Telegraph article about Battle of Fulford, 11 April 2013

Below is a copy of the article that appeared in todays edition of the Telegraph entitled 'Hands off our land'.

Please read and support if you can in any way , eg twitter, or facebook or email link to friends or interested parties, the more people know about this then the more we can oppose the building of houses on one of York's (and Yorkshires) most important battlefields.

New skirmish over site of the 'lost' battle of 1066

The site of a battle that opened the way for Kind Harold's defeat at Hastings is at the centre of a new conflict over plans to build hundreds of new houses. 

A re-enactor in Anglo-Saxon warrior costume at the presumed site of the battle of Fulford.  Photo: Guzelian

It is the forgotten battle of 1066 which shaped the course of English history. At Fulford, outside York, an invading Norse army defeated Anglo-Saxon forces, killing 5,000 men and, historians say, opening the way for King Harold’s defeat at Hastings to William the Conqueror.

But almost 1,000 years later, what is believed to be the site of the battle is at the centre of a conflict over plans for hundreds of new houses. The dispute over the site comes amid fears that more schemes will be given the go-ahead as a result of the Government’s relaxation of the planning laws.

Alan Smith, the chairman of Fulford parish council, said developing the site would be an “act of cultural vandalism”.

“No amount of money could ever restore the battlefield landscape once it is covered in concrete,” he said.

Local people have been opposing plans for the site, called Germany Beck, for three decades after it was earmarked for development in the Eighties. Outline planning permission for 700 homes was granted in 2005, but since then residents have fought a rearguard action and highlighted the battle’s part in history, producing their own version of the Bayeux Tapestry.

This month the local council will rule on a detailed planning application from Persimmon Homes. Campaigners have now asked the council to overturn the original planning approval and also want English Heritage to declare formally that Germany Beck is the site of the Battle of Fulford, and put it on its register of historically important battle sites in England. The question of whether it is a battle site has already been investigated by English Heritage, and declared inconclusive, but Chas Jones, the director of Fulford Battlefield Society, has secured a review.

Mr Jones said: “A civilised county does not destroy an irreplaceable asset.”

Simon Usher, of Persimmon Homes, said English Heritage made it clear the site does not meet requirements to be on the register of battlefields.

I include a commented response from someone within the Fulford Society.

earlmorcar
04/08/2013 05:27 AM
 

'' The article does not cover the evidence for the battlesite at Fulford which is compelling and makes the decison to destroy it incomprehensible.

The battelsite at Fulford is unique since it has provided battle debris. No battlesite of this era, such as Hastings, has yet produced a single credible piece of physical evidence. The reason so much has survived at Fulford is discussed below.

Reconstructing the landscape, by drilling hundreds of holes, allowed the literature to be better understood. For example, we can now see that 'King Harald and his best men' would have been in dead ground and out of sight of the English army so their attack would have been the surprise described.

The tidal flooding over the 1066 landscape would indeed have meant that the English responded slowly when King Harald counter-attacked, The peak tidal inrush would have drowned any warriors in the ditch and forced their bodies together like stepping stones, as the literature describes.

The finds are fascinating since they suggest that many of the war-bands set up their own metal recyling hearths right beside where the action had taken place and immediately after their victory. We can deduce this because we have found the hearth debris and many tools along with part-made, Viking-style weapons close to the glacial ditch where we already suspected the battle had been fought.

It was the arrival of King Harold from the south, and his complete victory at Stamford Bridge just 5 days after Fulford, that probably led the re-cycling work to be abandoned leaving so much material for us to find. Flooding would quickly have buried the hearths in an area of countryside that has been largely undisturbed for 1000 years.

The evidence from Fulford might also explain why battle debris has not been found at Hastings - It looks as if the victors normally did a good 'clean up' job. Sadly, when we revealed the information about the finds, which has been published by the Royal Armouries last year, we were prevented from doing any further work. It is now intended that the area should be destroyed without any further investigation.

This is shameful at some many levels.

As  matter of record English Heritage:
1 Informed the City Planners  in 2005 that the Germany Beck was the likely site of the battle of Fulford.
2 The expert panel on Battlefields '..very strongly recommended the desingation ..' of the site last year.
3 The designation decision relied on misleading information provided by the developers (rather than a site visit!) and this desingation decision is before the High Court at the moment, pending Judicial Review.

The flawed desingation decision nevertheless included, as a footnote, the statement that Germany Beck is the most likely location for this important battle. So the statement by Persimmon Homes, that 'English Heritage made it clear the site does not meet requirements to be on the register of battlefields' is far from the truth. The English Heritage decision was highly nuanced and relied on wrong information promoted by the developers which is doubtless why the Court has accepted the judicial challenge.

I would invite readers to use Google Earth to visit the battle site which is on the southern edge of York where they will note that the land has not been built-over and a visit to the site of the British Geological Survey will (with some serious searching) reveal the ditch that divided the armies in 1066 was carved when the last great ice-sheet retreated and has altered very little since then.
  
I write this as an 'intereted party', quoted in the article, who is working to save our heritage.''

Here is the full link to the short, but very important Telegraph article.
 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/9976305/New-skirmish-over-site-of-the-lost-battle-of-1066.html