Victoria's Cairns

There is a rockery in our village, which was made to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee. It is made up of heather and 60 rocks from 30 of the local hills. There is a plaque on the rockery listing all the hills where rocks were taken from. We have climbed most of these hills, but there are some obscure ones we have not yet climbed - most of them at fairly low level. We want to find and climb them all, and yesterday was nominated a day for finding three of them on the Balmoral Estate. We had a bit of forest navigation to do, a tricky river to cross and a couple of fences to climb, but we found them, and we also found a beautiful royal cairn on top of Ripe Hill.

Queen Victoria seemed to be obsessed with building cairns on top of hills on the Balmoral Estate, mostly to commemorate events in the lives of her children. Whilst most of the cairns there are well known, and are in accessible places, this one is a little further off the beaten track. It commemorates the marriage of Prince Albert, in 1874, to The Grand Duchess Alexandrovna of Russia - the only Romanov to marry into the British Royal Family. A fascinating find, we thought. Even though the writing is barely legible today, google provided the missing information! :-)

[KoalaGardens🐨]

great pov

[Maggiemae]

Which Queen - Victoria or Elizabeth! but seems to be Victoria - great to read and great to see!

[Issi Bannerman]

@maggiemae You are right - my text wasn't clear, and I've amended it. The Rockery in our village is for Queen Elizabeth, but the cairns in the Balmoral Estate were established by and for Queen Victoria!

[Lesley]

Very interesting. Nice POV too.

[Babs]

Really interesting, what a great find.

[Casablanca]

Ooh how interesting indeed! Loved reading this bit of history.
How's your Dad doing today?

[Wylie]

a journey of discovery!

[Jennie B.]

You are such an adventurer! Nice find and thank you for the history of this rockery.

[Corinne C]

Interesting story.

[Lin]

Wonderful capture and enjoyed the history.

[Molly]

A fascinating commentary and sentiment to visit them all. Lovely!

[Pat Knowles]

What a find....interesting to read this.... good luck with climbing all those hills. I great challenge for the winter months.

[Bep]

Very interesting to read, Issi.

[Margaret Brown]

A very interesting piece of history, an unusual find

[Kathy]

Quite a scavenger hunt. Is the Balmoral estate open to the public?

[Judith Johnson]

Does she have a plaque on every one? I wonder she had time to climb so many - perhaps she had a squad of assistants doing all the cairn building

[Margo Sayer]

Fascinating...and even more so for you to see...in stone. TYF sharing this with us.

[Tunia McClure]

This was a great history lesson and I like your search for the hills. I bring stones as souvenirs home when I travel -- even Machu Picchu.

[Ann H. LeFevre]

Interesting history! It would be interesting to find them as you did. I wonder if Queen Victoria was actually there when they put it up.

[KWind]

Great capture!

[Taffy]

Interesting to read the background to this.

[Issi Bannerman]

@casablanca It's a bit of a roller coaster, I have to say, with dad. Good days and bad days, but the worst thing is that he seems to have given up. We're doing our best with him though, we can't do more than that. Thanks for asking.

[Issi Bannerman]

@randystreat The Estate is always open, yes, but the castle grounds are off limits in winter and when the Queen is in residence, naturally.

[Issi Bannerman]

@busylady There are. Not always legible though. There must be 10 or more massive cairns dotted around the Estate and a 'pyramid' to Prince Albert, her darling husband. I think she went to most of them on horseback, with a whole convoy of lackeys to accompany her on her trips! There's even a small cairn marking the spot where Albert camped out for the night on the side of a hill, seemingly, in a wooden hut!

[Issi Bannerman]

@olivetreeann I suspect she'll have been to see the cairns, but doubt that she went there on foot ... she travelled on horseback mostly, in all her finery - I believe.