Digging Up the Culloden Battlefield ⚔️

[Music] in today's video i'm taking you up north to culloden battlefield the site of the last stand of the jacobite forces and the final pitch battle to take place on the british isles where we'll be looking in the ground for clues as to how this battle came to a conclusion hello and welcome to avimore welcome to scotland today i don't know what's going to happen but i wanted to try and show you something pretty cool that's happening this weekend and only this weekend it's very very rare special occasion up here at inverness the batli collard in collod and batfield site they're actually doing an archaeological dig which is something they really very rarely do there and they opened it to the public apparently it is going to be open for a couple of hours today so i'm going to try and race along there and see if we can catch it before they close it all up again might be successful i might not but i'm really keen to see this we're just charging the car here having more super charge station couldn't stay for too long because i know that we're not gonna keep this archaeological dig the doing at the battlefield open for very long just a quick thing i'll tell you more about it when we get there let's hit the road [Music] all right so i made it up to culloden the claudin battlefield it's just here behind me bathed in sunshine which is kind of weird because we've had a really rainy day this is a battlefield here behind me and there's a cottage there the famous cottage from the battlefield main battle site is all the way on that side there behind me we've come here today because i saw online that they were going to be digging the place today that they've never dug and the reason they're digging there is it's kind of outside the battlefield zone that is owned by the national trust the national trust only actually on a third of the whole battlefield site so there's a lot left to be explored the rest is all in farmyards and private land and all the rest of it but the bit they want to dig today is a bit of an exploration of somewhere new is the second line back of the government forces so on the battlefield where it is to stay as it stands today the battlefield they know where the british government lined up and they know where the jacobites lined up they've got all that marked out in the battlefield but there would have been second and maybe even a third line of british government troops and they do know roughly where that second line was and they're going to be digging there today so we made it just in time i'm going to try and make it over to the site where they are digging some trenches and have a look and see see what we can see see if they found anything cool i've done quite a few videos from claude and battlefield over the years on my channel i'll actually put links down below to some of them i'm just going to stop by here quickly to the cottage which has stood the test of time this has been here reformed a few times no doubt but it's been here ever since those days in the battlefield imagine being able to transport back in time to when it actually happened well maybe that's what the dig is going to do it's going to show some artifacts so let's have a way look just in the field over there behind the car park and there's an entrance to the battlefield dig site that they're doing right now still behind me i'm just gonna walk in and see see if we can go in i think we can i don't know why not so we look looking forward [Music] [Music] so we're excavating um in this area because we're interested in the wider movement around the battlefield yeah the actual clash happened but actually you've got hundreds and hundreds of men you know around the hall outside of the bar and moving around getting into position so we're interested behind the actual in the second row of government troops we think we're positioned right in between wolf's regiment and um is it lagonian's regiment there's about 320 men in each from up high in the sky you can get a slightly better idea of where the archaeologists are digging and why the dig here words mark roughly where we are and you can get an even better picture when you map this against the battle plan if you look to the top right of this document you'll see wolf's regimen and it is here the national trust for scotland's archaeologists reckon the dig is taking place and we've been finding well we also know that the duke of cumberland brought his cavalry down the old road which ran the line of the electrical table in this direction so far shoes oh she was pretty good indication there might have been some horses around and we're finding so we've got like this kind of sort of buckle or strap holders and things like that yeah it's quite nice and then this which is which is really nice this is a this is a button oh yeah and it's pewter with a glass inlay in the center wow and i i looked at that and i thought that's a bit fancy for military isn't it in the right color and the right cut and you could decorate it pretty much however you want so when you look at some of the portraits in the in the visitor center there you'll see all the commanders all look quite fancy and everything and they were they were sort of designing their own their own uniform and blinging it up themselves so having things like that so without being on their jacket or something yeah like a waistcoat button yeah yeah that's amazing directly about the battle itself so that's a musket shot oh wow yeah there you go that's incredible and we've actually found two of those one of them is round and this one you can see it's slightly out of shape yeah yeah you got this flat bit here that's because it's hit something yeah oh so it's been fired it's been fired wow the other one we found is is looking pretty pretty mint so that's unbelievable it's gonna be dropped by a government government troop here as they're looking out for the battle oh it's been fired this is an actual musket ball that was fired during the battle of coordination i didn't tell that