ONCE again I find myself having to comment on an issue of current affairs that has its roots in history, and I don’t think I have ever dealt with a more important matter than the future of the site of the Battle of Bannockburn.
There was a sense of shock across the country when Stirling Council gave approval for a planning application to develop land within the formally designated battlefield site as a track for harness racing (or “trotting” as I have always called it). That application has now been “called in” by the Scottish ministers and will be determined by them.
It should be a no-brainer to refuse the application. I would not insult our readers by stating why the Bannockburn battlefield is so important to this country, but in case anyone out there doesn’t know, let me state a few facts.
The Battle of Bannockburn on June 23-24, 1314, is the single most important battle in Scottish history. It raged for two days over a wide area south of Stirling and ended with total victory for King Robert the Bruce and his army over a much larger force commanded by King Edward II who had to flee for his life.
The battle turned on the Bruce’s brilliant tactics such as the selection of the grounds on which it would be fought, his preparation of those grounds and his training of his troops who were mostly formed into schiltrons – usually a defensive formation with soldiers carrying long spears which they used to fend off attacking cavalry and infantry.
Bruce’s moment of genius was to use the schiltrons as an attack force, marching in good order to take the battle to the enemy under a king who had no idea how to confront this revolutionary battle plan. In the ensuing rout, many thousands of his men and a sizeable contingent of his noble officers lost their lives, though many of the nobles were ransomed.
The victory confirmed the Bruce’s kingship and led to other battles against the English such as Old Byland in 1322 and Stanhope Park in 1327, after which King Edward III signed the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton by which England recognised Scotland’s independence under King Robert.
Historic Environment Scotland – about whom more later – states: “The significance of the battle can scarcely be overstated. It is the centre of Scottish national consciousness and a major element in the definition of Scotland as an independent entity rather than North Britain, as the Act of Union of 1707 would have defined the geographical area.
“In recent times, it has been a cornerstone of Scottish nationalism, and has been used as a rallying point for nationalist groups.”
There’s the facts and I believe part of the problem – Bannockburn has become a “nationalist shibboleth” as Donald Dewar once called the former Royal High School in Edinburgh that would have hosted the Scottish Parliament had the 1979 referendum not been shamelessly stolen by Dewar’s Labour pals.
For the avoidance of doubt, the proposed trotting track is entirely within the officially designated battlefield site.
As I have written previously, we do not know exactly where the battle took place, but the expert historians are confident that the proposed trotting track sits right where Bruce gathered his army on June 22, 1314, and prepared the troops for a life-or-death fight while they also created the so-called “murder holes,” pits with sharp stakes that mangled Edward’s heavy cavalry.
I am also convinced that it was at this location that the Bruce had his pre-battle man-to-man confrontation with Sir Henry de Bohun which ended with the young English knight’s head split open and the king’s good axe broken.
There is no great archaeological evidence for this assertion or indeed anything about the battle because the battle site has never been fully explored by archaeologists. That’s disgraceful.
I am probably one of the few Scottish journalists who has ever attended a trotting event. I used to enjoy the annual meeting at Musselburgh racecourse, which ceased in 2022 when the course came under new management. As a much younger person, I attended trotting at Corbiewood Stadium in Stirling, which also closed down in 2022 and is now a housing development.
I therefore have a great deal of sympathy for the Scottish Harness Racing Club (SHRC) who have applied to develop this “proper” trotting track at Bannockburn, pleading that this minority sport will cease in Scotland if the plan does not go ahead.
Interestingly, I know there are trotting meetings held at nearby Haugh Field, organised by the SHRC and the British Harness Racing Club, the latter even having a drone to help the stewarding of the races.
Haugh Field, however, doesn’t have the facilities being proposed for the Bannockburn track, which the council’s planning officials recommended for approval before Unionist councillors voted narrowly to approve the plan, despite strong objections from the National Trust for Scotland who do a good job with their Bannockburn visitor centre.
Planning is supposed to be a non-party political issue with councillors taking decisions on purely planning grounds.
Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of Scottish local authorities knows those rules are often ignored when councillors have a political point to make, as the Wee Ginger Dug pointed out the other day.
I also cannot avoid the conclusion that this is a Trojan Horse development. If the trotting track gets approval, who’s to say that in future if racing ceases, the owners will not come back to develop that land for housing or some other lucrative use? After all, that’s what happened to Corbiewood.
What is truly shocking is the official view of Historic Environment Scotland who told the council: “Our view is that the proposals do not raise historic environment issues of national significance and therefore we do not object.
"However, our decision not to object should not be taken as our support for the proposals. This application should be determined in accordance with national and local policy on development affecting the historic environment.”
What a pile of mealy-mouthed claptrap and balderdash. The ministers should sack whoever wrote that, and declare that the whole designated battlefield of Bannockburn is sacrosanct. For it is certainly sacred ground as so many lives were lost when Edward II was sent homeward to think again.
