Geograph - photograph every grid square

See NS4777 : Boulders beside Duncolm for another view; Gilbert Scott is the nearest boulder in that photograph.

Professor Robert Rankin's booklet "March Stones in the Kilpatrick Hills" mostly deals with the story behind a series of boundary markers; see NS4674 : The Feuars' Muir - March Stone 1. However, the boulder shown here is mentioned there in passing, and a photograph of it is included with the caption "Gilbert Scott".

He mentions that a 'decreet-arbitral' (a kind of legal document) was registered in 1784. That document made reference to a certain boundary stone (no longer present) that was described as being "three chains length to the westward of a large stone called Gilbert Scott ... fixed on the northeast side of the hill of Meikle Duncomb".

By the 1850s, few could remember which stone this name referred to. However, on the basis of the available documentary evidence, Professor Rankin concludes that it is likely to be the stone shown here, which is "the largest of a number of whinstone boulders that clearly have fallen off Duncolm at some stage".

[As is clear from the map, the stone is on the NNW side of the hill, rather than "the northeast side" (perhaps Prof. Rankin intended to write "northwest" rather than "northeast"?). However, the location on the NNW makes more sense for the boundary of the Feuar's Muir, at least according to the plan of the muir that is reproduced in the booklet. I cannot vouch for the correctness of his identification of this boulder as Gilbert Scott; however, the one shown in my photograph is certainly the boulder that is shown and described in his booklet.]

He adds that the eponymous Gilbert Scott may have been "an ancestor of the Gabriel Scott who purchased part of the Lusset lands in 1839".

I came across a reference to the same Gabriel Scott in John Bruce's "History of the Parish of West or Old Kilpatrick" (1893), where one of his descendants, a certain Gilbert Scott, is also mentioned. Since, at that time, given names were likely to recur in families, it is indeed quite plausible that the above-mentioned Gabriel also had an ancestor called Gilbert.

As for the background of the photograph, NS4777 : The Lily Loch can be seen in the distance, with a cleared area of Kilmannan Forest to its right.