Qualla: Fortingall https://qualla.com/fortingall en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:24 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/j/1/fortingall-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Fortingall https://qualla.com/fortingall Fortingall: Introduction https://qualla.com/fortingall/ Photo credit Trish Steel, CC BY-SA 2.0. Local tradition holds that Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect who oversaw the crucifixion of Jesus, was born here. He almost certainly wasn't. Pilate was born several decades before any Roman set foot in this corner of Scotland, and a clutch of other villages from Spain to Germany claim him too. But the legend persists at Fortingall for a particular reason: the village sits beside a yew tree so old that anything seems possible. Estimates of the Fortingall Yew's age range from two thousand to nine thousand years, and even the lower figure makes it one of the oldest living things in Europe. A tree like that gives a village permission to dream big.

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Image: Trish Steel | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/j/1/fortingall-wp/gfj1-fortingall-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Fortingall: The Iron Age Sacred Place https://qualla.com/fortingall/ Photo credit Djupsjo, Public domain. Place-name evidence and archaeology together suggest Fortingall was an Iron Age cult centre, and the yew tree may have been its focus. When Christianity arrived, around AD 700, a daughter monastery of Iona was founded here, dedicated to Coeddi, a bishop of Iona who died in 712. T...

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Image: Djupsjo | Public domain

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/j/1/fortingall-wp/gfj1-fortingall-the-iron-age-sacred-place.mp3 0:06 2 full Fortingall: Carved Stones in the Churchyard https://qualla.com/fortingall/ Photo credit Michael Hanselmann, CC BY-SA 3.0. Fortingall has one of the largest collections of early medieval sculpture in Scotland. The churchyard holds slabs with simple incised crosses paralleled at Iona and other sites on Scotland's west coast, and a massive early font. The current parish church, built in 1901 and 1902, ...

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Image: Michael Hanselmann | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/j/1/fortingall-wp/gfj1-fortingall-carved-stones-in-the-churchyard.mp3 0:06 3 full Fortingall: Sir Donald Currie's Village https://qualla.com/fortingall/ Photo credit Anne Brennan, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Fortingall you walk through today is a planned village, built between 1890 and 1891 by Sir Donald Currie, a shipping magnate and Unionist MP who bought the Glenlyon Estate in 1885. The architect was James MacLaren, working in a vernacular style that drew on both Lowland Scots...

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Image: Anne Brennan | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/j/1/fortingall-wp/gfj1-fortingall-sir-donald-curries-village.mp3 0:06 4 full Fortingall: The Cairn of the Dead https://qualla.com/fortingall/ Photo credit Gordon Hatton, CC BY-SA 2.0. The area immediately around Fortingall holds one of the richest concentrations of prehistoric sites in Scotland. Càrn nam Marbh, Gaelic for Cairn of the Dead, is a reused Bronze Age burial mound that according to local tradition served as a mass grave for plague victims in the 14...

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Image: Gordon Hatton | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/f/j/1/fortingall-wp/gfj1-fortingall-the-cairn-of-the-dead.mp3 0:06 5 full