that I'm about to show you.
Inspired to tell people the story of the real Macbeth, and show them where he walked
I became a tour guide, and yet this valley was a mystery to me. I've brought you here today
so that it's not a mystery to you. Around a mile south of the village of Kilmartin, beside the
B8025 (the road number on a map), you'll find the Lady Glassary Car Park, which must have been used since the Bronze Age when
Argyll and Bute Council first provided services for folk visiting the Nether Largie Standing Stones,
but it's probably better if we start a mile up the glen at the village of Kilmartin itself,
where there's a museum in the white building just to the left of the church.
Now the museum's due to be closed until 2023, as they're upgrading the visiting experience.
This will give you time to deal with the obvious dilemma that you'll face. Where to
visit first; the museum, or the café, interesting artifacts gathered from this incredible glen,
or cream scones. I think the artifacts can wait. Whoever heard of of five thousand year old cream scones?
Now whilst we wait for the café to open, let me take you down this remarkable glen
to visit six incredible ancient monuments in four minutes. In Nether Largie North Cairn, rounded, water
eroded stones, cover a large burial cist. By the time it was excavated in 1930, there was no
trace of the human remains that it would have contained. Images of metal axe heads carved into
the stone slab over the burial cist, reflect what at the time, was literally cutting edge technology.
The kind of thing that only the likes of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson would use.
The Nether Largie Mid Cairn was built about the same time as the Nether Largie North.
They tell me that it originally stood three metres high until the 1920s, when many of the stones
were taken and used for road building. It's funny, when you think of grave robbers you don't imagine
a civil engineer in a hard hat and a clipboard do you? And then we come to the Nether Largie South
Cairn. This is one of the oldest monuments in the glen. It's Megalithic to early Neolithic.
You're right, it means nothing to me either. Let's say just earlier than three and a half thousand BC
for rounding sake. When it was built, people would have been able to go inside to hold ceremonies.
The chamber's nearly six metres long, and divided into segments by big slabs and dry stone walling.
It had two big portal stones. It was a proper des res (desirable residence) for dead, early Neolithic Scottish folk,
although later in the Bronze Age, it was changed to fit in with the other cairns in the glen.
You see this glen doesn't just show you ancient monuments, but reveals to you how life and beliefs,
technology and thinking, have changed over 5000 years, and all that brings us
back to the Nether Largie Standing Stones that we saw when we left the car park.
Now before you think, oh aye, very interesting, stop. That was one incredible mile we just traversed.
Where else do you see that? This was, and is a truly special place.
this was, and is a place, where past meets present, where the dead and the living commune,
where we can see as ancestors saw, thousands of years before Scotland was ever thought of, but
we've barely begun, because here's my favourite bit, Temple Wood. Now the name, the dyke, the oak trees,
go back to the 19th Century, but the cairns, the cists and the standing stones, go back much further.
Although bear in mind, that the Nether Largie South Cairn we just visited had been standing for 500
years before this was begun. That's like the time between us and James the Fourth in the Battle of Flodden.
Around 3000 BC, the first thing built here in this site was a circle of wooden timber.
Now I've seen exactly the same thing elsewhere, for example the Croft Moraig Standing Stones,
where I take you to in my video 'Standing Stones and Time Travel to Ancient Scottish History'. I'll
leave a link to that video at the end. It starts with a belief system; the meaning of the circle,
then the technology to make the circle with round wooden timbers. Later as technology or manpower or
community world dictates, the wooden posts are replaced by the permanence of a stone circle.
Then a little while later, our ancestors built another stone circle here to the south and west.
Some of the stones have designs that link to Irish grave art of the same era, so the links across the
Irish Sea, go back a long way. When I visited this glen, I also made a video about the Scots of Dalriada,
based at the hill fort of Dunadd, three miles to the south of here, and the question was,
'How long before Fergus MacErc, was this place linked to Ireland?'
It seems long before, but the carvings and the arrangement of stones don't just link to Ireland,
but lunar and solar cycles; the heavenly clock that keeps ticking as one generation fades, and another
glows brightly in its place. Ceremonies would have been performed here, generation after generation.
Rites and rituals and reverence paid. Over time people's thinking changes
much slower then. It was a thousand years before this place was used for burial again,
and cist graves were made with arrowheads and beakers to accompany the dead on their way.
The central cist was then surrounded by stones eroded by water. It's incredible to think that
it was as peat was first forming from the boggy ground, that our ancestors abandoned this site.
I don't know about you, but I always wonder why? What brought about the change? How did they see
life differently? Of course we make discoveries all the time that change our way of thinking.
Scientists discover something that they didn't know before,
then we go back to the drawing board, back to the beginning to start all over.
