Scottish battlefields on the national Inventory

Historic Environment Scotland keeps a statutory register of battlefields judged nationally significant, each with its own BTL reference, a boundary drawn on a map and a research report behind it. Designation is not commemoration: it is a planning constraint, which is why these sites turn up in council development plans and, at Culloden, in contested housing decisions. What follows are sites on that register, with the date, the sides and the recorded outcome as the Inventory and its supporting records give them.

Places in this collection

  • Battle of Sauchieburn — BTL38, fought in Stirling on 11 June 1488 between Royalist forces and rebels in the second rebellion against James III, and recorded as a r…
  • Battle of Loudoun Hill — BTL36, fought in East Ayrshire on 10 May 1307 between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England during the Wars of Scottish Indepe…
  • Battle of Langside — BTL35, fought on 13 May 1568 within what is now Glasgow, between the King's Men and the Queen's Men during the Marian civil war, and record…
  • Battle of Dunkeld — BTL32, fought in Perth and Kinross on 21 August 1689, a month after Killiecrankie, between Jacobites and Government troops and recorded as…
  • Battle of Rullion Green — BTL27, fought in the Pentlands in Midlothian on 28 November 1666 between a Covenanter army and Scottish Royalists during the Scottish Coven…
  • Battle of Mulroy — BTL26, fought in Lochaber in the Highlands on 4 August 1688 between Clan Mackintosh with a Government Independent Highland Company on one s…
  • Battle of Linlithgow Bridge — BTL25, fought in West Lothian on 4 September 1526 between the forces of the Earl of Lennox and those of the Earl of Arran, part of the feud…
  • Battle of Drumclog — BTL21, fought in South Lanarkshire on 1 June 1679 between the Covenanter army and Government troops, and recorded as a Covenanter victory,…
  • Battle of Cromdale — BTL20 on the Inventory, and one of the few entries dated across two days: 30 April and 1 May 1690, in the Highlands. Jacobite forces were b…
  • Battle of Sheriffmuir — BTL17, fought on the moor above Dunblane in Stirling on 13 November 1715 between Jacobites and Government troops during the rising of that…
  • Battle of Prestonpans — BTL16, fought in East Lothian on 21 September 1745 between Jacobites and Government troops, and recorded as a Jacobite victory. The site ho…
  • Battle of Pinkie Cleugh — BTL15, fought at Musselburgh in East Lothian on 10 September 1547 between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England during the Rou…
  • Battle of Philiphaugh — BTL14, fought near Selkirk in the Scottish Borders on 13 September 1645, five weeks after Kilsyth and with the same two sides in the field.…
  • Battle of Kilsyth — BTL13, fought in North Lanarkshire on 15 August 1645 between Scottish Royalists and Government troops during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms…
  • Battle of Harlaw — BTL11, fought in Aberdeenshire on 24 July 1411 between Lowland clans under Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar, and the allies of Donald of Isla…
  • Battle of Culloden — BTL6, fought in the Highlands on 16 April 1746 between Jacobites and Government troops, and recorded as a Government victory. Designation d…
  • Battle of Bothwell Bridge — BTL5, fought in South Lanarkshire on 22 June 1679 between the Covenanter army and Government troops during the Covenanter Rebellion of 1679…
  • Battle of Bannockburn — BTL4 on the Inventory, fought in Stirling on 24 June 1314 between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England during the Wars of Sco…
  • Battle of Alford — Listed as BTL1, the first entry on the Inventory, fought in Aberdeenshire on 2 July 1645 between Scottish Royalists and Government troops d…

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