Duncan Harley

A special train left the Joint Station at Aberdeen on Friday 24 July 1914 and headed north to the old railway station at Inverurie where it stopped to pick up a number of very important passengers before proceeding to a point midway between Inverurie and Inveramsay. Wooden ladders were lowered onto the track and, on that damp and blustery pre-first-war summer’s day, some 300 passengers disembarked then trudged up through the muddy fields to join crowds of locals who had gathered to witness the inaugural ceremony of the monument to the July 1411 Battle of Harlaw. The battle is of course often portrayed as a simple bloodthirsty clash between Highland and Lowland cultures and popular belief holds that the outcome saved the city of Aberdeen from rape and pillage at the hands of the highland hordes. The Lord of the Isles was indeed a troublesome noble. He looked upon himself as legitimate heir to the Earldom of Ross and when the Duke of Albany, who had become Regent following t...