This is Dunchraigaig Cairn. Yes it's another prehistoric burial cairn, and it's only a mile down
the road from the cairns that we've just left. Are you getting this? If you haven't already grasped
the richness of the prehistoric landscape in this one glen, then let me tell you that just this year,
archaeologists found carvings a deer on the rocks inside this cairn. Now that might not sound much, but
we've talked about cup and ring marks, axe carvings, but this is the first time the archaeologists have
discovered animal carbons, and anatomical detail, not previously known in the UK! That's right
Scots invented animal carvings and all! Even when Scotland didn't exist, it was inventing stuff!
Now as if Dunchraigaig Cairn wasn't enough, it's only the length of a field before we come across
the Ballymeanoch Standing Stones. Yet another site of ritual celebration in this small glen.
Here's one of the things that strikes me. You can see that this field's farmed.
Here in Argyll, so much of the terrain's harsh and unwelcoming to arable farmers.
It seems to me, that at a time when farming was far less efficient, good farmland at an even
greater premium, our ancestors were prepared to give up this valuable land in favour of these
monuments. How important must they have been? How spiritual this place of memorial and celebration?
In the short walk to Dunadd, we can see beliefs changing, hierarchies were changing, the glen
was changing. By the time the Romans arrived in the south, the people of this glen were
using Dunadd as a hillfort. The Romans came and went, and life here continued. It's what is now
Scotland was consolidating from many tribes, into four kingdoms. This was the hill fort of the Scots,
but the citadel atop this hillfort was more than just a political base, it was a spiritual base. In
many ways, this wee bit hill and glen, was the genesis of Scotland. Atop this hill, there's a shape of
a footprint carved into the rock. Into this, kings placed their feet to represent their union with the
rock of the land. There can be no more appropriate spot. I can't think of another place in the world
where the very stones connect you to the land, and your ancestors in the way that this glen does.
At the top of the glen stands a castle. In fact it's back beyond the museum and
church where we were earlier. Actually the church is a bridge in time to this castle.
In the grounds of the church there's a mausoleum which contains a lapidarium.
It houses incredible tombstones and carvings from 13th to 15th Century, which brings us towards the
time period of the castle, where the Earl of Argyll granted the land to the church Rector.
Now this was no ordinary church Rector. His ambitions led him to become Bishop of the
Isles, and to build this castle. When the Bishop translated the Book of Common Order into Gaelic,
it became the first Gaelic book to be produced using the new technology of printing.
In 1685, the castle was besieged when the Earl of Argyll rebelled against the Stuart monarchs,
in a turning point for our country. Since we measured time, this glen has seen changes and
stored exhibits and weathered stone memorials, where we can worship at the alterations, and more changes
were to come. Kilmory Oib is a different type of monument. This valley has many memorials to the dead.
This is a memorial to those forced to live elsewhere. For thousands of years folk had
lived and worked the land, measured the seasons and commemorated those, who even in passing, went back
to the land. This deserted village is a memorial to tenants who refused to comply with eviction orders,
at least as long as they could. Mill wheels stopped turning, roofs were for burning.
I don't think this is a place you would want to leave,
even when I come here now, I don't want to leave. but things were changing even faster now.
This was the age of improvement. For thousands of years, the land had shaped the people on it.
Now it was a time when people like Thomas Telford, shaped the very land. Ancient kings of Dalriada had
placed their foot in stone to connect with the rock, now engineers were moving it. Megalithic
monuments, Medieval hill forts, Renaissance castles, Kilmartin Glen saw many changes,
but engineering, meant that man was no longer tied to the land, but master of it. The Anthropocene
was coming, travelling along the Crinan Canal. The Crinan Canal was completed in 1809, to
take small cargo ships and fishing boats, from the Firth of Clyde to the Hebridean waters
without going round the Mull of Kintyre, and thus, became the most beautiful shortcut in Britain.
For thousands of years people had taken to those coastal waters; the trade routes that bonded the
people of Argyll, with the people of the Hebrides and Ireland, to create the kingdom of Dalriada.
In 1847, when Queen Victoria was holidaying in the Highlands, as she was want to do, she took a
trip along the Crinan Canal, towed by four horses, with horsemen dressed in royal livery.
I wonder if she looked across to the north, to the Moine Mhor to Dunadd, to ponder ancient
Scottish kings and their link to the land? I wonder if she knew how densely packed were the ancient
monuments within touching distance? They would link her to the past. The canal itself is now a
national monument. The latest of the monuments in this wonderland, whose surface we've only touched.
There's much more to see, if only I had the time to show you.
There are other monuments, cairns and castles that I haven't covered. Kilmartin
Glen has Scotland etched into the landscape from pre-history to modern times, and you have to visit.
For my video 'Standing Stones and Time Travel to Ancient Scottish History',
with wonderful drone shots of the Scottish Crannog before it sadly burnt down,
click the link coming up on screen now. In the meantime, tha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.