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Black Isle kirkyard labour of love as smashed 200-year old memorial erected by a pauper set to be replaced


By Hector MacKenzie

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The broken stone which Mary McDonald must have scrimped and save to buy was smashed 200 years after first erected.
The broken stone which Mary McDonald must have scrimped and save to buy was smashed 200 years after first erected.

A MEMORIAL stone in a Black Isle cemetery smashed in a careless accident more than 200 years after it was erected by a dairymaid who scrimped and saved to honour her parents is being replaced after a remarkable labour of love.

What is believed to be the first new tablestone carved in a century will be laid in place in Kirkmichael after a painstaking exercise by conservationists and volunteers touched by the story unearthed by a local historian.

The original was smashed decades ago when a large granite urn was dropped onto the fragile sandstone slab.

Mary McDonald, a domestic servant and dairymaid, was a pauper when she herself died at the age of 78 at Balmuchie, Fearn in February 1865.

Stone carver David Lindsay was commissioned to create a replica of the original stone.
Stone carver David Lindsay was commissioned to create a replica of the original stone.

Years before, she somehow managed to scrape together enough for a memorial to her parents, Donald, a farm labourer who died aged just 33 when she was still a toddler and her mother, Margret Stewart who died in 1815 at the age of 57.

It was laid at Kirkmichael and stood for two centuries before it was cracked and broken in the 1980s by the weight of a granite urn that topped a memorial to Lieutenant General Sir Hugh Fraser of Braelangwell and his wife, Dame Isabella.

The urn had become displaced and was carelessly placed on top of the tablestone, possibly by a grass-cutter.

The Kirkmichael Trust, behind a determined and hugely successful restoration of the kirkyard, appealed for support to have a new stone identically re-carved, added in its own funding.

Stone carver David Lindsay of Stoneworks has painstakingly completed the great half-tonne slab exactly.

Dr Jim Mackay, chairman of the Kirkmichael Trust, said:“When we fixed the buildings at Kirkmichael we began to address the derelict condition of the kirkyard itself. This was one of the saddest stones in the place but we think poor Mary would be pleased to see it back the way it was!”

Removal of the stone and its ultimate replacement represented a significant effort for volunteers determined to show respect to the woman who wished to honour her parents.
Removal of the stone and its ultimate replacement represented a significant effort for volunteers determined to show respect to the woman who wished to honour her parents.

Read more about the fascinating background to the story at https://www.kirkmichael.info/MaryMcDonaldPage.html


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