Flodden Fields

**cessna152towser** · 24th May 07, 11:59 AM

4,000 English and 10,000 Scots are estimated to have been killed in the Battle of Flodden, 1513, and a monument was erected in memory of the fallen of both countries to mark the 400th anniversary of the battle - the monument itself is now almost a hundred years old.

At the monument

The monument is on the site of the English lines. The Earl of Surrey's men had outflanked the Scots by taking a twelve mile march out to the east and then approaching Branxton from the north.

This is the view today from the English front line, looking south towards Branxton Hill. The English maneouvre had forced King James IV to move his men and guns from nearby Flodden Hill. To reach the Scottish front line we need to walk along the hawthorn hedgerows on the right and across the bottom of the valley then up the line of trees in top left.

The Killing Fields. In the bottom of the dip today is a farm track and hawthorn hedge with a man made drainage ditch on the other side of the hedge but in 1513 this area was a boggy morass and as the Scots troops advanced downhill they gave away their height adbvantage and became bogged down knee deep in mud and many fell prey to the English billhooks. Not even photoshop can lift the gloom from this view.

I have now reached the Scottish lines.

An interpretation board at the Scottish front line.

Looking northwards over the board today the view is uninspiring.

For a final view I moved further along the Scottish lines and used zoom to give a clearer view of the battlefield - the monument at the English front line can be discerned in the distance.

**McMurdo** · 24th May 07, 12:20 PM

Alex
Thank you for the photographs and the tour. It is hard for me to imagine the suffering that happened so long ago on that spot, however your photographs serve to remind me how lucky I have it indeed.

Thanks Again