Looking back with Ian Scott: Trying to find the site of the Battle of Falkirk

On Saturday there was a great gathering in the town centre as well as a memorial event at the cairn in Callendar Park. It was there rather than on the field of battle for the simple reason that we don’t know where the battle was fought.

Surprising really when we know quite a lot about the events on that fateful day when the mighty ‘schiltroms’ of William Wallace, packed with thousands of spearmen like giant hedgehogs, faced the mounted knights of King Edward of England. There were a few eyewitnesses and their stories tell us that the Scottish spears repulsed the knights three times only to fall below a hail of arrows from the longbows of the English and Welsh archers.

We also know that at the end of a disastrous day for Wallace and Scotland many thousands of dead soldiers were buried in great pits near the battlefield.

They have never been found and so we have nothing much to tell us exactly where the armies came face to face.

We do have some clues. The Scots were drawn up on rising ground with the English facing them across a stream or marshy ground. For a hundred years people thought that Victoria Park was the spot hence Wallace Street and the 1912 memorial fountain to Sir John de Graeme. But it was only one of a dozen possible locations including Slamannan (too far south?) and Grangemouth (too far north?).

Nowadays most folk think that the battle took place to the east of the town and many have identified what they call the ‘back of the woods’ as the most likely place. In this version the Scots would be near Woodend Farm with the Callendar Woods at the back of them and the English army across the other side of the Hallglen to Redding Road and the Westquarter Burn.

My own particular favourite is down at Beancross. Once again we have the Westquarter Burn dividing the two armies with Wallace and his men lining up on the slopes of Mumrills Farm and the English advancing from the south east. It ticks all the boxes and it’s such a nice spot that it deserves a bit of recognition. It also lies close to the line of the Antonine Wall and I suspect that the great ditches which would have been a lot deeper and more obvious 700 years ago would have been ideal burial grounds. Not too much digging required!

Some years ago John Walker managed to persuade Uri Geller the spoon-bending ‘psychic’ to come and try to find the pile of bones. He was supposed to go up in a helicopter but the flight was abandoned. Instead he asked for a map and, or so I’m told, he put his finger on Grandsable Cemetery. I think that the fact the words ‘Grandsable Cemetery’ were written on the map may have given him a clue but on the other hand it is next door to Beancross. Spooky or what?

So the search goes on and the disagreements will not be resolved anytime soon. Just as well really because for local historians it remains the inspiration for many happy hours of discussion.

John Walker’s story of the battle ‘On Magdalene’s Day’ is available from Falkirk Local History Society any Saturday at the Steeple.