The pilgrims who regularly leave flowers on the stone slab marking the spot where King Harold fell in 1066 will have to walk a little further: the stone has been moved six metres to the east in the ruins of Battle Abbey, reflecting new research for the 950th anniversary of the battle which changed English history.
The new site for the stone is the third confidently identified as the fatal spot – according to one near contemporary account, where Harold was hacked to pieces with his entrails “split upon the ground” rather than the arrow in the eye of tradition – which ended the battle fought between the English and the invading Normans, on 14 October 1066.
“The whole history of locating the site of the altar of the abbey church, which tradition says was built exactly on the spot where Harold’s standard was erected and where he fell, is a comedy of errors,” Roy Porter, senior properties curator of English Heritage, said.
William of Malmesbury wrote in 1125 – just within living memory of the battle – that the church was built by the penitent William “on the very spot where according to tradition among the piled heaps of corpses Harold was found”.
An altar site was discovered in an Edwardian garden in the early 20th century, and duly marked as the site of Harold’s last gasp, before it was realised that it was actually the 13th century extension to the Norman abbey. The present memorial flagstone was installed in the early 1980s, and the outline of the original abbey marked in the turf, before research established that the high altar must have been further to the east.
Harold is said to have been buried at Waltham Abbey, after his wife offered William the weight of his corpse in gold, but another tradition says that the mangled remains were actually identified among the dead by his mistress, Edith Swan-neck, who recognised them “by certain secret marks”.
The best view of the landscape of 1066 can be enjoyed for the first time by visitors who climb the 66 steps to the roof of the great medieval gateway, still the highest point in the town, which survived as the entrance to a magnificent Tudor country house when the abbey was broken up under Henry VIII.
The bird’s eye view, Porter pointed out, makes it easier to understand the battle site, extremely confusing at ground level after 950 years of being farmed, quarried and built on. From on high the view still encircles the forest protecting Harold’s back, the long ridge on which his shield wall was formed, the land falling away steeply protecting his left flank, and the high ground towards Hastings from which William’s army marched.
“The one place we know the armies weren’t is the low ground below the abbey, where most visitors understandably think the battle must have been fought.”
To add to the confusion, the annual recreation of the battle by costumed re-enactors, which will be fought with increased fervour in October, is held in the wrong place, since the town and the abbey ruins occupy the true site.
A new exhibition inside the gatehouse recounts the course of the battle, including the tradition – recounted by a later Norman sympathising chronicler – that William’s men spent the eve of battle praying and attending mass, while Harold’s, already knackered by an extraordinary forced march after their victory over the invading Norwegian king’s army in Yorkshire, spent the night getting rollickingly drunk.
Their march, but not their hangover, will be recreated in a three week trek by volunteers who will leave Stamford Bridge on 25 September, some on foot and some lucky aristocrats on horseback, to arrive at Battle in time for the anniversary. Other anniversary events are planned at castles and abbeys across England, where in many cases construction started within a few years of 1066 as the Normans stamped their regime change into the fabric of their new kingdom.
Many anniversary events are also being planned across the channel in William’s Normandy homeland. The most famous strip cartoon in the world, the Bayeux tapestry, is on permanent display in the town which gave it its name – though it was probably embroidered in England, commissioned by William’s half brother Bishop Odo. The English language text at the 1066 sites and exhibitions is generally carefully neutral – but the anniversary is being marketed under the more triumphalist slogan “Bayeux Bessin – Normand et Conquerant!”
- The Battle of Hastings exhibition, and access to the roof of the gatehouse, open to the public from 15 July
