On route in the VW van for a few days camping in Gairloch, we stopped off at Scone (pronounced Scoon) to find the grave of George Thom, and possibly his wife Williamina Sutherland, grandparents of Moira Snowden.
Mum had told me they were buried in the graveyard at Scone Palace. We set the sat nav for there, and ended up at the gate for the palace – £10 each to enter and park, and yes there is a graveyard in the grounds. It seemed unlikely that our ancestors, ordinary souls that they were, would be buried amongst the lairds and the nobles. And we were on a time-constrained mission to get to Gairloch. And I’m half Scottish and half Yorkshire. So £20 to look at a graveyard seemed a little steep, so we turned around and headed instead to the old Scone churchyard, where we parked for free and could roam at will. Fortune was looking down on us.
We had a good look around the old parish churchyard, the first time I can recall visiting it. Whilst it was a lovely little graveyard (did I just say that?!), there were no known ancestors jumping up at us (metaphorically).
Whilst I was ready to get in the van and continue the drive to Gairloch, Rachel suggested nothing ventured nothing gained, and we should walk across the road for a quick look in the new Scone graveyard now that we had a specific target to search for, George Thom, who died in 1948. Whilst we’ve looked around the new graveyard several times before, knowing the particular year helped us rule out a whole newer section, and several older ones, and it wasn’t many minutes before Rachel had called me over to the grave of George Thom and his wife Williamina.
Moira Spence remembers her grandmother Williamina as having long dark hair, the result the story goes, of a soldier from the Spanish Armada settling in northern Scotland after the defeat of the Armada in 1588. One well documented vessel took shelter in the bay of Tembermory on the Isle of Mull in the western Isles. However, I’ve found no links with the western Isles as yet, the Sutherlands coming from Caithness – Thurso down to Latheron. Whilst the Mull story is the most recounted, it’s believed that many other Spanish ships were lost along the Scottish coastline as they retreated around the north of Britain to return to Spain. So it’s just possible that the Sutherlands do have a Spanish link. To read more stories about the Spanish Armada’s retreat via Scotland, click here.
And if that wasn’t enough excitement and success, just behind she spotted the grave of his parents, David Thom and Catherine Young.