Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham was a high profile Scottish writer, journalist, adventurer and politician. He was a significant political figure and was both one of the founding members of the Scottish Labour Party and the first president of the Scottish National Party in 1934.
The cairn was erected a year after Graham’s death, on a plot of land he had given to the National Trust of Scotland in Castlehill, Dumbarton. It contains stones from several South American countries the author loved to explore, including Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
The Argentinean stone is inscribed with a drawing of Graham’s Argentine Mustang, Pampa. The horse was rescued from pulling trams in Glasgow by the adventurer and he would go onto ride it for more than twenty years.
During the 1970s, the monument suffered severe vandalism and as a result was moved to the village of Gartmore in 1981. It was unveiled by the Argentinean Ambassador during a ceremony.
In 2012 the NTS carried out extensive conservation work on the cairn, adding a new stone to commemorate another of Graham’s horses, Pingo, while an information panel was placed near the monument.
