Argyll - Tinker’s Heart gets funding lift as improvement work goes on

Tinker’s Heart, the only officially recognised national monument to Scotland’s Gypsy Travellers, has had an uplift after a successful funding bid.

Around £1,000 has been received through funding from two groups:  Heart of the Traveller (HOTT) of which Scottish Traveller campaigner and author Jess Smith is a member, and Here We Are (a local group who are active in the village of Cairndow where the Heart is located).

The funding has allowed a new pedestrian gate to be installed, as well as a new interpretation panel which outlines the history of the site.  It is our intention to continue making progress at the site, however slow, and we would like access to be separate from the cattle field, with improved parking for visitors.

In 2015, after a successful campaign by Jess Smith, the Scottish Parliament and Historic Environment Scotland officially recognised Tinkers' Heart and it is now the only physical monument to the Traveller people of Scotland.  

The new interpretation panel reads: 

The Traveller people of Scotland, once referred to as Tinkers, have revered this spot for centuries, possibly due to its location at a crossroads where many families would have met and parted on their working journeys across Argyll and the wider country. 

Generations of Travellers congregated here for weddings, baptisms and funerals. Local people have also honoured this ancient place by having their own wedding ceremonies conducted here. 
Newspaper reports from 1928 show that Lady Campbell of Strachur House was horrified to find that road workers had covered the Heart in tarmacadam, and she demanded that it be restored, which it was. 

Local folklore tells of a time when, after the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, Traveller women across Argyll each took a white quartz stone from the shore of Loch Fyne to represent their soldier lovers who were killed during the battle. They were then set into the ground to form the Tinkers’ Heart. 

With few written records, the story of the Tinkers’ Heart is something of a mystery. But what we do know is that it has always belonged in the hearts of Scotland’s Traveller people – the pilgrims of the mist.

Following road realignment work in 1967, the Heart lay in a field and was all but forgotten, disappearing into the mud. 

Campaigners including Scottish author Jess Smith and local group Here We Are began efforts to protect the Heart and fencing and signage has since been erected to mark its significance locally and nationally. 

The Heart was scheduled as a Monument of National Importance by the Scottish Parliament and Historic Environment Scotland in 2015. This special site with its magnificent views is the only physical monument to the Traveller people of Scotland.
 

TT News/HOTT – Here We Are press release

(Photographs of Jess Smith at Tinkers’ Heart courtesy of HOTT/Here We Are.)