Cunninghame Graham Memorial

The Cunninghame Graham Memorial is a stone monument dedicated to the memory of 'Don Roberto' Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham (1852–1936) 15th of Gartmore and 19th of Ardoch, a Scottish author, politician, traveller and horseman . The cairn was designed by Alexander Wright and was erected in June 1937, a year after Cunninghame Graham's death, on land that he had given to the National Trust for Scotland at Castlehill, Dumbarton. The monument, which is built of Scottish stone, contains stones from Argentina (top), Uruguay (left) and Paraguay (right), countries in which Don Roberto had lived in his youth and about which he had written. Between these stones is a medallion of Cunninghame Graham (in his latter years) by the Liverpool born artist Alexander Proudfoot, RSA, who taught sculpture at Glasgow School of Art. Below the medallion is an epitaph, which reads: "Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham 1852–1936 – Famous Author – Traveller and Horseman – Patriotic Scot and Citizen of the World – As Betokened by the Stones above. Died in Argentina, interred in Inchamahome – He Was a Master of Life – A King Among Men" On the Argentinian stone, there is a portrait of his favourite horse Pampa, an Argentine mustang which he had rescued from pulling trams in Glasgow and rode for some 20 years and the inscription: "To Pampa my black Argentine who I rode for twenty years without a fall. May the earth lie light upon him as lightly as he trod upon its face. Vale...or until so long. Don Roberto." One of Pampa's hooves is buried beneath the monument. At the opening ceremony, which was attended by the Duke of Montrose (for Scotland), Dr Alberto Guani (for Uruguay) and Cunninghame Graham's friend and biographer, Aimé Tschiffely (for Argentina), a wreath was laid by his great-nephew, Robert Elphinstone Cunninghame Graham. The monument suffered considerable damage through vandalism during the 1970s and was moved in May 1981 to the village of Gartmore (where, until 1900, Gartmore House had…