News
HISTORY NEWSLETTER APRIL 2026
Our Next Meeting
Our next meeting will be on Thursday 16th April in the Wynne Room at Battle Memorial Hall starting at 7.30pm. The lecture, entitled “Archaeology at Bodiam : Exploring the Landscape and the Bodiam 100 Project”, will be delivered by Nathalie Cohen. Nathalie is the President of the Royal Archaeological Institute and works for the National Trust as the regional archaeologist for properties in Greater London, Kent, and East & West Sussex. She worked for over 15 years at the Museum of London Archaeology Service as the Unit’s Archivist, as a field archaeologist on excavations, and as a specialist in community engagement. Members may have met her if they attended one of the archaeological site tours she led at Bodiam last summer.
‘Bodiam Dig: the road to 100’ is a three-year project exploring the buried archaeology of the site leading up to the 100th anniversary in 2026 of its being bequeathed to the National Trust. While the 14th-century castle forms the central focus, the wider landscape has been less well explored. This project aims to uncover more information about the history of the landscape around the castle, focusing on the potential for Roman activity and of the land management and use of the area close to the River Rother over time. The National Trust collection at Bodiam Castle holds items from all periods, such as a Neolithic polished stone axe and a late Iron Age cremation urn, Roman tiles, a medieval pilgrim badge, fragments of pottery and leather, and more recent artefacts like clay pipes and coins, all of which help to tell the tales of those who lived, worked and visited this place. In its earliest days, when digs were less tightly-managed than now, Battle Historical Society undertook its own excavations at Bodiam and some of the finds from that work are on display at Battle Museum.
Tracy Borman
It was, of course, a pity that Tracy Borman was unable to deliver last month’s fascinating lecture in person but we hope that the live stream in the Memorial Hall went a long way towards assuaging the disappointment. The Society is grateful to the Hall volunteers who supported our own volunteers at short notice to facilitate the technical set-up for the live stream.
Lecture Recordings
Whenever possible, a recording of our monthly lecture is made available for a week after the meeting on the Society’s private YouTube channel. A link to the recording, once available, is sent to all members who are asked to treat the link as personal to them and not to share it. These arrangements are part of the Society’s agreement with lecturers and should be respected.
While the Society will provide a recording whenever it can, there are occasions when it is not possible; some lecturers withhold permission for recording and technical issues can sometimes intervene.
Date for Your Diaries
Our May lecture will be delivered by our Chair, Charlotte Moore, on Thursday 21st May in the Wynne Room at Battle Memorial Hall starting at 7.30pm. Her lecture, entitled “Diaries of a Battle Doctor in the 1940s”, and based on the diaries of her grandfather, will paint a vivid picture of what it was like to be a doctor in mid 20th-century Battle.
Full details of the 75th anniversary season’s programme are available here.
Change to the July Meeting Date
Looking further ahead, please not that in order to align with the Battle Festival, our July meeting will be held on Wednesday 22nd July not Wednesday 8th as previously advertised.
2024-25 Journal
Copies of the 2024-25 Journal are now available and can be collected from the front desk at any BDHS meeting. And if you haven’t already had one, then at the same time you can take away your free 75th anniversary commemorative bookmark.
Battle Museum
Battle Museum of Local History opened for the 2026 season on Monday 30th March. The special exhibition this year focuses on gunpowder plot celebrations in the town and the role of the Battel Bonfire Boyes.
History in the News – a digest of recent reporting
If any member spots an interesting history article, just email its details, or scan of it, to webadmin@battlehistorysociety.com and we’ll feature an edited version of it in the next Newsletter.
Professor’s research reopens the history of 1066: Professor Tom Licence headlines our news stories again this month. Our report in March featured his metal-detecting talents and now he’s back in the news for his research into the way Harold transported his arm to the battles of Stamford Bridgae and Hastings.
