Battle of Luncarty (990)
Who Fought
History & Significance
Luncarty is a village in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, approximately 4 miles (6 kilometres) north of Perth. It lies between the A9 to the west, and the River Tay to the east.
The name Luncarty, recorded in 1250 as Lumphortyn, may be of Gaelic origin. The name may involve the element longartaibh, a plural form of longphort meaning variously "harbour, palace, encampment".
"that remarkable battle of Luncarty, in which the Norsemen with their king were totally destroyed". Bower does not quote specific sources concerning the battle, but, two sentences later, he refers in a general way to ancient writings that he has consulted. The term Norsemen would include Danes.
The present village was founded in 1752 by William Sandeman, to house workers at his bleachfields. The village formerly had a railway station, which closed in 1951, but the Perth to Inverness railway line still runs through the village.
A rare example of a morthouse is located in the churchyard, built to frustrate the activities of bodysnatchers in the 19th century.
William Sandeman and his partner Hector Turnbull manufactured linen in Perth and bleached it in Luncarty, for instance with an order of 12,000 to 15,000 yards (11,000 to 14,000 metres) of "Soldiers' shirting". In 1752 he leveled 12 acres (5 hectares) of land in Luncarty to form bleachfields. By 1790 when William died, the Luncarty bleachfields covered 80 acres (32 hectares) and processed 500,000 yards (460,000 metres) of cloth annually. Second only to agriculture, linen manufacture was a major Scottish industry in the late 18th century — linen then became less important with the introduction of cotton.
The village is home to the football club Luncarty F.C., who play in the East of Scotland League Second Division.
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Luncarty (990) lies on Arbuthnott-Garvock Group, bedrock that formed in the Pragian. The rock here is sandstone with subordinate conglomerate, siltstone and mudstone.
The most striking detail preserved in the sources is the image of an anonymous Scottish countryman and his two sons halting an entire retreating army with nothing more than a ploughshare. Standing in a narrow pass through which the broken Scots were streaming in flight, this unnamed man reportedly shamed the fugitives into turning back and then led the counter-charge himself, crying out that help was at hand. The ruse worked: the Norse force, believing a fresh army had arrived, fled the field. As recompense, the king granted the man's descendants an earldom measured not by survey but by a falcon's flight, and the family coat of arms was deliberately shaped to recall the three shields that had, according to tradition, saved Scotland that day.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything a full report reveals about Battle of Luncarty (990)
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