Clachnaharry Monument

Bid to protect clan battle monument

Inverness Courier 24.04.2001

Picture Phill Downie

MOVES are under way to see whether an Inverness monument, which commemorates an ancient battle, can be officially listed.

The Clan Battle Monument, above Clachnaharry, marks a clash between the Munroes and the MacKintoshes - the date of which varies between 1333 and 1434, according to different sources.

The monument was built by Major Hugh Robert Duff in about 1820, although the top section was badly damaged several years ago.

Now Muirtown Community Council has approached Historic Scotland asking for it to be-listed, after establishing the monument was owned by Highland Council.

Community council chairman John Fisher said: "It ought to be listed - it would then be looked after and maintained in a reasonable state."

He said that during the last few months, the area around the monument had been cleared by Highland Council countryside rangers.

"Before then, it was like a jungle," said Mr Fisher. "The monument has also been damaged in the past and suffered from storms."

Highland councillor Jack Shiels (Kirkhill) also hoped to see the monument listed. "If it was listed, it might generate funding to have it restored to its former glory," he said.

"It was a tall column - about 40ft to 50ft high - but it fell over in a storm in about 1951.1 think at the time there was general apathy and nothing was done about it."

Last year, however, the council restored the base and put a fence around it and also put in proper steps for easier access.

Councillor Shiels hoped that if the monument was listed it would draw people's attention to it. "A lot of people are probably unaware of it at the moment," he said.

A spokesman for Historic Scotland said that it carried out a rolling programme, listing a wide variety of properties.

He said listing only offered protection if someone wanted to alter or demolish a listed building.

"What a list does not do is to put any particular onus on the owner to maintain it to a certain standard," he said.

Meanwhile, although the exact date of the battle commemorated by the monument is uncertain, the causes and the outcome are not.

The Munroes, of Easter Ross, were returning home through MacKintosh territory after a cattle-raiding expedition.

However, they refused to abide by the usual custom of paying a tax on their plunder to the clan through whose lands they passed.

Subsequently, the aggrieved MacKintoshes ambushed them at Clachnaharry and in the ensuing battle the MacKintosh Chief was killed.

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