Shotts Covenanter Flag

The flag was in private hands until 2025 when it was presented to Airdrie Reformed Presbyterian Church. According to J. H. Thomson, writing in Martyr Graves of Scotland:

When about half-a-mile from the station, we turned aside to Loan, a farm tenanted by a Mr Orr, in search of a Covenanters' flag. We soon found we had come to the right place, and the farmer took down a bag from the top of a wardrobe and brought the flag out of it. It is somewhat similar to the flag at Lochgoin, although a little smaller and in a better state of preservation. It is browner in appearance, but this has arisen from its present possessor very wisely having forbidden its being washed. The tradition is that it was at the battle of Bothwell Bridge. It originally belonged to a family of the name of Thomson, before it passed into the hands of the ancestry of the present possessor. It is made of two pieces of linen sewed together, and is five feet six inches in length by four feet six inches in breadth. The inscription is;

Open Bible.     Crown.

verbum Dei.     Thistle.

For The Pairish Of Shots

For Reformation In Church

And State According To

The Word Of God And Our

Covenants.

It is pierced in one or two places by what looks to have been small shot.’