The Murder Stone, Ardwell

A rough-cut boulder carrying the single word MURDER, traditionally said to mark the 1551 killing of the Laird of Castle Clanyard by a member of Clan McCulloch. Historians now believe the stone itself is more likely a 19th-century addition to an older story rather than a contemporary marker. It's the only stone of its kind recorded in Scotland. FULLER DESCRIPTION FOUND, STORY DISCREPANCY: the Mull of Galloway local history site (drawing on what reads like the old RCAHMS/Canmore record) describes the 'Ardwell Murder Stone' more precisely as a stone with 'Murder' cut into its upper face, resting on top of a small cairn (about 5m diameter, 0.3m high) immediately south of Ardwell East Lodge - consistent with, not contradicting, the boulder described above. But the story attached to it there is different: it's said to commemorate 'persons killed in a skirmish about 1660', not the single named 1551 killing of the Laird of Castle Clanyard by a Clan McCulloch member given above. Neither version has been verified against a primary source - Historic Environment Scotland's own record (Canmore, now folded into 'Trove' at trove.scot) should be the authority here but blocks automated access with a bot-check; a human would need to search it directly (see sources_needing_access). FAR FULLER (AND DIFFERENT) STORY FOUND, VIA PHOTOGRAPHED BOOK PAGES: Alan Temperley's chapter 'The Murder of Young McDowall' (pp.205-207 of 'Tales of Galloway', first published 1979 by Skilton & Shaw, reprinted several times since including a 2018 Penguin Random House paperback; identified via Google Books after being shared as photographed pages) gives a detailed, named account that differs substantially from the 1551/Laird of Castle Clanyard/Clan McCulloch version already recorded above (which traces to Wikipedia's 'Murder stone' article, itself citing Canmore/Historic Environment Scotland). This book's version: the Laird of Portcorkerie, McKinna, had a single daughter, wooed by two rivals - the heir of McDowall of Logan, and young Gordon of Castle Clanyard (a branch of the house of Kenmure). Spurned, Gordon abducted the heiress to Cardoness Castle, fifty miles away (seat of another Gordon branch). Enraged, young McDowall rode to Cardoness to demand her release, was refused, and rode home empty-handed - only to be ambushed a few miles from home, at the spot where the Murder Stone now lies, by armed followers of the Gordons, dragged from his horse and killed. His riderless horse alerted servants at Logan, who found his body two miles from home; his killers were never caught. Separately, when Gordon still failed to win the girl's hand despite holding her at Clanyard, he seized her father, McKinna, too, took him to the western cliffs, tied him by the thumbs, dangled him over a precipice at sword-point, and forced him to renounce the Portcorkerie estate to him with a rhyme still remembered locally: 'From me and from mine, / To thee and to thine, / The lands of Portcorkerie I for ever resign.' Gordon never won the girl but did gain her family's land. The book adds that 'there is no record that the murder of young McDowall was brought to law, but it did not go unavenged in the family' - shortly afterwards, Uthred McDowall, young laird of Garthland, was 'arraigned with others for the crewal slauchter [cruel slaughter] of James, the son of John Gordon of Barskeoch', suggesting a real legal record underlies at least the revenge killing, even if the original murder itself was never prosecuted. The book dates events to 'the early years of the seventeenth century', not 1551. It also gives a precise description of the stone - an irregular block of whinstone, about three feet long and eighteen inches wide, standing over a foot above the grass, on the lawn behind the present lodge gates of Ardwell House - and notes that the woodland nearby, Lodge Wood, was traditionally known as the 'Murder Plantin'. WORTH RESOLVING: this is a substantially different tradition (different victim's identity, different culprits, different date, no mention of Clan McCulloch at all) from the 1551/Laird of Castle Clanyard version already on record - the two may be garbled versions of each other, or genuinely separate local traditions attached to the same stone over time. Worth checking Canmore/Trove directly (still blocked to automated access, see sources_needing_access) to see exactly what Historic Environment Scotland's own record says, and comparing it carefully against this book before deciding which - if either - is the more reliable version.