visiting historic battlefields

**matteus the inbred** · 09-07-2006, 12:10

I like to visit battlefields too...all English so far though.

Marston Moor, 1644, has a nice monument and guide to the largest pitched battle of the ECW. Close to it is the biggest battle in the Wars of the Roses... Towton, 1461, nicely accessible and topographically rewarding, the local church is also worth a visit, as it has the grave of Lord Dacres, allegedly buried on his horse.
Hastings, 1066, I've done re-enactment stuff here, it's quite good but a bit touristy, lots to see though the actual field is a bit over grown as I recall.
Flodden, 1513, panoramic but the weather was awful.

Many of England's battlefields are now covered with housing estates sadly, I'd like to visit the ACW ones, and perhaps also some of the major Peninsular war fields, many of which seem to be in good condition.

**highlanddave** · 09-07-2006, 19:04

wakizashi those were interesting battles quite all over the world. you must get to travel quite a bit to get so diverse areas to go to.

i saw a special on the balaclava battle as they were doing some archeology. they had quite a hard time since almost the whole of the crimea is strewn with world war 2 stuff. they showed a close up of the ground and it was chock full of bullet casings from machine guns. that makes using metal detection equipment a little useless.

off topic: yeah, i made member today!

**Samurai Waki** · 09-08-2006, 21:25

@ Highlanddave

Yes. Sorry. Balaclava.

I really got on a travelling kick about 2 years ago. I think I was home for a total of about a week within those 2 years, so there was plenty of going about the world, and having the odd chance of visiting someplace historical, even though thats not really why I was travelling.

**highlanddave** · 09-09-2006, 05:07

matteus the inbred did you get a chance to get a pic of yourself or the battle groups while doing the hastings reinactment? that would be cool to see the battle groups doing their thing.

that is okay if you only see local battlefields, they are interesting too. around me they are all american civil war sites. the only really old one is actually interesting is called blood mountain in north georgia. a battle occured there before white men ever landed in america and the indians living there knew nothing about it either. all they know is a ton of arrowpoints are everywhere. so, sometime in pre-history there was a big battle there between indian tribes.

**rotorgun** · 09-09-2006, 06:09

Hey highlanddave, how close are you to Chicamagua battlefield? I would really like to try and make it there this fall? Maybe we could meet and see it together. It was a brilliant victory for the South, despite the incompetence of General Bragg during the battle.

Regards,

**highlanddave** · 09-09-2006, 16:26

hi rotorgun, i have sent you a pm.

**matteus the inbred** · 09-11-2006, 10:10

Originally Posted by highlanddave

matteus the inbred did you get a chance to get a pic of yourself or the battle groups while doing the hastings reinactment? that would be cool to see the battle groups doing their thing.

that is okay if you only see local battlefields, they are interesting too. around me they are all american civil war sites. the only really old one is actually interesting is called blood mountain in north georgia. a battle occured there before white men ever landed in america and the indians living there knew nothing about it either. all they know is a ton of arrowpoints are everywhere. so, sometime in pre-history there was a big battle there between indian tribes.

Nah, I was too busy trying not to get trodden on by horses!
I was at the Last Big One, as it's known, in 2000...this year will be The Next Big One, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_...gs_reenactment

Britain's covered in funny little battles, I find out about new ones all the time, my folks live on the Welsh borders and there's plenty down there. Went to the Mortimer's Cross (1460) re-enactment last year, but only as a spectator (I quit ages ago after some fool poked a sword into my eye socket...)

**highlanddave** · 09-11-2006, 15:53

matteus the inbred thanks for the link. if i lived in britain i definitely would attend next months reinactment at hastings. to everyone in britain this is a shout out:

"hey, in october see the reinactment at hastings!"