Return 

Battle of Hastings Fingerprints & Wargames

A teacher once asked us: “If there are 128 players in the Wimbledon Men’s Singles draw, how many matches are played?” After laboriously working it out (answer 127), someone piped up, “It’s obvious, everyone plays exactly one match in which they lose, apart from the winner”. Things look different when you know the answer. Half of Momentous Britain like to play wargames. The other half had spent forty years working out where the Battle of Hastings was fought, when one of them piped up, “It’s obvious, blah, blah, …”. Thanks a bunch.

Most of this work explains our interpretation of accounts written soon after the battle. We know this makes it read like a series of wild guesses that lead to fanciful conclusions. Our wargaming brethren pointed out that our proposed battlefield is likely to be correct based only on geography and a few relatively unambiguous statements from the contemporary accounts. True, there are less compelling alternative interpretations for most of these statements, but it seems to us that they have been fudged to prevent contradicting the traditional battlefield or the traditional narrative.

Two of these statements uniquely match our proposed battlefield at Sedlescombe, circumstantial evidence so strong that it could be used in court. We refer to them as the ‘battlefield fingerprints’. If you accept them, our more speculative interpretations can be viewed in the way they are intended: To colour the events rather than to define them.

Fingerprint 1 is the Chronicle of Battle Abbey’s description of an immense ditch at the battlefield. Searle translates: “Just where the fighting was going on, and stretching for a considerable distance, an immense ditch yawned. It may have been a natural cleft in the earth or perhaps it had been hollowed out by storms … this deep pit has been named for the accident, and today it is called Malfosse”. There is no reason its monk author would be an expert in geography or industrial landscapes, but he recognised this pit was not a fluvial valley. In this area, an immense deep non-fluvial pit would almost certainly have been made by Roman iron ore mining.

To put this pit into geographic context, Brevis Relatio says that the Norman battle camp was: “opposite that hill upon which Harold with his army was, there under arms”, and that William waited there: “surveying the army of the English” with a soldier who says that Harold was: “in the midst of the dense array, which was before them on the top of the hill, for he thinks he can see Harold’s Standard there”. Poitiers says the Normans: “... began slowly to climb the steep slope” to the battlefield. Baudri of Bourgueil says: “The enemy, discarding their horses, form themselves into a close wedge”.

The only likely reason for a wedge-shaped shield wall is that it followed the contours of a spur. If the English shield wall was on any normal spur, the Normans would have attacked downhill from its parent ridge. Something prevented them doing so at the battlefield because Poitiers and others say that the Normans attacked up a steep slope. The English were only at their camp for two days. They were only at the battlefield for a few hours. They did not have time to dig significant fortifications. Our proposed battlefield at Hurst Lane near Sedlescombe was the only spur on the Hastings Peninsula, or nearby, that was protected upslope by a pre-existing precipitous-sided immense pit, the Malfosse (see LiDAR above).

Fingerprint 2 is Wace’s description of the Norman advance from Harold's perspective. Taylor translates: “The Normans appeared, advancing over the ridge of a rising ground; and the first division of their troops moved onwards along the hill and across a valley … another division, still larger, came in sight, close following upon the first; and they wheeled towards another side of the field, forming together as the first body had done.” This placed them below the English shield wall, ready to advance up Poitier’s steep slope.

Wheeling is a military manoeuvre to rotate a body of men to a new orientation. It means that the Normans arrived at the battlefield slope from the side. Thus, it was not possible for the Normans to advance straight towards the battlefield from the Norman battle camp, most probably because there was a river or bog in between. The Norman battle camp was visible from the battlefield. Therefore, whatever route the Normans took to cross the river or bog took them out of sight and on the far side of a hill from the battlefield. The Normans appeared on the crest of this hill. It must have been a ridge or spur because the Normans marched along the crest, then crossed the valley between this hill and the battlefield spur, then wheeled around to face the shield wall.

There were scores of spurs and ridges on or near the Hastings Peninsula, but only five roads or tracks that crossed low ground: a probable track that crossed the Brede on a ford at Whatlington, a probable track that crossed the Brede on a low-tide ford below Brede village, a probable track that crossed Dolham Ditch on a ford near Ashenden, the Roman road between Sedlescombe and Westfield that crossed Forge Stream near Spraysbridge, and the Rochester Roman road which crossed the Brede at Sedlescombe. Only the last of these can match Wace’s description of the Norman advance (cyan dots on the diagram above). It fixes the Norman camp at Cottage Lane and the battlefield at our proposed location in Sedlescombe.

