The Tinkers Heart

The Tinkers' Heart is a Scottish Travellers' commemorative monument near the village of Cairndow by Loch Fyne in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It is also known as the Gypsy's Heart, Gypsies' Heart or Gypsy's Wedding Heart. It is scheduled as a Monument of National Importance. field visit in 2012 shows the Heart as being made up of a heart-shape of 25 visible quartz pebbles, with a 26th pebble in the centre, and measuring 1.75 metres (5.7 ft) by 1.4 metres (4.6 ft). Research done by Historic Scotland in 2015 concluded that from the evidence available, it was the only example in Scotland of a permanent physical Scottish Travellers' memorial




The Scottish travelling community maintain that the Heart was established as a monument to local tinkers who joined the Jacobite Rising of 1745, and weddings have been celebrated at the site since the mid-1800s.[The Heart was removed during roadworks in 1928, but local protests forced its reinstatement. The monument's location was originally at the junction of the Strachar Road (A815 road) and the Hell's Glen (B839), but this junction was bypassed by new road building


(From the internet)