Licence, Professor of Mediaeval History and Literature at the University of East Anglia, argues that the traditional 1066 narrative is a Victorian misunderstanding, stemming from a misinterpretation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Looking again at the Chronicle and other source documents, Licence contends that Harold’s sending his fleet “home” meant not that he disbanded it prior to the Viking and Norman invasions but rather that he returned it to its base in London. There it would have remained operational and capable of supporting troop movements. His research suggests that King Harold was able to transport his army by ship to the Humber to fight Harald Hardrada’s army before sailing it back south to face William on Senlac Hill rather than undertaking a near 200-mile forced march.
This reinterpretation reframes the events of 1066, highlighting Anglo-Saxon maritime capability and is supported by Professor Michael Lewis of the British Museum, ahead of the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition but some other scholars remain to be convinced. Dr Marc Morris, mediaeval historian, author and broadcaster, is sceptical, writing “had [King Harold] pulled off such an audacious feat, transporting thousands of men by sea in a matter of days, it seems likely that at least one chronicler, Norman or English, would have mentioned it”.
The debate will no doubt continue.
https://www.medievalists.net/2026/03/did-king-harold-sail-to-hastings-new-study-sparks-debate-among-historians/
http://www.marcmorris.org.uk/2026/03/did-king-harold-really-sail-to-battle.html
Musketeer d’Artagnan’s remains believed to be found: More than 350 years after the death of legendary French musketeer d’Artagnan, his remains may have been found under the floor of a Dutch church. Jos Valke, who is deacon at St Peter and Paul Church in Maastricht, helped unearth the skeleton and is almost certain that the remains belong to Charles de Batz de Castelmore, a close aide to France’s Sun King Louis XIV, who was known as Count d’Artagnan, and who is believed to have been hit in the throat by a musket ball as Louis XIV sought to capture Maastricht.
D’Artagnan was killed during the Siege of Maastricht in 1673 but later immortalised in the adventure stories of Alexandre Dumas as a friend of the Three Musketeers. His remains were long rumoured to have been buried in the church; nobody, however, had previously dug under the floor but as a few tiles had been broken it was decided to have a look.
According to archaeologists, the skeleton was discovered beneath where the altar table had stood 200 years ago. There were several indications that the skeleton belonged to the Sun King’s right-hand man; he was buried on sacred ground below where the altar was; the bullet that put an end to his life was found; and a coin from 1660 was in his grave. Nevertheless, while expectations for the identification are high, DNA confirmation of the skeleton’s identity is yet to be obtained. A sample has been taken from the remains and is currently being analysed in Germany. Some of the bones have also been taken to the Dutch city of Deventer to assess the skeleton’s age, where it is from and whether it is male or female.
Although d’Artagnan was modelled on a historical figure, the three musketeers were fictional characters who may have been inspired by three members of an elite corps who provided protection for the king and took part in military action.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2rew2dgzzo
Manchester golf club discovers hidden wine cellar: Traps and bunkers are among the usual golf course hazards but a sinkhole over an undiscovered cellar was a surprise for groundskeepers at the Davyhulme Park Golf Club, in Urmston, Manchester. They were investigating a dip in the turf on the 13th hole when they discovered a brick chamber dating back more than a century. At one end of the cellar was a blocked door, potentially leading on to a bigger set of structures.
Inside the vault, the team found dozens of historic wine and port bottles, believed to date back to the original Davyhulme Hall, a grand manor house which once stood on the land. Davyhulme Hall was built by the Hulme family in the 12th Century and was inherited by Robert Henry Norreys in 1844. On his death in 1887 it was bequeathed to his nephew J. B. N. Entwisle of Rochdale, who tried unsuccessfully to sell it. The Hall was then demolished in 1888, some twenty years before the golf course was developed.
