A leading archaeologist united with environmental campaigners yesterday to demand changes to laws protecting historic sites, amid fears that one of Scotland's most famous battlefields could be defaced by huge electricity pylons.

Dr Tony Pollard, of the Two Men In a Trench TV programme, has joined protests over a proposed 160-mile power line which some fear would destroy the site of the battle of Sheriffmuir, which signalled the bloody denouement of the 1715 Jacobite rebellion.
Sheriffmuir joins a long list of battlefields, including Bannockburn (1314), Falkirk (1746), Pinkie, near Musselburgh (1547), and Kilsyth (1645), which have been threatened by modern developments.

The A9 road was also built through the centre of the battlefield of Killiecrankie (1689) in the 1970s.
The new threat to Sheriffmuir has triggered calls for tighter legislation as experts are concerned that a £200m replacement power line would destroy the site, near Dunblane. Virginia Wills, a local resident, said: "These pylons are almost two-and-a-half times the size of normal pylons and they would run right through the centre of the battlefield.

"It would be a tragedy if the site were lost for future generations. The foundations (of the pylons) alone are the size of Olympic swimming pools."