Figure 1: 1066 coastline showing Roman roads (black) and trackways (red)

The essential tools for our wargaming exercise are a Roman road map (Figure 1), a topographical map of east Sussex (Figure 2), Domesday, a primary school understanding of medieval history, and the knowledge of one conceit, to which we will return momentarily. Note that the coastal geography of south-eastern England has changed out of all recognition since medieval times. In those days, modern Hastings was on a triangular peninsula bounded by the sea to the south, the Ash Bourne estuary to the west and the Brede estuary to the north – see Figure 2. Between it and London was the immense and sparsely populated Andredsweald forest, some 120 miles wide and 60 miles deep. Its boundary, shown in green dots on Figure 1, is implied by absence of Domesday manors, or manors with no meadowland and ploughland.  

The only routes across the Andredsweald were two Roman roads – RR13 and RR14 – augmented perhaps by some ancient tracks, shown in black and red respectively. Indeed, these roads and tracks provided the only feasible way for armies to get around the battle theatre because most of the region was low-lying bog or woodland too dense for carts. It is difficult to believe that the camps or the action strayed far from these roads and tracks.

Domesday provides a baseline. It reports that large swathes of the Hastings Peninsula were either ‘wasted’ or that they lost most of their value at the time of the invasion. The Normans must have plundered and/or raided there, which means that the Norman camp was on the Hastings Peninsula.

Harold was in Westminster. There were two possible routes to the battle theatre. The easterly route takes Watling Street to Rochester, then Margary 13 to the Hastings Peninsula. The westerly route takes Margary 14 from Peckham to Uckfield, then cuts east across the Andredsweald on the LIN-129 trackway from Uckfield to Rye, branching at Heathfield to join the LIN-130 trackway towards the Hastings Peninsula.

There is no wargaming advantage in taking the westerly route, and plenty of drawbacks. It provides no opportunity to muster with troops coming from Kent or with huscarls arriving by boat up the Rother. It is 25km long, a two-day march, with no substantial settlements or farms for food and shelter. There is no evidence that the tracks were maintained after the Romans left, which would make them unusable for carts. Even if they were maintained, droving cross-traffic would make them almost unusable for carts. In either case, army paraphernalia would have to be brought on hundreds of donkeys. Wargamers would take the quick and simple easterly route. The Rother might slow the march, if it was not crossed by a causeway and bridge, but it would still have been quicker than crossing the Andredsweald on LIN-129 and LIN-130, especially as the King could requisition every boat and oarsman in the region to help.

Figure 2: East Sussex geography and topology, with and without Roman roads

The Normans were on the Hastings Peninsula, the English heading south on the Rochester Roman road. The River Brede lay between. A wargamer playing the English would have the choice of crossing the Brede or camping before reaching it. There is no way they would cross the Brede before the other side had been thoroughly scouted, for fear of getting ambushed at the river on horribly adverse ground. A wargamer would camp north of the Brede while the other side was thoroughly scouted.

There are no benefits and several potential drawbacks of straying far from the Roman road. One risk is that the Normans occupy the road to trap the English on open ground. Another is that reinforcements might get lost or ambushed. A third is that heavily laden carts cannot be used off road. A wargamer would camp adjacent to the Roman road, if possible.  

The last favourable camp terrain adjacent to the Roman road before the Brede was what we refer to as Great Sanders ridge (G on Figure 2), roughly one mile north of the Brede crossing. It was good camp terrain: woody, close to running water, big enough to accommodate the English army. It was protected by steep slopes to the north and a string of immense ditches to the south. It overlooked two of the Brede crossing points and was just 500m from the location of modern Sedlescombe church which overlooked the other two. It seems to be a safe distance from the nearest possible Norman position.

But then there is the conceit. When Harold chose the English camp location, he thought the Norman army was weak and footbound. He had no reason to fear a Norman attack on Great Sanders ridge. It was 5km from safety at the Rother. The Normans had to be least 2km further away because they were south of the Brede. If Harold decided to withdraw, he would have thought there was no way the Normans could catch 2km uphill over 5km on foot. In reality, they had several thousand experienced knights with trained war horses that could trot to Cripps Corner (C) before the English could run there, thereby cutting off a retreat and catching the English in the open. This conceit is not an invention. It is explained in Roman de Rou. We will return to it in the main text.

