A COMMEMORATIVE wreath paying tribute to thousands of men and women caught up in one of Scotland’s longest sieges will be laid next week.

The Siege of Haddington Research Group (SHRG), under the auspices of Haddington’s History Society and in conjunction with Scottish Battlefields Trust and Blooming Haddington, will lay a commemorative wreath at Lady Kitty’s Garden on Tuesday at 2.30pm.

Thousands of men and women were caught up in the great siege of Haddington that began in June 1548 and ended in September the following year.

Historians believe that the impact the war had on the town and East Lothian was devastating.

Great areas of the region were burnt, ransacked and plundered, and the economy was left in ruins.

The commemoration is part of the campaign to raise the profile of the siege and to fund the search for the location of the fortifications.

The fort, built in three months by the English, was a design called ‘trace italienne’ that was new to Scotland and the first to surround an entire town north of the Border.

Meanwhile, next Friday (July 1), Haddington’s History Society will be hosting a ‘Siege Symposium’ at the Trinity Centre, the site of some of the heaviest fighting, at which an invited team of experts will be reviewing the clues and evidence as to the exact location of the fortress.

It is hoped that the findings will be published later this year and enough interest raised to assure the sponsorship of a series of strategic surveys designed to locate the fortress.