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Culloden Battlefield

12 miles outside Nairn 

Culloden will forever have a very special place in the annals of the Highlands ’ bloody and rebellious past. Here, on a desolate moor 12 miles west of Nairn, the Jacobite rebellion led by Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) came to an end on the 16th of April, 1746. Prince Charlie’s brave army was routed at Culloden by the Duke of Cumberland, who became known as ‘The Butcher’ for the merciless slaughter of clansmen pursued throughout the Highlands after the battle, and any families who dared harbour them.

The battlefield is now under the guardianship of the National Trust for . The Hanoverian army camped in a field at Balblair, to the south-west of Nairn, the night before the battle. The Duke slept in the Town House of the Roses of Kilravock which still stands in the Nairn’s High Street.

Culloden was the last land battle on mainland . After his bid to regain the crown for the Stuart dynasty, Prince Charlie fled to Skye and eventually returned to his native where he died.

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