Culloden Battlefield

OVERVIEW

A stretch of open moor east of Inverness kept by the National Trust for Scotland as the site of the last pitched battle on British soil, with the clan grave mounds, the Memorial Cairn of 1881 and a visitor centre. Charles Edward Stuart's army of about 5,000 was broken by the Duke of Cumberland's in under an hour; around 1,500 Jacobites and 50 government soldiers died, and the wounded were killed where they lay in the days after.

HISTORY

The battle ended the rising of 1745 and was followed by the suppression of the Highland clans, the disarming acts and the proscription of tartan. The Gaelic Society of Inverness has held a commemoration at the cairn each April since 1925.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

Guidebooks and tourist sites tell of the sounds of the battle heard on the anniversary, of a tall Highlander in tartan who says only 'defeated', and of a woman in 1936 who lifted a tartan cloth on a grave mound and found a wounded Highlander beneath it. None of these is in the record beyond the retelling, and the entry is marked accordingly. The Trust does not run ghost events and asks visitors to treat the graves as graves. ODPSI members should do the same: this is a place to stand quietly, not to investigate.

VISITING

National Trust for Scotland; visitor centre ticketed, battlefield open. The clan graves are marked; keep to the paths.