because it's got that river on the side there either that is so cool [Music] so how did this musket ball fired by the jacobites which you can see lined up in the green across the bottom end up where wolf's regiment was standing well where the blue arrows were the jacobites advanced into the british forces at speed they impacted and actually broke through barrow's line this is where the fiercest fighting took place during the event and actually where most of the casualties and deaths were as well so you can imagine the jacobites pointing in the direction of those blue arrows firing their muskets right at the barrel's regiment on the front line on the right hand side and it's easy to see how one of those musket balls may have missed their target went right through the regiment and ended up in the back line or shot over their heads and landed there as well i find it absolutely fascinating that i was holding a musket ball that until today was last touched by a jacobite warrior who in all likelihood would have perished during the battle he would have loaded that musket ball into his gun and fired it and that musket ball never seen the light of day since there's a huge amount of people moving around even if you're not fully engaging in the battle itself you know you're milling around here you're getting lined up you're getting ready so it's not surprising you find at least one musket ball that's been dropped and then if they're firing through these lines one of them has landed over here as well and that's where we are in here yeah wow but i mean thinking about the numbers it's really it's really important so we know from account to the battle we've got this so this is just barrels regiment so he's the one who the jacobites brought through there around the corner so the accounts so 325 ranked wow soldiers 17 officers and men killed and 108 were wounded and only 29 survived their worth at 325 so it's quite amazing but to give you a sort of idea of scale as well so this each one of these dots represents one man in the regiment and this is how they were lined up so we're standing on wolf's line here is his regiment lined up like this it's going from roughly the field up to where the top diggers are over there if you imagine standing here shoulder shoulder three lines deep 325 of you you're standing watching the jacobites break through your front line and you're just waiting for that command to go forward and then your job is just to go forward and to go and fight and you've already watched what's happened it wasn't just awful so that's the other thing we want to know about is actually that wider battlefield because we've got a third of the battlefield and the rest of it is you know so that's like so with the furthest left all the lines are going over the trees all the way over right through the yeah i wonder if they could put those down so that's why we need to know more about these outside areas like this what's going on around here so uh yeah it's actually good so how are you here you know you've got the enclosure here of colloddin park wall we know that the jacobites they had they had a artillery in there fighting shooting out um and that held its position really really well until the government came round and just took all of its artillery around that way and just pounded that until until it was lost so it was gone if we could find the foundations of the lines of this wall same again with this enclosure if we could establish where those enclosures were look for the foundations it gives us the exact line you know of the of the jackalopes where their sort of muscle line was because they used those as points of reference so they lined up there organized themselves and then moved forward yeah so so we also as you say i'm not sure that that's that's off our land and i think that corner just about is over there so yeah we need to you know speak to people work with locals get a better understanding of all of this geography so that we know exactly what it is that we're trying to look at do you know roughly where the road would be on this would it be somewhere in the middle the the road the current road yeah i think it's running wait a minute again if we orientate ourselves so it comes around there we go it was a hugely significant event not just for the fact that it ended the jacobite movement following the decisive defeat of bonnie prince charlie and his men but it also led to the end of the clan system with over 1500 jacobites killed most of them being scottish clan members and only 300 on the british government side any of the scottish soldiers fighting for the dracobites who managed to flee the battlefield most of them were rounded up and caught some of those were executed some of them were imprisoned for a great length of time and others were sent across the atlantic to the new world either to work as servants as part of their punishment or they took their families over and started new lives and that's why so many people from across the world but especially in the united states of america and canada can directly trace their ancestors to this very spot and that is why it is the top historical site that anybody come to scotland who's interested in scottish history or who might have scottish ancestry needs to come and visit i've been to claudine many times now and i can safely say there is a really strong energy in the ground you can feel the sorrow and the sadness of what happened on that fateful day [Music] oh my god that was so cool i can't believe that i did not expect even to get into the field let alone to get in there and speak to the people who are still just hiding away their stuff there we got there right in the last moment the last half an hour of their dig apparently gonna come back next year and do another dig but that that was awesome we got to see some of the artifacts that they found from the battlefield and i got to hold a musket ball that was fired likely from the jacobites over the first line of the government forces and into the second line that would