The Spirit of Bannockburn: Next Year, a Referendum on Independence Will Determine Scotland's Future, but the Country's Artists Have Already Launched Their Own Fight for Freedom

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No one knows where exactly the battle of Bannockburn was fought. Historians and archaeologists disagree. Some say the killing was done on the low flatland, or "carse", where the Bannockburn flows into the River Forth; others say the higher ground, now covered in housing schemes, is more likely. We do know where Robert the Bruce planted his standard and set up his command post. It's a few raised acres from where he would have been able to see everyone's comings and goings. It was much more wooded 700 years ago, and Bruce and his men had spent months in the woods, training and preparing for the day the English appeared.

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The site is now in the care of the National Trust for Scotland (NTS). It's a national monument with a visitor centre and a clutter of memorials. I went there for the first time last September, at the invitation of the NTS. Finding the place was tricky; I had to cycle through housing schemes with speed bumps and corner shops. The site of the critical moment in Scotland's history, when it secured its independence and confirmed its national identity, is hidden in plain view, sharing a driveway with a budget hotel. It's not so much a place as an idea, of course. An attitude. I can't recall how small I was when I first heard the name "Bannockburn".

Seven or eight poets had been invited to this meeting, which was almost the last to be held at the visitor centre. It is now being demolished to make way for a new one. The new centre--we were shown the plans--will feature vernacular Scottish architecture, with snecked rubble walls, and will be constructed from local materials.

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Inside, loud and interactive displays with moving figures will give visitors some small sense of the realities of medieval warfare. There will be plenty of "interpretation" and visitors will be reminded of Bannockburn's crucial place in Scottish history. Public information will amplify the site's resonances: freedom, resistance, triumph against the odds. Then, ears ringing and passions raised, visitors will go outside into the quiet, fresh air and make their way up the incline to the place where Robert the Bruce set his standard, and where stands a statue of him in batdedress, mounted on a magnificent warhorse, staring defiantly south.

The area is laid out as parkland, with avenues of trees, and it is used as such by local people. Casual paths lead to the nearby housing estates; dogs are walked …