Battle of Flodden remembered

Jun 11 2009 by Tony Henderson, The Journal

IN just three hours of savage, face-to-face fighting in a Northumberland field, 15,000 men lost their lives in the most brutal of ways.

The scale of the butchery in 1513 at the Battle of Flodden, near the village of Branxton, is astonishing in an age well before the mechanised killing capabilities of modern artillery.

At the end, the Scots King James IV, most of his accompanying nobility and 10,000 of their countrymen lay dead.

Now the first steps have been taken to plan how this momentous battle’s 500th anniversary should be marked in just over four years’ time.

For the clash was hugely important in many ways. It was the last medieval battle to be fought on British soil and influenced the future of European history.

Lord Joicey, whose Ford and Etal estate includes the battlefield, has set up the Flodden 500 group to explore what should be done to commemorate the anniversary.

One of the first projects is an exploratory archaeological investigation of earthworks on Flodden Hill, believed to have been the camp for the Scottish army of between 30,000 and 35,000 men.

It is hoped that the excavations will reveal the potential for a rolling series of digs leading up to 2013, with information and finds feeding into the anniversary events.

The aim is to work from the Scots camp and follow the army’s presumed route for the mile or so to the battlefield.

More than 30,000 men would have had a lot of supply animals and carts, equipment and arms and it is also hoped that more can be discovered about the lives of those who fought.

The dig is being led by county archaeologists Chris Burgess and Sara Rushton, of Northumberland County Council’s Northumberland Conservation section.

The diggers are made up of volunteers from the Northumberland Archaeology Group, Coquetdale Community Archaeology Group, Branxton residents and the Coldstream Local History Society.