The granite cross of the Flodden Monument stood tall against a blue sky where white clouds were billowing like gunsmoke.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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The image struck forcibly as we looked south to the long slope of Branxton Hill, across the valley bottom where nearly 60,000 Scots and English clashed 500 years ago. Fourteen thousand men were hacked and piked and bill-hooked to death in just two hours. The Battle of Flodden, fought on 9 September 1513, resulted in the wiping out of virtually all the nobility of Scotland – including the country’s dashing and intelligent king, James IV.
An excellent Battlefield Trail explores the site. Down the slope in the valley bottom we gazed up at what suddenly seemed a steep rise to where the Scots army had arrayed itself along Branxton Hill. How easy it must have looked to the Scottish pikemen as they started their charge downhill – a quick hop across the valley and they would be in among the English, as their king had wanted and expected ever since they had crossed the River Tweed a fortnight before.
But weeks of torrential rain had turned the innocent-looking valley to a treacherous sucking bog of mud. The 18-foot pikes the Scots carried were worse than useless; the English wielded 8-foot billhooks that chopped up both the pikes and their carriers. The valley became a slaughterhouse, and ten thousand Scottish nobles, knights and men – including my own ancestor, Sir John Somerville of Cambusnethan – died in an orgy of killing.
From the battlefield we walked a slow circuit through this rolling Border landscape – long shallow ridges of corn and pasture, farmsteads like tiny townships, and the handsome 18th-century mansion of Pallinsburn in a swathe of beautiful parkland. Sunlight poured down on us, yellowhammers wheezed in the hedges, and all seemed right with the world. It was strange to come out of the Pallinsburn trees and find oneself looking over once more at the granite cross on its ridge, the broad sweep of Branxton Hill beyond, and the fatal slope down which the flower of Scotland had charged to destruction in the quagmire of the killing fields below.
Start: Flodden Field car park, Branxton, Northumberland, TD12 4SN approx. (OS ref NT 892374)
Getting there: Branxton and Flodden Field are signposted off A697 at Crookham, between Milfield and Cornhill-on-Tweed
Walk (6 miles, easy, OS Explorer 339): Follow track to monument (890372). Ahead to hedge; left and follow ‘Battlefield Trail’/BT to bottom of slope; through gate; left to next gate (892370); right uphill (‘Viewpoint’) to notice board; left to road (897369, BT). Right along road for 150m; left through hedge and gate (BT), anti-clockwise round field to cross stream (899373). On over crest with hedge on right; at bottom, through gate (898375); right along hedge. At field end, right through hedge, left along track. At field end, over stile (902377) and through trees. Cross stile; across field to top left corner (904377) at Mardon. Left down lane to road (901381). Right round bend for 200m; pass Inch Cottage; left over stile (903382, ‘Inch Plantation’). Follow hedge to gate (904383, yellow arrow/YA) into wood. Leave wood by stile (904384); up slope to cross stile; ahead to gate onto A697 (904387).
Right for 150m (take care!); left (‘Crookham Eastfield’) along road to farm. Left between barns (908391); half left across 2 fields (YA); through gate; right (902391) along Pallinsburn House drive. Pass house; in 400m drive bends left (894391, YA), then right through gate. In 300m track turns left through Cookstead farm to reach A697 (890384). Right for 200m (take care!); left (888384, ‘Branxton’) down side of Crookham Westfield farm; over gate, down track to fence; left to corner of field (890379). Right over footbridge and stile, to road on left side of house (890378). Left up road; right at top (893375, ‘Flodden Field’) to car park.
Refreshments: Blue Bell Inn, Crookham (01890-820789; bluebellcrookham.co.uk)
Accommodation: Collingwood Arms, Cornhill-on-Tweed, postcode (01890-882424; collingwoodarms.com) – classy, extremely comfortable, relaxed atmosphere.
Battle of Flodden anniversary: flodden1513.com; flodden.net; The Battle of Flodden – Why & How by Clive Hallam-Baker (pub. Remembering Flodden Project)
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk