IF THERE is a fact that every Scot knows, it is who won the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.
But what isn’t so well known about Robert the Bruce’s famous victory over the English is how topography and climate may have impacted on the outcome.
Dr Richard Tipping of Stirling University is to lead the first environmental reconstruction of the entire landscape of the Battle of Bannockburn as it looked 700 years ago, when Bruce defeated the largest English army to invade Scotland.
He has been granted nearly £120,000 by the Leverhulme Trust to research the topography of the Carse of Stirling so that the complete landscape surrounding Bannockburn may be recreated.
This will help historians to better understand what happened and why at the famous battle.
Dr Tipping told The Courier: “We judge Edward II’s tactics on the battlefield by what we know of the topography now but we may have done him a disservice.
“By recreating the landscape, we will assist historians to determine the ground conditions which he faced.
“No one has been able to do this before but improvements in radio carbon dating mean that we will be able to date ground conditions to within a decade.”