Although the cairn commemorates the final departure of the Prince before his exile to France, Loch nan Uamh is also where the Young Pretender first stepped ashore on mainland Great Britain on 25 July 1745 and from where – in April 1746 – he escaped to the Hebrides after the defeat of his forces at the Battle of Culloden.

On the morning of 4 October 1956, the 1745 Association held a ceremony to unveil the cairn that marked the traditional spot where Bonnie Prince Charlie departed for France.

The 16-gun privateer Du Teillay [a] (sometimes erroneously called Doutelle) landed Prince Charles and seven companions at Eriskay on 23 July 1745.

After staying at the Clanranald farm at Borrodale on Skye, he crossed the Sound of Arisaig to Moidart on Du Teillay on 29 July.

On the evening of 26 April 1746 – ten days after his defeat at Culloden – Charles Stuart, Colonel John William O’Sullivan,[2] Captain Felix O’Neil, Father Allan MacDonald, Donald MacLeod (The Faithful Palinurus), Ned Burke and several boatmen set out to sea from the shore of Loch nan Uamh for the Hebrides.

[3] On 19 September 1746,[4] (and after five months evading the government troops of Prince William, Duke of Cumberland), Charles Edward Stuart arrived from "Cluny's Cage", a refuge on Ben Alder, accompanied by Donald Cameron of Lochiel, the war poet John Roy Stewart, and others.