Balmoral cairns Balmoral cairns There are eleven stone cairns on the Balmoral estate in Deeside, Scotland, and a single cairn on the adjoining Birkhall estate. The cairns commemorate members of the British royal family and events in their lives. The majority of the cairns were erected by Queen Victoria. The cairns commemorate the marriages of Victoria's children, of the Princess Royal (to Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia in 1858), Prince Albert Edward, Princess Alice, Princess Helena, Princess Louise, Prince Arthur, Prince Leopold and Princess Beatrice. Victoria's son Prince Alfred is unique in not having a cairn dedicated to him. The largest cairn
Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom had been performed in succession by her sisters, Alice, Helena and Louise. However, to these the Queen soon added more personal tasks. During a serious illness in 1871, the Queen dictated her journal entries to Beatrice, and in 1876 she allowed Beatrice to sort the music she and the Prince Consort had played, unused since his death fifteen years earlier. The devotion that Beatrice showed to her mother was acknowledged in the Queen's letters and journals, but her constant need for Beatrice grew stronger. The Queen suffered another bereavement in 1883, when her highland servant, John Brown, died at Balmoral.