The club revealed its discovery on social media with a video showing the underground cellar. Site managers say that the area around the 13th hole remains cordoned off while structural engineers and historians from the local council assess the site.
https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2026-03-03/golf-club-discovers-hidden-victorian-wine-cellar-beneath-13th-hole
Online Archive Update – September 2021
Exciting news! We now have a great new resource available online. The original Battle Town Index, identified by advisers from the National Archives as potentially the most important item in our archive, was recorded on a series of Index cards. Members of our Society started the Index with the aim of recording information on the use and occupants of all the buildings in the town centre. Information, gleaned mainly from trade and other directories, was recorded up to the early 1990s. The online version of the Index has been edited so that beyond 1940 only information on businesses and a few private individuals reasonably assumed now dead have been included in the online version. This complies with the recommendations of the National Archives on publication of material which is covered by the Data Protection Act. It still, however, provides a wealth of information and is found in our online archive as a series of searchable .pdf files. Go to our archive page The Battle & District Historical Society Archives http://bdhsarchives.com and search for Battle Town Index to see the available .pdf files. When you have downloaded the file you can find the search function by clicking on the magnifying glass symbol and entering your search term.
Website news
The British Library is going to archive our website in the UK Web Archive and to make it publicly available via that route. The UK Web Archive was established in 2004 to capture and archive websites from the UK domain and across the web, responding to the challenge of a digital black hole in the nations memory. It contains specially selected websites that represent different aspects of UK heritage on the web, as well as important global events. We work closely with leading international institutions to collect and permanently preserve the web, and the open UK Web Archive can be seen at http://www.webarchive.org.uk/.
Also an on-line version of the BDHS Journal for 2019 has been added – see Previous BDHS Journals
Meet our new President
Our new President, Professor David Bates, gave his inaugural lecture entitled ‘Writing a Biography of William the Conqueror’ at a very well attended meeting on 16 January. His presentation was well received and afterwards David had the opportunity to meet many members of the Society and be photographed with all members of the BDHS Committee. He also gave another lecture – by Zoom on 15th October. This was about ‘New thoughts on the Bayeux Tapestry’.
Meeting with the new Dean of Battle
The new Dean of Battle, the Very Reverend Lee Duckett, together with his wife Ange, has been presented with some books from BDHS members Keith Foord and Tina Greene, which are concerned with the Church and the Battle Tapestry, currently on display there. BDHS hopes to develop some mutually beneficial projects based on the church’s archives and the use of the church environmental space for exhibitions etc..
The Dark Ages’ greatest Christmas relics were at Battle Abbey
The Guardian and other media have reported that a medieval manuscript listing Battle Abbey’s relics has been analysed and transcribed for the first time by English Heritage historian Michael Carter. It reveals that the relics were the most prestigious given to any abbey, more significant even than those at Westminster Abbey.
A report on this can be found at https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/dec/18/a-bit-of-manger-st-nicholass-bone-the-dark-ages-greatest-christmas-relics.Michael Carter’s paper can also be found in full using this reference: Carter, M: The Relics of Battle Abbey: A Fifteenth-Century Inventory at The Huntington Library, San Marino The Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies 8 (2019)
Video: The Battle of Hastings. No – the Battle of Battle!!
BDHS Members Michael Hodge, Alan Judd and Peter Greene, working in close cooperation with Natasha Williams of English Heritage, have produced a video explaining where the Battle of Hastings actually took place and why we have a town called Battle. The video has been released by Mirador Television and can be found via Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDe8uyKXL9Y
Amazing find by BDHS
In the process of changing over BDHS archivists Gina Doherty and David Sawyer unexpectedly turned up an old small parchment that appeared to originate from Abbot Richard Tovey of Battle Abbey in 1493. Christopher Whittick of ESRO confirmed its authenticity This is a ‘pass’ entitling the carrier to travel freely in England and quoting the old charter rights of the abbey. Gina has produced an excellent summary of this find which can be read in Section A3.4 of Collectanea. BDHS has also given a facsimile copy to Battle Abbey for future display.
L-R: Neil Clephane-Cameron, Keith Foord, George Kiloh, Gina Doherty, Natasha Williams (English Heritage) handing the parchment to Christopher Whittick (Vice-President of BDHS). Picture Peter Greene