During early June 2009 a team consisting of volunteers from Northumberland Archaeological Group (NAG), Coquetdale Community Archaeology (CCA) and Borders Archaeology Society (BAS) as well as local volunteers from Branxton and Coldstream carried out the first large scale archaeological excavations of the remains of the Battle of Flodden. This project was the first step in a wider study of the battlefield and its surrounding landscape leading up to the 500th anniversary of the battle in September of 2013. The aim of these excavations was to provide an anchor point for the project by proving that the only upstanding remains regularly associated with the battle - the remains of the Scottish camp on Flodden Hill (after which the battle is named) were actually related to the activities of the Scottish army in 1513 rather than being of some later or, more likely, earlier occupation of the top of Flodden Hill.

While contemporary accounts have the Scottish army camping on Flodden Hill/Flodden Edge, beyond the name of the western end of this ridge - 'The King's Chair' - the only indication that this site was that where King James settled for the two weeks prior to his calamitous meeting Surrey at Branxton, are the remains of a large, rectangular, earthwork. This monument, now shrouded under the trees of a 20th Century pine plantation, was first formerly recognised by MacGaughlin during the second half of the 19th Century when he recorded it as possible Roman encampment. Since that time little consideration has been given to the earthwork, thought by many to be a late post-medieval landscape feature and by others to be Roman or more likely Iron Age in origin. Yet the most obvious hint that this feature is neither prehistoric/Roman or a landscape feature relating perhaps to the activities of the Ford (and later Ford and Etal) Estate was the plan of it drawn by Armstrong on his map of 1828 when he depicted a square enclosure at the top of Flodden Hill, with pointed 'bastions' at each corner.

With the basic tenant of archaeological study being to work from the 'known' to the 'unknown' , any investigation of the Flodden Battlefield and its associated landscape would have to start at the only upstanding remain still associated with the battle - the enclosure on the top of Flodden Hill. Excavations were carried out over a 10 day period and concentrated in four primary areas:

The Interior of the enclosure (3 trenches)

A section across the earthwork wall of the enclosure (1 trench)

The only visible entrance  - east side of the enclosure (1 trench)

The north-east corner of the exterior of the enclosure (1 trench)

The aim of these trenches was not only to characterise the nature of the remains but also, if possible, to date their construction. Archaeologically speaking the problem of dating was an unusual one, as generally excavations study sites where a few people have lived for an extended (perhaps 100s if not 1000s of years) period of time. Yet, in this case, if the accounts of James's English Foray are to be believed, at Flodden Hill the reverse would be true: a lot of people (perhaps as many as 60-80000) living in a small area for an exceedingly short period of time (only 2 weeks).

Excavations within the interior of the enclosure very quickly demonstrated that the answers concerning Scottish occupation of the site were not to be easily answered. For the most part turf gave way quickly to bed-rock with very few (if any) finds or other indications of human presence. Sectioning the main wall of the enclosure and excavating in the eastern entrance however soon proved however that the structure was unlikely to be a post-medieval (estate) landscape feature as massive stone faces were revealed both inside and outside, along with complex foreworks outside the entrance. Yet in both of these areas finds started to be recovered that pointed to the site being of prehistoric origins - flints ranging in date from the Mesoltihic to the Bronze Age and also pottery which could certainly have dated to the Iron Age. Only the construction of the walls suggested that the site was not of prehistoric origins:

1. ✴Firstly the enclosure is square - not unheard of in the Iron Age - but with the nearest examples being 50 miles to the south in the Tyne Valley. 
   

2. ✴Secondly there was no external ditch! This is very unusual in Iron Age earthworks which are usually constructed using the upcast from a ditch excavated outside the enclosure. In the case of the earthworks on Flodden Hill it appeared that the walls had been constructed using soil scraped from the interior of the site - hence the naked bedrock surfaces inside the enclosure - a methodology unheard of in the Iron Age.
   

3. ✴Finally though the walls were broad enough to be equivalent in size to Iron Age defensive ramparts, excavations suggested they had never been much higher than they currently stand (little over 1-1.5 metres). This in itself is unusual as Iron Age walls of 3-plus metres in thickness might have originally stood to over 2.5 metres in height.
   

