Ross & Cromarty - NH 793670 - Gatty 165 - Ross 432
A very worn lectern with a hollow in the centre of the star. There is no hemicylinder and only a step on the south which has a hollow dial with no visible lines.
Hugh Miller who rediscovered this dial carved a plinth for it which remains at his former cottage though the dial moved to Albion House where it was rediscovered again in the late 1980s. It has since been moved to Cromarty Courthouse Museum.
Visited 25 May 1989 - Mary Fyfe & David Alston (for Somerville)
An engraving made for Ross from a photograph sent to him by the Rev. Walter Scott of Cromarty
Elevations of Cromarty Castle -demolished 1772
Sir Thomas Urquhart
This was the dial that Hugh Miller was stood beside and discoursing on to some friends when he saw for a brief moment the lady who would ultimately become his wife.
Although it has, as far as I know, never left Cromarty it has certainly travelled extensively. First from Cromarty Castle to Hugh Miller's cottage then on to Albion House and finally (for now) Cromarty Courthouse Museum.
The plinth that the famous Hugh Miller made for the lectern dial remains at his former cottage. It is inscribed 'H M MDCCCXXX' and now carries a brass dial plate with a worn inscription which Somerville writes as maybe having been made by Cooper.
Hugh Miller dug the dial out of the earth early in the 1800s and set it up in his uncle's garden. In his autobiography 'My Schools and Schoolmasters' (chap xxiii) he claimed that it had originally belonged to the ancient castle garden of Cromarty.
'that as it exhibited in its structure no little mathematical skill, it had probably been cut under the eye of the eccentric but accomplished Sir Thomas Urquhart'
Though Ross thought this 'not an unlikely supposition' he pointed out that compared to other lectern dials it required no greater skill and that there are many lecterns of more complexity. The Thomas Urquhart in question is likely to be:
Sir Thomas, the 11th Chief (1611-1660), was a great character - an eccentric, Scottish genius who is world-renowned among scholars for his outstanding translation of Rabelais - described by one admirer as "a marvellous production". Sir Thomas is remembered for his service to the monarchy. A royalist officer, he was captured at the Battle of Worcester in 1651 and was imprisoned in the Tower of London. While in London, he wrote a book tracing his ancestry back to Adam and Eve, and authored works on mathematics, a universal language, and other erudite subjects. Before leaving Scotland in 1651 he commissioned a 5' 6" by 2' 8" carved decorative lintel for the great fireplace in Cromarty Castle. Called the Kinbeachie Stone, this celebrated sculpture depicts the arms of the Chief of Clan Urquhart and various emblems and inscriptions recalling the legendary history of the family. In the 1920s the stone was donated to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in Edinburgh. Some seventy years later it was transferred to the new Museum of Scotland where it is today displayed in the section devoted to "The Seventeenth Century Challenge". Sir Thomas died unmarried in 1660, reputedly of mirth on hearing that Charles II had been restored to the throne.
www.clanurquhart.com