Battle of Langside
Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 7:25 pmEnjoyed a visit to the “Langside 450” exhibition at Langside Library, commemorating the forthcoming anniversary of the battle on 13th May. It was very informative and well worth a visit.
I’ve since been having a look at the possible effect of the terrain in and around Langside on the outcome of the battle. I found a couple of articles written before the late Victorian development of the area as a Glasgow suburb. These extracts describe the landscape much as it would have been at the time of the battle.
In this account from 1845, the Queen’s forces are said to have followed the “morass of what is now called the Bushy-Aik-Lane” towards the village of Langside. From this description the flat area of Battlefield Road can be assumed to be have been marshland at the time of writing. The alternative route would have been through Cathcart, “crossing the Cart at a bridge near the old Castle” - the present day Snuff Mill Bridge.
In this extract published in 1812, where the letter ‘s’ is more like an‘f’, the Regent’s forces seem to have had a less strenuous time while encamped in the village of Langside prior to the battle. He had “the precaution to seize, and posted his troops among some gardens and inclosures adjacent”. Given the marshy nature of the land below the hill, the enemy’s forces “superiority in cavalry could be of no benefit to them on such broken ground”.
In modern parlance it would seem that the Queen’s forces had knackered themselves to such an extent that the eventual outcome was a foregone conclusion?
I’ve since been having a look at the possible effect of the terrain in and around Langside on the outcome of the battle. I found a couple of articles written before the late Victorian development of the area as a Glasgow suburb. These extracts describe the landscape much as it would have been at the time of the battle.
In this account from 1845, the Queen’s forces are said to have followed the “morass of what is now called the Bushy-Aik-Lane” towards the village of Langside. From this description the flat area of Battlefield Road can be assumed to be have been marshland at the time of writing. The alternative route would have been through Cathcart, “crossing the Cart at a bridge near the old Castle” - the present day Snuff Mill Bridge.
In this extract published in 1812, where the letter ‘s’ is more like an‘f’, the Regent’s forces seem to have had a less strenuous time while encamped in the village of Langside prior to the battle. He had “the precaution to seize, and posted his troops among some gardens and inclosures adjacent”. Given the marshy nature of the land below the hill, the enemy’s forces “superiority in cavalry could be of no benefit to them on such broken ground”.
In modern parlance it would seem that the Queen’s forces had knackered themselves to such an extent that the eventual outcome was a foregone conclusion?