THE Wardlaw Mausoleum, the historical resting place of the Lovat Fraser family will be dedicated and officially opened this afternoon after its #320,000 restoration, writes David Ross, Highland Correspondent.
The Grade A listed building lies in the graveyard of the old kirk on the outskirts of the village of Kirkhill, to the south of the Beauly Firth. The Frasers first came to the area more than 600 years ago and seven generations of Lord Lovats were buried at the Abbey Church at Beauly.
But by the time of the reign of Charles I it was in ruins and the then Lord Lovat, or MacShimi, and senior members of the clan met in 1634 and agreed to build a new burial chapel beside the parish church at Kirkhill.
The mausoleum is said to have hosted all manner of events from funerals to weddings; the beheading of a local murderer; and in 1664 a trial of witches. Tradition also holds that the remains of Simon Fraser, the Lord Lovat of the 1745 Jacobite rising, are in the mausoleum.
In the aftermath of Culloden in 1746, he was captured hiding on an island in Loch Morar and taken to London where he became the last peer in Britain to be beheaded. Officially he lies in the Tower of London, but two of his kinsmen switched his body for another one and took MacShimi home.
The more recent Lovats have been buried at Eskadale. That was where the last Lord Lovat, the war hero Simon Fraser was buried in March 1995, a few yards from his two sons, Andrew, 42, who was buried having been killed in Tanzania by a wounded buffalo a year before; and Simon, 54, his heir, Master of Lovat, who died from a heart attack a week later.
The new Lord Lovat was an 18-year-old student at Harrow. Two months later Beaufort Castle, ancestral home of the Lovat Frasers, was sold to Mrs Ann Gloag for an understood #1.3m. In 1990 financial difficulties forced them to sell fishing on the River Beauly, among the finest in the land, and the Brauien Estate for a reported #15m.
In 1994 they also sold the North Morar Estate to West End impresario Sir Cameron Mackintosh.
But today will be a happier one for the Frasers. The mausoleum will be officially opened by Virginia, the Hon Mrs Simon Fraser, widow of the late master. Restoration work was undertaken by Hall and Tawse Scotland, whose site agent Hamish Mathieson, said yesterday:
''The restoration of this significant part of Highland history with all its associations and graceful interior is an important national event. It has been both a privilege and a challenge working on this project.''
Externally his team re-slated the roof, repaired the sarking, repaired the harling and plaster, re-pointed stone work, repaired the window shutters, replaced the entrance doors, built paths and car parking.
Internally they renewed the ceilings, raised and hung a new bell in the belfry, refurbished the reredos and memorial tablets, laid floor tiles to match the existing ones, and brought electricity into the building.
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