Hilton of Cadboll Stone

The Hilton of Cadboll Stone is one of the most magnificent of all Pictish cross-slabs. It was erected on the East coast of the Tarbat Peninsula in Easter Ross, Scotland about AD 800. It seems likely that, at the time, the entire peninsula from the mouth of the Cromarty Firth to Tarbatness was the estate of the monastery at Portmahomack and that the stone was carved at its instigation. As with other cross-slabs, the front was a decorated cross and the back had scenes and symbols with religious significance. It was erected in a natural amphitheatre about 100m from the shore. In the thirteenth century the Hilton of Cadboll Chapel was erected 6m to its east. More recently, the modern settlement Hilton of Cadboll has developed along the coast to its south-west. Chips found buried at the site show that the cross-face started to be defaced in the late sixteenth century during the Scottish Reformation. In 1674 the stone was felled in a storm, with the top three-quarters breaking off. The cross on the front face was now removed completely and a memorial inscribed to Alexander Duff and his three wives. The stone appears never to have been used as a memorial and was left at Hilton, where it was shown to visiting antiquarians including Rev. Charles Cordiner. He brought it to public attention in his book Antiquities and Scenery of the North of Scotland, London, 1780. In the late 1860s the Macleods of Cadboll moved the top three-quarters of the stone to be a feature in the garden of Invergordon Castle. When the estate was sold in 1921, the stone was gifted to the British Museum. A rearguard action by the Scottish antiquarian establishment succeeded in deferring the Trustees' acceptance and their releasing Macleod of Cadboll from his gift so that he could redonate it to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, which he did. The stone is now in the National Museum of Scotland. The bottom quarter of the stone, below the break, remained in situ at Hilton of Cadboll. During…