In 2016 I published my second book, Major Mercer: No Ordinary Life. You can read more about that here:
Anyway, when I wrote the book I did it very much from the Australian perspective. But William Drummond (WD) Mercer was a Scot and that’s where a lot of his life was centred around. Not long ago I had a working holiday in England, Ireland and Scotland. When I was in Scotland, I took the opportunity to hunt down those things that I knew, and wrote about, but I had never seen. Some of these were in Edinburgh and some were in Perth, where WD was really from.
I’m going to start with what I think is the best thing that I saw. The Mercer burial ground at Glenalmond. I knew about this in quite some detail thanks to maps, satellite photos and of course the Mercer family, some of whom still live relatively nearby.
The burial ground is located in a paddock near the River Almond, just East of Tulchan House (more on that later.)
All of the photos I have seen are old, and no one seems to have actually been in the grounds. So that’s what I set out to do, and that’s what I did.
The ground itself was easy enough to find. One of the gate pillars and its magnificent storks was clearly visible for some distance. The other one is there, but a bit harder to spot due to tree growth.
Unfortunately the ground is completely overgrown. The front gates are locked, and appear to have been for some time. The pillars, as you can see are magnificent. (But it gets better.)
The burial ground is square, each of the sides about 20 metres in length. The base of the surrounding fence is stone and it is enclosed with an iron fence. On the West side there is a small gate and this is open. Entry isn’t for the feint hearted but it’s Scotland, not Australia, and very little in there was going to kill me.
There are definitely seven Mercer’s buried in there:
Charlotte Catherine
Laurence James
William Thomas
Major General Charles MacWhirter
Louisa Rachel
Harriet Jane
George Duncan
The link – they are all children on George Dempster Mercer, the first Mercer to own Tulchan House.
There is another memorial in there. Inset a little to the east of the others is more of a cairn with a cross for:
Graeme Reid and Catherine Hay
What was not clear to me was whether this was a grave or simply a memorial. It is different to the rest, all of which were in a single row near the East gate. It looked more a memorial but given what Philip Mercer has told me, it might be where they are buried as well. And yes, Graeme Reid was also George’s son. His eldest in fact, and as was the way these things worked, Tuchan was left to him when George passed in 1853.
George had more children, and therefore there are four that are not buried here. They are:
· Anne Elliot – she married WD Mercer (the subject of my book) and I know exactly where she is. I will cover that in another post.
· Frances G – Married to Captain George Falconer and presumably with him somewhere else.
· Emily Elizabeth – this one is a bit curious. She was unmarried.
· John Henry – married to Anne Anstruther and is also buried elsewhere.
George, and his wife Fanny are not here either. They’re at Warriston in Edinburg, and we’ll come to that in a later post as well.
So, as I was checking out each of the gravestones I noticed something that I had not seen in any photos and I do not recall having heard of before. The rear of the two gate posts are engraved quite ornately and contain a lot of text.
The right post, is marked as 1377 from the outside:
On the rear is a very ornate monongram, containing a number of letters, one clearly an M. It also has the stork with the snake in its mouth. The poem below was written by Graeme Reid Mercer.
The left post, marked as 1877 from the outside:
On the rear is the Mercer Coat of Arms. Of this I am certain because in July 1864, WD commenced the process as the only surviving son of Captain William Mercer of Potterhill, and the eighth in lineal descent from sir Lawrence Mercer of Meiklour, of registering the coat of arms.
The poem below, again is from Graeme Reid Mercer.
It seems that the burial ground was created by Graeme Reid Mercer and/or his wife Catherine Hay. It explains a few things that had puzzled me, including George’s absence and why Graeme Reid and Catherine were there but not in the same area as the rest.
In years to come parts of the ground may fall away, as the photograph shows. And perhaps someone will do the necessary and get a chainsaw in there at some point to take care of some of the growth.
A fascinating place and I had a wonderful afternoon there.
Not far to the east of the burial ground is Tulchan House. This was one of George Mercer’s estates in the area. He also had one at Gorthy (or Gorthie) not all that far away. Graeme Reid was already in possession of Tulchan and Gorthy when his father passed in 1853. I was familiar with Tulchan in particular for two reasons. First, when WD was visiting Perth during his Australian period, he stayed here. Second, the Mercer’s had a property in Fyansford (here in Geelong) and they named this Tulchan, a direct reference to the Scottish estate.
As a degree of luck would have it, Tulchan House is now up for sale. You can see a bit of it here.
Well, that’s it for now, but there is more to come.
Take care out there and look around. You never know what you will find.
Chris