have probably battered off somebody's gun or their armor or something and then landed on the ground that was amazing but um yeah not got much sunlight left it gets dark this time of year pretty early but nonetheless we got here in time we saw it and now we're gonna drive down the road a little bit probably to having more and maybe take some nice photos of the the autumn colors coming through it's got it's gorgeous now oh we need to be quick because that sun is going down quick [Music] okay we made it to loch morlich and ivy moore just in time for sunset you can see they're behind me probably missed it by a little bit i just wanted to come down here and see if we could check out any of the autumn colors because it has been an incredible drive from edinburgh up here you can see the trees like that one there they're just starting to turn but here around avemore still quite green it probably needs another week or two before the colors are properly going magical here but um as it's on the way i always like to stop here at this little spot by the water and lock more like it's a very very close to anymore just because such a pretty little spot but also to consider the magnificence of what we just saw there at claudia we were there for a really short time like half an hour speaking to the archaeologists from the nts national trust for scotland and all the volunteers there such a short time and i kind of wish that i had more time i kind of wish i was there for the whole day because what they were doing was really really spectacular and amazing and what they found was amazing i can't believe i was holding a musket ball that was definitely fired from a jacobite soldier who would have been battling in his way at the front line and i think you know what would probably would have happened is he would have aimed his musket towards the government forces he would have fired and it would have either went over their heads or it would have missed his target and it would have went right past someone and that musket ball flew all the way to the back line of the government forces that probably you know ricocheted off somebody's armor or something but then just sat in the mud i've got my duck friend here literally following me around he's definitely hoping i'm going to be generous with some food for him i don't have anything and besides you shouldn't feed animals with human food anyway it's beside the point it was such like holding that musket ball which was fired on the day of the battle of colladen like i said probably ricocheted off somebody's armor and then landed in the mud probably then got trampled on and then sat there in that spot from that very moment throughout history for the hundreds of years until today that is so so bizarre to think that and i had it in my hands you know those guys at the nts they dug it up what they have marked out is the battlefield there now at the visitor center at the colloden is only one third of the actual entire battlefield but the rest of it is all taken up by farm fields and houses and stuff that's been built over the years but imagine and also a forest and a road a road was literally built right across where the fighting took place although where the battlefield visitor center is now in the memorial is where the fiercest is fighting and where most of the people died is yeah what an experience it was just just incredible highly enjoyed just going there for half an hour and seeing seen them what they were doing and what they found it was just it just blows my mind and it really makes me want to take up not archaeology because that's a proper profession with people who have studied degrees and all the rest of it but you know i wish i could take up um metal detector or something because it's just awesome not that you'd be allowed to dig anywhere near cladding of course but yeah i went along there today because i thought you guys might enjoy it something a bit different and a very rare event because they do not dig at claudine or anywhere close to that very often you know it requires all kinds of permission and volunteers to be involved and all the rest of it so a very rare event and i've came and i've done a little vlog for you guys and hopefully i hope that you enjoyed it and you got something interesting out of it i would you know if they do that again i will definitely try and get back for the whole day and actually like i said try and volunteer and be involved and you know maybe make some discoveries myself so there's a lot more to uncover at claude and i feel and what the guy was saying there is you know they've got a lot more areas that they want to dig in future but that will have to be after winter next year now i would suppose um and we'll see what they find then and i'll definitely be keeping in touch with those guys and seeing when they're going to be digging again because it's just awesome really awesome to uncover history beneath your feet but that was it for today's video thank you very much for watching i hope you enjoyed it let me know your thoughts down in the comments below subscribe if you haven't already and until the next adventure hope you have a good night morning evening afternoon or whatever time it is wherever you are in the world take care if you'd like to learn more about scotland and our history including the battle of clawden there's more information in my ultimate guide to scotland course which is available exclusively to my patreon members as a membership benefit find out more in the link down below thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Shaun

Views: 50,430

Keywords: culloden, battle of culloden, culloden battle, culloden battlefield, jacobite, jacobite uprising, outlander, outlander culloden, clan fraser, clan fraser culloden, jamie fraser, jamie fraser outlander, scotland, scottish, scottish history, scotland history, bonnie prince charlie, archeology, metal detecting, metal detecting uk

Id: ipbr8z9XkZk

Length: 19min 57sec (1197 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 07 2021