Syr Mitchil Bruce Stonekiller

Landowners were not always keen to support the recovery or protection of Scotland’s Roman heritage. In 1743, Arthur’s O’on, a virtually complete Roman monument, was demolished by Sir Michael Bruce of Stenhouse to build a mill dam on the river Carron. This act of vandalism caused an outrage among leading antiquaries and prompted this satirical print imagining the wicked Bruce’s eternal damnation. Penned by William Stukeley, a leading light of the London Society of Antiquaries, it highlights the tension between the preservation of the past and the forces of progress.