Richard Uridge visits Bosworth Field, the site of the decisive battle in the War of the Roses. According to legend, the Battle of Bosworth was believed to have been fought around the heights of Ambion Hill, south of Market Bosworth. Leicester County Council were convinced and leased a farm on the site and set up the Battlefield Centre with laid out trails and signs explaining the progress of the battle. But some historians and locals take a different view, claiming that the real site of the battle was much closer to Stoke Golding and Dadlington, meaning the present English Heritage-registered battlefield is in the wrong place.

Richard Uridge meets Richard Mackinder, one of four Countryside Rangers based at the Bosworth Field Centre which is on a site seven miles square that has been registered by English Heritage. Mackinder is part of the team working to produce a conservation management plan for the battlefield site and looking at all the possible locations for the battle. To this end the team have been undertaking a systematic survey of 50km sq of land in the Bosworth-Stoke Golding area.

Bosworth Battlefield website

Richard III

Ray Gosling, was born on Manor farm in Dadlington. He farms a mixture of sheep and arable. His brother Phil runs a neighbouring farm and between them their fields cover an area where many believe the Battle of Bosworth actually took place. The land owned by Ray and his brother has been turning up reminders of the past for generations. A skeleton was found in a wood with the remains of armour, and he has ploughed up cannon balls and other historical items on his fields.

Richard goes to the nearby village of Stoke Golding where, legend has it, the villagers climbed the Church Tower and watched the Battle of Bosworth being fought out from the battlements. On Crown Hill, where it's believed the battle ended, he meets Jill Bourne, expert on Leicestershire place names and the history of landscape. She has written a book on the subject: Understanding Leicestershire & Rutland Place-Names published by:
Heart of Albion Press

The area is filled with places such as Sheepy Magna (a name that hints at the former marshy nature of the region), Sutton Cheney, Barton in the Beans, Far Coton and Market Bosworth. She explains how the area was named for its geography and for the people who inhabited it – from the Vikings to the Anglo Saxons.

Stoke Golding website

Richard comes down off Crown Hill to take shelter from the cold in the Tom Hare’s workshop. Tom has been working with willow, hazel and ash for about five years. Historically willow has been used for thousands of years and although a green man or figure might have been made annually in many parts of the UK, sculpting in willow is a contemporary form that uses traditional skills and techniques. Tom does a lot of public sculpture commissions and works with schools (teaching them traditional techniques). He shows Richard some of his work.

Finally, Richard crosses the Leicestershire border into Northamptonshire to meet Glenn Foard, Project Officer for the Battlefields Trust. Glenn has been working on Naseby Battlefield using modern scientific techniques to find out exactly how and where the battle was fought. Glenn hopes to apply the same techniques to Bosworth and to settle the argument over exactly where the battle took place once and for all.

The Battlefields Trust

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