The Wallace Statue, Dryburgh

            The woodland path is littered with acorn shells, crisp leaves and pine cones, which I hear crunching beneath my feet. In the distance a car trundles slowly downhill to the ruined monastery by the River Tweed. Otherwise, it’s virtually silent. The earth is brown and surprisingly dry, and most of the trees are bare. After a short walk a wall of rock appears to the right and I catch a first glimpse of a giant, reddish-orange figure: William Wallace.  

          There can be few pleasanter places in Scotland in the spring than the area around Dryburgh Abbey. The lovely river meanders past the ruins of this long-abandoned monastery, and from the hills above you can see green fields stretching away to the south and west. The land across the water undulates gently, with the exception of the three dark humps of the Eildon Hills, which rise abruptly out of the countryside. The fields are full of lazy sheep and horses, and the roadsides are yellow with gorse bushes and daffodils. 

            Most visitors come here to wander round what remains of the Abbey, which is home to the graves of Sir Walter Scott and the unlamented World War One general Earl Haig. Others, like me, come to see the statue of a man who achieved global fame nearly seven hundred years after his death, courtesy of a violent movie starring an American in a kilt. 

          The bearded Scottish warrior stands atop a huge, weather-beaten plinth that bears the following flowery inscription: ‘Great Patriot Hero! Ill Requited Chief!’ He gazes intently over to the Eildon Hills and clutches the trappings of war in his hands: a colossal broadsword and a shield adorned with a saltire. His helmet features some kind of mythical winged creature. 

          You get the feeling that Wallace probably looked nothing like this beefy man of war, which is not at all surprising considering it was erected in 1814. As the sculptor presumably intended, the overall effect is one of enormity and prodigious strength. It brings to mind Greek demigods and burly yeomen with powerful forearms, but clad in a kilt and a billowing cape. 

          This curious tribute to Wallace was commissioned by the eleventh Earl of Buchan, an aristocrat of ‘immense vanity’, according to his friend, Sir Walter Scott. He must also have had a highly romantic disposition as well as bucket loads of cash. An eroded urn opposite Wallace features a highfalutin poem penned by the Earl himself, who also paid for the sandstone Greek-style gazebo (‘The Temple of the Muses’) down by the Tweed. This was a homage to the poet James Thomson, author of ‘Rule Britannia’.

         

                   

          You can't help but like the Wallace Statue. It's no masterpiece, but the serene location and weird backstory are very appealing, at least when the sun is out. Otherwise, I’d probably rather watch Braveheart.