Dunnichen ( gd, Dùn Neachdain, meaning the "Fort of Neachdan/Nechtan") is a small village in Angus, Scotland, situated between Letham and

Forfar Forfar ( sco, Farfar, gd, Baile Fharfair) is the county town of Angus, Scotland and the administrative centre for Angus Council, with a new multi-million pound office complex located on the outskirts of the town. As of 2021, the town has a pop ...

. It is close to

Dunnichen Hill Dunnichen ( gd, Dùn Neachdain, meaning the "Fort of Neachdan/Nechtan") is a small village in Angus, Scotland, situated between Letham and Forfar. It is close to Dunnichen Hill, at which the Battle of Dun Nechtain is popularly believed to have ...

, at which the

Battle of Dun Nechtain The Battle of Dun Nechtain or Battle of Nechtansmere ( Scottish Gaelic: ''Blàr Dhùn Neachdain'', Old Irish: ''Dún Nechtain'', Old Welsh: ''Gueith Linn Garan'', Modern Welsh: ''Gwaith Llyn Garan'', Old English: ''Nechtans mere'') was fough ...

is popularly believed to have been fought. The church is part of the parish of Letham, Dunnichen and Kirkden.

History

During the 18th and early 19th centuries it was the home of George Dempster, the agricultural reformer, author and founder of the neighbouring village of Letham. Many archaeological remains are associated with the village and its environs, including the

hillfort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

s on Dunnichen hill and Dunbarrow hill. In the early 19th century, the

Dunnichen Stone The Dunnichen Stone is a class I Pictish symbol stone that was discovered in 1811 at Dunnichen, Angus. It probably dates to the 7th century AD. Location The exact location at which the stone was found is unknown, but thought to be in a field i ...

, a class I Pictish standing stone was unearthed at East Mains of Dunnichen. This is now located at the Meffan Institute at

. An early local tradition, related by Headrick in the Second Statistical Account, claimed that the site was the location of the Battle of Camlann, where King Arthur fought Mordred.

A confused tradition prevails of a great battle having been fought on the East Mains of Dunnichen, between Lothus, King of the Picts, or his son Modred, and Arthur King of the Britons, in which that hero of romance was slain. Buchanan, no doubt, places the scene of that battle upon the banks of the Humber, in England. But it is probable that some battle had been fought here ..ref name ="headrick"/>

In 1810, antiquarian George Chalmers identified that site as the probable location of the

on 20 May 685, where the

Picts The Picts were a group of peoples who lived in what is now northern and eastern Scotland (north of the Firth of Forth) during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and what their culture was like can be inferred from e ...

, led by King Bridei Mac Bili conclusively defeated a

Northumbria la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria , common_name = Northumbria , status = State , status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...

n army, led by King Ecgfrith, resulting in Ecgfrith's death. For many years, Chalmer's theory has been accepted by historians, but this has recently been called into some doubt.

Festival

In 1985, a festival based at nearby Letham Village Hall was organised by Robbie the Pict to commemorate the 1300th anniversary of the Battle of Dun Nechtain. The festival was initially received with some enthusiasm by locals and the festival became an annual event, highlights including the appearance of

The Waterboys The Waterboys are a folk rock band formed in Edinburgh in 1983 by Scottish musician Mike Scott. The band's membership, past and present, has been composed mainly of musicians from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England. Mike Scott has remained ...

in 1987. In its early years, festival-goers used an unofficial campsite located at the top of Dunnichen Hill, which was tolerated by local residents. This grew year by year into a

free festival Free festivals are a combination of music, arts and cultural activities, for which often no admission is charged, but involvement is preferred. They are identifiable by being multi-day events connected by a camping community without centralised c ...

, much larger than the official events in Letham Village Hall, attracting at its peak around 2,500 people. The gathering on the hill became the main attraction for the vast majority of attendees, with a number of large

Sound Systems In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...

playing throughout the night. While the bulk of the festival-goers stayed for the weekend, a core group of several hundred

New Age Travellers New Age travellers, not completely synonymous with but otherwise shortened to New Travellers (often referred to as "crusties"), are people in the United Kingdom generally espousing New Age beliefs along with the hippie culture of the 1960s (over ...

occupied the hill for several weeks at a time.Hansard Debate 1996 The growing unpopularity of the unofficial festival with residents in Dunnichen and Letham led to the discontinuation of the official event after 1991. By this time, however, the unofficial event had taken on a life of its own. The festival was mentioned during the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...

debate of the

Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (c.33) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It introduced a number of changes to the law, most notably in the restriction and reduction of existing rights, clamping down on unlicensed r ...

,Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, House of Lords debate and two years later in a

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

Hansard debate. In that year, 1996, violence had erupted when police had attempted to confiscate the largest sound system following numerous complaints by residents. Numerous other instances of anti-social behavior by festival-goers were listed, including the killing of livestock by travellers' dogs, including a number of sheep and 2,000 pheasant chicks.

Notes

References

* * * * {{authority control Villages in Angus, Scotland