However, by site open day (excavation day 8 of 10) we still had no firm datable evidence that would prove that the Scots army ever occupied Flodden Hill. Many of the finds, though possible to associate with a medieval army, including many polishing/sharpening stones, were technically updatable and those could be attributed a date all appeared to be prehistoric (flint and pottery). As a result the site tours were subdued and the longer they continued the greater was the sense of depression and failure, the results being so ambiguous that the did not even allow us to say the site was definitely NOT that of the Scottish camp of September 1513. 

Yet as the last tour left the site and we prepared to pack up at the end of our second-to-last day of work, a discovery was made in the trench investigating the north-east corner of the enclosure. A clay block and a spread of hard packed, but small, stones was not particularly exciting, until their position was considered and it was realised that we were looking at the footing of the pointed 'bastion' recorded in plan in 1769 by Armstrong. Some hasty research ensued - when did such features first appear in British Military architecture? Certainly during the 16th Century though generally it is believed towards the middle and not the beginning of the century. One record however gives credence to this being a construction of King James's  army and that is the report of an English spy of 1512 who comments on changes to the defenses of Edinburgh Castle including the construction of a pointed or 'diamond' shaped bastion along the outer wall.

The clay and stone footing to the NE corner ‘Bastion’

The weight of evidence then seems to swing in support of this site being PART of the Scottish camp reported to have been on Flodden Hill/Flodden Edge. The Battle of Flodden was certainly the last major military action to occur in the vicinity and hence the last that would have warranted such a defensive structure to be built - yet the enclosure includes architectural technology (trace Itallienne construction) that is thought only to have been introduced in the 20-50 years following the Battle. Yet James is known to have been fascinated with the latest continental military technologies. According to the English spy he had a trace Itallienne bastion constructed on Edinburgh Castle in 1512 and he is also known to have travelled south with his continental (primarily French) military advisors. It's not reasonable therefore to assume that he would have had the latest and most modern defenses built to defend his army on top of Flodden Hill!

What of the finds (or the lack of them)? Well they certainly indicate that the hill was occupied/used throughout prehistory yet the location of their discovery also tells a story, coming as they did either from outside the entrance (where the prehistoric soil remains undisturbed) or from the wall fill - where the prehistoric soil had been redeposited during the construction of the enclosure. Further doubt may also be cast over the date some of the pottery - which though typical of Iron Age vessels, may also be typical of the West Highland Scottish pottery tradition that persisted throughout the medieval and through until the 1920s. On that front only expert examination will finally confirm the origins (local Iron Age or otherwise). 

It is the comments of one eminent archaeologist and historian who visited the site on the last day of excavations, which finally places the updatable finds in perspective. An army of 30000 fighting men would need a lot of sharpening stones to keep their weapons fit for purpose! Furthermore in response to our obvious frustrations and finding nothing datable from the 16th Century, the same visitor pointed out that to expect a James IV penny dated 1512 (or any other valuable and potentially datable item) was probably unreasonable. After all, the last thing a good wife or mother would let a soldier leave on campaign with would be anything of value. As for the lack of domestic items, accounts suggest that the common soldier used leather and wood vessels for the most part (rather than pottery or metal) and where they used utensils/cutlery at all, they would have been wooden.

A collection of the polishing/sharpening stones from Flodden Hill

   

This then leaves the question - is the earthwork on Flodden Hill the Scottish camp? To which the answer  - on balance - has to be YES - but only PART of it. 

Clearly an earthwork of this size, though enclosing more than 1 hectare of ground at the top of the hill, could not have been the temporary home for an army of 25-30000 fighting men and perhaps the same number again of camp followers and non-combatants. 50-80000 people would have occupied much of the top of the ridge and perhaps the surrounding lower ground as well. At this point then we should examine the other evidence we have for activities along the Flodden Hill/Edge ridge. Most obvious is the name 'The King's Chair' attached to the knoll at the west end of the ridge around 1000 m west of the site excavated in 2009. While this area clearly requires further investigations it would be reasonable to assume that this is where James must have had his personal camp - his 'court'. This combined with several new aerial photographs of the ground between the King's Chair and the plantation in which the excavated enclosure sits, suggests the presence of a number of other earthwork enclosures (or redoubts) that circle the ridge and appear to be linked together by a system of trenches. These - if they prove to date to 1513 - would provide a far more suitable encampment for an army of 50-80000 people - the latest, 16th Century military thinking providing a temporary circuit defense for James's occupation of the hill while he waited for the English army to arrive.