CONSERVATION bosses have made a plea for people to stop putting memorials up in Glen Coe after revealing they have had to take down dozens of the markers despite their importance to grieving families.
Visitors to the most dramatic of Highland glens have put up memorials to their late family and friends among the soaring mountain tops over the years.
Some have been concreted in place, while others are bolted to rock faces, with holes drilled in the stone with cordless drills.
But if the people placing them hope they will be a lasting tribute to their loved one, they’d be mistaken – and the memorials in the place also known as the Glen of Weeping can end up adding to their grief.
Last week, the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) revealed such memorials have been a problem in the glen for many years which they have been quietly dealing with – and they made a plea for people to stop putting them up there.
The Trust is determined to combat man-made intrusions in the wild landscape, and has recently complained about “wild” campers leaving rubbish, and people creating so-called “rock art” by arranging stones in stacks and patterns.
Trust rangers recently discovered abandoned litter and camping equipment along with a large spiral pattern of rocks laid out in the Lost Valley or Coire Gabhail, between Beinn Fhada and Gearr Aonach.
But at the same time, they found a memorial plaque bolted onto a large boulder in the corrie.
That is not only an intrusion like the other damage, but, the Trust says, a breach of the strict conditions of the grant which allowed the purchase of the Glen Coe estate in 1935 by the NTS.
Much of the money was provided by Percy Unna, the chair of the Scottish Mountaineering Club. His conditions, known as the Unna Principles, were intended to keep the glen as unspoiled as possible for visitors, and retain its wild nature.
One of the conditions was that there should be no memorials on the 5800-hectare estate which contains eight Munros, mountains more than 3000 feet high, including the imposing bulk of Bidean Nam Bian on the south side of the glen and the saw-tooth ridge of the Aonach Eagach to the north.
“It’s a place for the living,” said Scott McCombie, the estate manager for NTS.
McCombie said he understood why people want their loved ones remembered in such a special place, but added: “We have been dealing with this for a long time but it just doesn’t seem to stop. The usual stuff is plastic toys and painted rocks with folks’ names on them – we get a full range of stuff left as memorials.
“Once we have removed them, we think if someone cares enough to do this they might actually come back – we’ve got a huge pile in the corner of one of our old sheds.”
But he said only a handful of memorials are reclaimed, and the rest eventually have to be binned.
He added: “A few do come looking and some of them have been upset that we’ve removed it. Folk don’t tend to put contact details on these memorials, so there is no way we could contact them to let them know we are removing them.”
McCombie said if people contact the NTS in advance of coming to the glen with a memorial in mind, they usually understand why it can’t be done.
“It can be controversial, since folk are upset and grieving the loss of their loved one, and then if this happens it tends to make things worse for them, but … if folk were to contact us as the land owner, there is generally less upset.”
Ashes can be scattered, away from car parks and busy areas in the glen, although urns must be removed. Flowers can be left as they biodegrade, but not plastic wrappers or ties, and nothing can be planted.
The Trust will even supply a suitable native tree to be planted as a memorial with the ashes, for a small fee.
The glen is known as the Glen of Weeping because of the notorious 1692 massacre of MacDonald clan members.
McCombie added: “Unna, back then, his idea was that he wanted this to be a place for the living, a place for people to go to have fun, have adventures, and push themselves, he didn’t want it to be a memorial garden. I agree with him – it is a place for doing things.”
