The Grave of Flora MacDonald

From the Tower of London.

After she helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape government troops in 1746, Flora MacDonald was arrested and held in the Tower of London. She was freed under a general amnesty in June 1747.

To North Carolina and back.

In 1774 she and her husband, Allan MacDonald, emigrated to North Carolina. They sided with the British in the American War of Independence, lost their American estates, and came home to Scotland.

Soft features, gentle manners.

Samuel Johnson, who met her at Kingsburgh in 1773, called her 'a woman of middle stature, soft features, gentle manners, and elegant presence'.

A knight carved in stone.

Among the graves are two late medieval carved slabs, one with the figure of a knight. They were scheduled as a monument of national importance in 1936.

The piper of the Macdonalds.

The graveyard was the burial place of the Macdonalds of the Isles. One slab, probably from the late 1600s, marks Charles MacArthur, the celebrated piper of the Macdonalds.

Cleaned with help from Carolina.

In 2019 the monument was cleaned and the boundary wall repaired by the local community council and Highland Council, with gifts from the Clan Donald Lands Trust and from North Carolina.

From our guide to Skye

On the windswept slopes of Trotternish, less than half a mile from the Skye Museum of Island Life, you’ll find an old burial ground filled with historic graves and memorials, including the final resting place of the Jacobite heroine Flora MacDonald, who famously helped Bonnie Prince Charlie to escape government troops.

It’s said that 3000 people attended Flora MacDonald’s funeral at Kilmuir cemetery and during the wild party that followed, they drank 300 gallons of whisky to her memory.