Battle of Haddon Rig
1542 battle between Scotland and England
The Battle of Haddon Rig was fought about three miles east of Kelso, in the Scottish Borders, between Scotland and England on 24 August 1542, during the reigns of King James V of Scotland and Henry VIII of England. The Scottish army was led by the George Gordon, 4th Earl of Huntly and the English army was led by Robert Bowes, Deputy Warden of the English East March. It was a significant Scottish victory, but it was overshadowed by the disastrous Scottish defeat at the Battle of Solway Moss in November.
Location
Haddon Rig is a large glacial ridge (rig) occupying gently sloping land between Sprouston and the River Tweed in the north, and Lempitlaw and the Cheviot Hills in the south. It is relatively flat on its summit which lies at around 160 m above sea level. The town of Kelso and settlement of Heiton lie 5 km to the west, and 7.5 km to the south-west respectively.
William Roy depicted "a small medieval settlement at Hadden surrounded by agricultural land but there is no reference to Haddon Rig. However, it is named in Crawford and Brooke's 1843 county map of Roxburghshire. The First Edition Ordnance Survey (1859) map depicts a woodland plantation Haddonrig Wood, within an area of land called Haddon Rig. To the west of Haddon rig wood is a small circular area of woodland named Jockscairn plantation, the naming of which may have some association with the battle, or its commemoration.
“Battle of Haddon Rig” enters the record as 1542 battle between Scotland and England. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Battle, Haddon and battle can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q11688184. Authority coordinates are 55.600, -2.350. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1542, 1843 and 1859.
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This entry incorporates text from “Battle of Haddon Rig” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.