Forensics team closes in on Culloden graves

THE BATTLE of Culloden – described in countless of books – still has an unfinished chapter in its 260-year-old story.

The battlefield south-east of Inverness is now dotted with a number of stone memorials to the dead. The monuments pay tribute to the thousand or two clan members who died in battle. The Well of the Dead, to name one memorial, honours Alexander MacGillivray of Dunmaglass, whose Clan Chattan forces breached the first line of the British government defences before he was killed.

What is still missing after all these years, however, is a suitable acknowledgement of the government forces who died and a precise account of where they are buried. While the Jacobite army consisted mainly of Scots Highlanders, the government side was comprised of English as well as Scottish troops. In fact, three of the 15 government infantry regiments fighting that day under the Duke of Cumberland were Scottish.

However you look at the battle - whether you are English or Scottish, Irish or Welsh - there are justifiable reasons to honour all men who sacrificed their lives. Culloden was not only a battlefield, it was a burial ground to many on both sides of that moorland.

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It is of particular interest to both the National Trust for Scotland, managers of the historic site, and to specialists in the area of battlefield archaeology such as Tony Pollard, who want to offer a more balanced representation of the event in 1746. And whilst Scottish clans made efforts to remember the fallen, it so far cannot be said of those lost among Cumberland's men.

"I think there is greater need to be doing some form of investigative work on British [government] army graves," says Pollard, project manager for Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division and lead research-investigator of the Culloden battlefield. "At the moment we have several facets of the evidence which suggests where the graves are within the Field of the English - between 40 and 50 men."

There is only one stone memorial to the government - "Field of the English: they were buried here", it reads starkly - but no exact location of graves or trenches has ever been registered. Government casualty figures – those who were killed in action or injured – total around 360 but there is less certainty on the number who died.

"It's not unusual for a victorious side to play down its losses and play up those of the enemy," says Pollard. "So there might actually had been less Jacobites killed in the battle and more British soldiers killed. So one of the interesting things to do is to determine how many men are buried."

Pollard and his team of forensic archaeologists have uncovered new evidence that might point to the location of a larger gravesite. He recounts a recent discovery and what the finding may mean:

"We actually found this silver coin, a German Thaler. It doesn’t relate to the battle as such; it's dated 1752. I have little doubt that it was dropped by a British soldier who'd seen service on the Continent … and had come back to visit the graves of his fallen comrades, probably while they were still marked with low mounds before they got ploughed out," Pollard says.

"I think, literally, that is an 'X' that marks the spot. I think there's a good chance we have actually tied down the position of those graves. It's not unusual to leave some form of offering for whatever personal reasons. And I think we can safely say that that German silver coin was left deliberately rather than dropped."

Literally hundreds of pieces of evidence have been unearthed from the top layers of the battlefield since Pollard's team began their investigation six years ago. He is closer than ever to finding the government graves – presumably a mass grave – and you can hear the excitement in his voice as he describes the slow unravelling of the mystery.

"One of our tasks throughout has been to locate this unmarked grave," Pollard says. "We did geophysics as part of our survey and came up with a number of anomalies – one of which looks quite regular, quite square and could be a grave."

As a national historic site with government protections, Pollard understands the importance of working carefully and with a high level of decency as to not upset the graves once found.

"I respect the fact that those graves are a place of pilgrimage. The graves are a scheduled monument and they are protected by law," he says. "But that doesn't mean to say that I think we shouldn’t be digging graves. There are places there that I think we should be investigating."

Pollard says that, with further work conducted by his team, there is a need to offer an accurate account of the event and aftermath.

"It would allow us to pinpoint that site and mark it accordingly and give it the same degree of reverence and memorialisation as has been the case of the Jacobites. The British soldiers have served their time and they deserve it."

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