Document record MAB54782 - BATTLE OF BARRA

Site of the Battle of Barra, fought between King Robert the Bruce and Comyn, Earl of Buchan, on the 23rd May 1308.

Site of the Battle of Barra, fought between King Robert the Bruce and Comyn, Earl of Buchan, on the 23rd May 1308. Accounts of the battle are sparse and offer little detail about the fighting.

Following the death of Edward I in 1307, Bruce took the opportunity presented by a lack of attention from the new English King, Edward II, to reduce internal opposition to his rule and take full control of the kingdom. In the autumn and winter of 1307, Bruce attacked the strongholds of the Comyns and their supporters in the north-east, but fell ill at Christmas 1307. By May, he was still unwell and quartered outside Inverurie, with John Comyn, Earl of Buchan, mustering at Oldmeldrum. The first hostile action was in the early morning of 23 May, when Sir David de Brechin attacked a detachment of Bruce's men that were in Inverurie, although most of Bruce's men were outside the town. Bruce's army formed up and marched towards Oldmeldrum, where Comyn and Sir John Mowbray were drawn up below Barra Hill on the road between Inverurie and Oldmeldrum. Comyn and his men were aware of Bruce's illness and seem to have assumed that he would not be present in the fighting. However, as Bruce's army arrived, they could see Bruce on horseback in the midst of his army. According to the sources, this unexpected appearance of Bruce so discomfited Comyn and his supporters that they started to edge back and this was enough to cause the levies to break and they scattered. Bruce's army charged what was left of Comyn's line, and the fighting very rapidly became a complete rout. Many of Comyn's followers were killed beside the boggy hollow of the Lochter Burn, now known as Bruce's Field. Comyn fled towards Fyvie and then Turriff, finally making his way to England where he subsequently died. Numbers of participants are hard to judge, but Barbour's nearly contemporary account gave Bruce 700 men against Comyn with 1000 men.

There is no record of the casualty figures, but the fact the battle quickly degenerated into a rout would suggest that there were fatalities amongst Comyn's men and few on Bruce's side. The field was said to contain a number of small elliptical trenches, in one of which was found an English bill-hook.

An archaeological evaluation and metal detecting survey at the east of the site (NJ82NW0131) identified nothing relating to this event.

Period Notes
1308.

ORDNANCE SURVEY, 1871, Ordnance Name Book, No10(1867) 4,11 (Bibliographic reference). SAB1360.

SIMPSON, WD, 1949, EARLDOM OF MAR, 25 (Bibliographic reference). SAB1681.

DICKINSON, WC, 1952, A source book of Scottish history, 141 (Bibliographic reference). SAB439.

WYNESS, JF, 1968, ROYAL VALLEY, 64 (Bibliographic reference). SAB2012.

MARREN, P, 1990, GRAMPIAN BATTLEFIELDS, p.73 (Bibliographic reference). SAB4619.

Author unknown, n.d., NSA, No12(1845) 625 (Bibliographic reference). SAB1269.

Record last edited

Mar 17 2026 12:39PM