• Cockenzie
    Attack on the Baggage TrainAfter the battle Cope's Baggage Train at Cockenzie House was captured with only a single shot fired. It contained £5000 in gold coins, many muskets and ammunition which were vital to the Prince.

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  • WaggonWay
    WaggonwayThe Tranent to Cockenzie Waggonway was the first of its type in Britain and consisted of a simple timber way, on which full hopper wagons were guided downhill. The wagons were then hitched to a horse, which would pull the lighter load back up to the mine. The Battle was fought directly across the northern section of this railway.
  • Attack Area
    Attack Area At dawn, on 21 September 1745, Cope's red coat army beheld the spectacle of 1,400 Highlanders charging through the early mist making "wild Highland war cries and with the bloodcurdling skirl of the pipes."

    Cope's inexperienced army had wheeled round from facing south to facing east in great haste but could only fire their canons and muskets just once before the Highlanders were upon them. Then they fled despite Cope and his officers attempting to force them to charge at pistol point. Cope's army facing east to confront the Jacobites had the ditch and walls of Preston House behind them blocking their panicked retreat.

    The battle was over in less than fifteen minutes with hundreds of government troops killed or wounded and 1500 taken prisoner. The Highlanders suffered less than 100 killed or wounded.
  • Riggonhead Defile
    Riggonhead Defile - Three Abreast The entire Jacobite force walked at 4am three abreast along the Riggonhead Defile to the east of Cope's army, thereby avoiding the marshland. Cope's pickets did not detect the Highlanders until after 6am.

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  • Preston House & Walls
    Before the battle Cope drew up his army facing south towards the Prince's army with a marshy ditch to their front, and the park walls around Preston House protecting their right flank.

    When Prince Charles finally launched his surprise attack, the fleeing troops crowded towards Preston and Bankton parks and their panic was augmented when they fell back to the tall enclosing walls of stone. Some of the dragoons made off west towards Edinburgh and a party actually galloped up the High Street and into the Castle. The rest made south by "Johnny Cope?s Way" past Bankton House.
  • Bankton House
    Wounded Col. Gardiner Colonel Gardiner, a senior Hanoverian dragoon commander who stayed at Bankton House close by the scene of battle, was mortally wounded in a final heroic skirmish that included by his side Sir Thomas Hay of Park who survived. Colonel Gardiner's fatal wounds were inflicted beneath a white thorntree of which a portion is today in Edinburgh's Naval and Military Museum.

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  • Tranent
    Col. Gardiner dies The mortally wounded Colonel Gardiner was taken by his manservant dressed as a miller to The Manse at Tranent where he died in the arms of a visiting Minister's daughter (Beatrix Jenkinson) during the night. The Colonel has become the unchallenged hero of the day and an obelisk to his memory was raised in 1853.
  • Johnnie Cope's Way
    Many of the Hanoverian dragoons fled south via a road now known as Johnnie Cope's Way.
  • Silent March
    Silent March The Highlander's Robert Anderson was a local farmer's son who knew the area well and convinced Charles's Lieutenant General, Lord George Murray of an excellent route through the marshlands. The Jacobite army discarded their horses and commencing at 4am, moved their entire force silently through the marsh via the Riggonhead Defile.
  • Birsley Brae
    Highlanders look out from Birsley Brae The Jacobite army marched through Musselburgh on 20th September and took the high ground at Birsley Brae behind Tranent, where they halted and faced the government forces for the first time, drawn up on the plain below. The government army raised a shout upon sighting the rebels, who returned the roar. As a result of the sighting, Cope immediately put his troops in motion and changed the front of his army from west to south, facing the Highlanders.
  • Battle Route Overview
    Battle Route Overview Follow this line to see the route taken by Prince Charlie and his Highlanders leading to the eventual surprise attack from the east on the morning of the 21st September 1745.

    Perhaps one of the most curious features about the events leading up to and following The Battle of Prestonpans is the circular nature of the progression of the two armies. The Government and Jacobite troops approached each other from the east and west respectively and, over the hours of the actual engagement, intertwined and looped around each other before returning to their origin.