In 2025, we will mark the 280th anniversary of the Battle of Prestonpans. As we head towards this milestone, our Beyond the Battle project aims to research, map and present a comprehensive snapshot of the community which lived on the battlefield in 1745 – and how that community and its landscape have evolved in the 280 years since.

BEYOND THE BATTLE: AN INTRODUCTION

Our aim is to create an unprecedented understanding of the landscape in which the Battle of Prestonpans was fought – and the people who lived in it.

Our research will be guided by a series of core questions:

  1. Who lived on the battlefield in September 1745, and what did they do?
  2. What was life like for the people who lived here?
  3. How did the conflict in 1745 affect the lives of the residents?
  4. Do any descendents of these residents still live in the community?
  5. What did our community look like in 1745 – and do any of the buildings, roads and features remain?
  6. What are the milestones of change on the landscape and community in the last 280 years.

The project will be run from the Battle of Prestonpans Museum, where we will be holding a series of events as the work progresses – including opportunities for you to get involved.

The project will lead to, amongst other things:

  • A special exhibition at the Battle of Prestonpans Museum, as part of the 280th anniversary of the battle
  • FactFiles available at our museum and here on the website, providing detailed information on the people and places which made up the battlefield community in 1745
  • An interactive digital map of the battlefield area, highlighting the main features and revealing how the landscape has evolved over time

As our project develops, we’ll be posting up progress reports here to let you know what we are investigating.

We will be divide research updates into two themes: People; and Places.

PLACES: map regression

In early September we held two round-table discussion workshops focusing on a series of maps and plans of the battle which were created in 1745. For comparison, we also used several later 18th and 19th century maps of the same area, and made use of the National Library of Scotland’s amazing online map tools. The purspose of the workshops was to stimulate thought about the geographical features of the battlefield: what was recognisable to us and what was not; whether the contemporary plans were consistent in how they showed the features and settlements; whether there were any mysteries to solve, such as inconsistences, anomalies, or things which were missing.

The results of the conversations raised a number of issues which we want to look into deeper:

  1. Lost villages: what happened to the small hamlet near Bankton House, identifiable on some plans of the battlefield but no longer extant, and the village of Seton which was clearly more substantial in 1745 than it is today?
  2. The drainage ditch: was this a linear man-made feature, or was it a natural watercourse – or both! When was it dug, and when was it filled in? How does it fit into the longer history of water management on the battlefield?
  3. The Prestonpans windmill: a long-standing question, as a windmill features on battlefield plans but does not seem to appear in later maps. Where exactly was it, and what was it for?
  4. The Riggonhead Defile: how significant was the defile as a geographical feature, considering that it does not appear in any meaningful way on the plans?
  5. Preston House walls: we think we might have pin-pointed their lines, and that parts might still be traceable, but the interior arrangement of the gardens is very inconsistently shown in the plans and the mercat cross is never depicted.

Some of these questions might be answered by further map regression. Some of them might require a little more archival research. We’ll let you know how we get on.

In the meantime, here’s our curator Dr Arran Johnston to provide a synpotic summary of the contemporary battle plans:

PEOPLE: a “List of Persons Concerned…”

We don’t just want to create a map of the streets and landscapes of the Prestonpans area in 1745; we want to populate it with people!

So who lived here at the time of the battle, and do the battle records help us get deeper into the community than might otherwise have been possible?

The big question is where to even start with such an exercise. Well we are going to start with some of the people we know lived here at the time.

First off, the gentlemen and local worthies: Lord Grange, the local MP; lords Prestongrange and Drummore; the ministers, Reverend Cunningham at Tranent and Reverend Carlyle in Prestonpans; and the Gardiner family at Bankton.

After that, the we have decided to draw upon the List of Persons Concerned in the Rebellion. This database, compiled county-by-county in 1746, records all those accused of rebellious actions in the course of the last Jacobite rising. It lists names, place of residence, occupation, and alleged misdemeanors. This list contains a number of men who lived in the Prestonpans area who allegedly helped, sympathised, or event fought with the Jacobites – and that inadvertently provides us with a snapshot of the community. So we are studying this list, looking at the occupations listed to see if there are any trends, and cross-referencing the people listed with other records (such as the churchs’ burial lists) to see if we can grow their families and uncover their stories.

“Beyond the Battle” is supported by Historic Environment Scotland.