Culloden Battlefield

Vicky Sartain

The Battle of Culloden was the last hand-to-hand battle fought on British soil and marked the last Jacobite attempt to seize the British crown. It’s all stirring stuff but that was a long time ago (16 April 1746) and, in the end, a field is a field. That’s why the visitor centre and exhibition there is so important. Built during Scotland’s Year of Highland Culture in 2007 and officially opened on 16 April 2008 – the anniversary of the battle – the exhibition has recreated both the battlefield and the bloody battle as closely and effectively as possible.

You can feel what it was like to be in the middle Battle of Culloden at the Battle immersion theatre. Here a four-minute long, 360° film puts you in the middle of the grizzly horror, which, though it lasted only one hour, changed the way of life of the Highlands and Islands for ever. You can also see the true scale of the battle from the centre’s rooftop platform and actually walk the battlefield, now restored to how it appeared to the opposing forces on that fateful day.

Culloden Moor, Inverness, Highland

Tel: 0844 493 2159. www.nts.org.uk/culloden