Skye, Borreraig, Macrimmon Memorial Cairn

Borreraig The slim peninsula of limestone escarpments terminating in Dunvegan Head is best known for its association with the great MacCrimmon dynasty of pipers. Here they had their home, and founded their famous piping college, c.1500, the ruins of which survive. Its present day successor is Alexander Ross's former School, 1875/6. On the eastern headland, a memorial cairn, 1933 .

['Nature's voice heard by them, chief among pipers

Caught and held fast by them, set here for ever,

The sea-voice and hill-voice and moor-voice of Scotland.

In the pibrochs of Skye on the Pipes of MacCrimmon.']

(Composed for unveiling of the MacCrimmon memorial by Charles Richard Cammell).

Taken from "Western Seaboard: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Mary Miers, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk

NG15SE 79 19077 53836

Macrimmon Memorial Cairn [NAT]

OS (GIS) MasterMap, July 2009.

See also:

NG15SE 4 NG 1891 5363 MacCrimmon School of Piping

NG15SE 70 NG 18735 53604 School (Piping Heritage Museum)

The Macrimmons of Skye, hereditary pipers to the Macleods of Dunvegan, had a regular school or college for pipers on Borreraig farm, opposite Dunvegan Castle across Loch Follart. The school was endowed with a grant of the farm, but in the late 18th century the endowment was withdrawn and the establishment broken up. In 1838 the land was divided up into a number of small holdings.

The college building was divided into two parts, classroom and sleeping quarters; the pupils practised in a hollow nearby.

In 1933 a memorial cairn was erected at NG 1904 5281 with the Gaelic inscription ' ...near this spot stood the Macrimmon School of Music 1500-1800.'

Visited by OS (C F W), 5 May 1961.

New Statistical Account (NSA) 1845; F T Macleod 1933; I F Grant 1959.