If the wargamers are right, the real battle narrative is as simple as it could possibly be. The English camped on Great Sanders ridge, at what Harold thought to be a safe distance from the Norman army. To his horror, he discovered the next morning that William had a huge cavalry that put them in range of attack and prevented an organised withdrawal. The English army was effectively trapped. William spent that day scouting the English camp and devising a plan of attack. He attacked the English camp at dawn the following day. Unlike other battle theories, this does not rely on idiotic battle tactics, suicidal surprise attacks or camping at ridiculously poor defensive positions. It just needs Harold to have one intelligence oversight.

For any sceptics thinking that a similar argument could be made for any hill in the vicinity, we disagree. The nearest potential camps to the north of Great Sanders were on the Udimore and isthmus ridges. If the English were on the ridge, there would have been no way for the Normans to cut off their retreat by occupying it. The nearest potential camps to the south of Great Sanders were on the Hastings Peninsula. From a wargaming perspective, it would be unthinkable for the English to cross the Brede, either to make camp or to attack the Norman camp, before the Norman position had been scouted. Quite apart from the ambush risk at the crossing points, it probably had no food; Domesday says that there was little farmland between the Brede and the Hastings Ridge, and the Normans had been foraging there for two weeks.

Figure 3: 1066 Hastings Peninsula coastline with landing site candidates

A similar wargame analysis can be applied to the landing. In retrospect, we now think it does not really matter where the Normans landed, but we spend a lot of time talking about it, so it is interesting to use wargaming ideas to narrow down the possibilities.

First, did the Normans land on the seacoast or inland? A wargamer would prefer inland because it splits the defence. The idea would be to anchor line-astern in the middle of the estuary or inlet, in order to give no clue about the preferred landing side. If the defenders are on one bank, land on the other. If the defenders are on both banks, land on the side with the least defenders or with the worse defences. In the very worst case, an inland landing has to face half the defenders compared to a seashore landing. This process could be repeated, shuffling to-and-fro across the river as the defenders work their way around to the other side, gradually wearing them out and whittling them down.

Which estuary or inlet? Figure 3 is our assessment of the Hastings Peninsula coastline in 1066. The wargaming idea here is to gain as much time as possible to fortify a bridgehead by landing near the mouth of a long waterway. Any defenders that happen to be on the other bank have to go as far as possible inland to get to the nearest crossing point and back on the other side.

There are three plausible estuaries and inlets around the Hastings Peninsula where this would apply: the Brede estuary, Combe Haven and the Ash Bourne estuary. Hooe Haven is a fourth possible landing site. It was too short for the mid-stream anchoring ploy, but it might have had a secret advantage we will discuss in the main text. The others are much of a muchness. The Brede had the longest way around (17 miles), but the best trackways. Combe Haven had the shortest way around (11 miles), but the worst trackways. In all three cases we reckon it would have taken roughly 6 hours to get from the mouth on one bank to the bank opposite. Six hours should be enough time to fortify a bridgehead. The defenders would be exhausted by the time they arrived. And they could not have arrived much before nightfall, which would have given another 12 hours to fortify the bridgehead.

There are two other important factors to consider in establishing a bridgehead: the defensive qualities of the terrain and the distance to the nearest defensive garrisons. Defensively the three candidates are similar. The nearest garrisons to the Hastings Peninsula were Pevensey to the west and Lympne to the east. As it happens, probably because of Tostig’s attack in Northumbria, they were unmanned, but William was not to know this when he was planning the invasion.

William’s preference, based mainly on it being furthest from any garrison (i.e. it is midway between Pevensey and Lympne), should be the Brede or Combe Havrn. The other two are skewed towards Pevensey. Assuming in each case that the Normans landed on the furthest bank from Pevensey, if the garrison had been manned, we estimate that it would have taken them six hours to get to Hooe, eight hours to get to Wilting or ten hours to get to Cock Marling at the most distant mouth of the Ash Bourne, Combe Haven and the Brede respectively. There was only ten hours of daylight at that time of year.

From a wargaming perspective, knowing nothing about contemporary accounts, William’s preference should have been to land in the Brede, with the north bank being marginally preferable to the south bank.