Kilmuir Burial grounds, Scotland

As promised, I can now share the photos from my trip up to the Kilmuir burial grounds.  This is the small cemetery surrounding the ruins of St. Mary's church on the Black Isle.  The Black Isle is neither black nor an isle.  It is a penninsula just north of Inverness.  You access the Black Isle via the Kessock Bridge. You can see from the photo that it is a very modern bridge.  If you look closely near the center of the bridge, you can see the cables that hold it up.

This is the narrow road leading to the church yard ruins.  The fence in the picture above is beautiful, hand hewn fencing that surrounds an estate.  The picture to the right shows a hand built rock barrier.  There are a million of these fences all over Scotland denoting property limits

After driving about 4 miles down that little road, through the woods, I made a left turn and found Kilmuir burial grounds.  There's my car parked right next to the cemetery wall.  Off in the distance is the Beauly Firth.  It's hard to tell, but the cemetery is on the bluffs above the firth.

This wall surrounds the cemetery on all four sides.  It's about 6 feet high.  There is a gate at the entrance, but it is locked and the only way over the wall is via the stone stairs you see here.  On the other side of the wall is a second set of stairs for getting down to the other side.  This wall protects the cemetery from intrusion. 

You can see how thick the wall is.  These are the stairs on the inside.  In the distance, you can see the locked gate.

Here is the grave marker for my great-great-grandparents.            Captain Thomas Paterson, shipowner, from Inverness, who  died 12 January 1905, aged 84 years and his wife, Elizabeth Macintosh, who died 19 December 1901, aged 69 years.

Here are some views from the cemetery toward the Beauly Firth.  The photos really don't capture the feeling I got standing there looking out over the water while the wind fiercely whipped up from the inlet below.