NEW
Images of flood on the day of the battle
12 panoramas of the battle site
YouTube videos
- The evidence reviewed
- A guided tour of the battlefield
- The tidal surge - riding the river to Riccall
All History Guide: Your guide to history on the Internet..
" .. this unusual, and yes, excellent history book.."
"More books like this one introducing historical study in a sympathetic was are needed.."
Now in paperback
... and into its 3rd reprint!
A study of the landscape reveals the terrain over which the battle was fought.
What we discovered about the landscape
The geological timescale is not normally recognised as relevant to the study of a medieval battle. However, the battle at Fulford took place on a surface that was sculptured by the complex interaction of ice and meltwater. When the last ice sheet retreated through this area about 15,000 years ago, it moulded the local landscape, shaping the Fulford surface. The global warming that caused this retreat of the ice-sheet around the world raised the sea level by many metres, imposing more changes on the Fulford surface.
Slopes, marshes and natural obstacles play an important part in most battles. At Fulford, the landscape dictated the location, as well as the course of the battle, according to the literature. So an understanding of the underlying geology was worth investigation. The results have proved invaluable to both locating and interpreting the battle. One bonus from this understanding of the wider landscape came when assessing other possible locations for the battle.
We examined the forces that formed the landscape and also studied the factors that have changed the surface since the time of the battle. It includes the soil survey investigations and a detailed discussion of the way the Ings beside the river have evolved because this work provided the parameters to calculate how the area of the ford looked in 1066.
Looking at the geology, and sub-surface material, is the first step to understand how the battlesite has changed over the last millennium. The findings here will introduce the following chapter which uses this data, plus recent excavations, and documentary evidence, to reconstruct the landscape of 1066. This can then be tested against the descriptions we have from the literature combining geology and history in our hunt for the battlesite.
The last Ice Age
York stands at the centre of the largest river valley in Northern England. The last ice sheet paused twice during its retreat and produced the York and Escrick Moraines. Since these rivers and moraines play an important part in our story, it is worth examining their origin.
During the past two million years, the arctic and alpine ice-caps have grown and swept over much of the Northern Hemisphere, frequently covering most of the surface now occupied by the British Isles. But our story really begins as the last great sheet flowed through the Stainmore Gap[i] where it was split into two flows by the Cleveland Hills and North York Moors.
This was the Devensian Glaciation and the glacier covered the north-western parts of these islands. It left much of the Pennines and North Yorks Moors standing free of ice with the latter diverting the ice flow down the East Coast, blocking the rivers and leading to the formation of the Lakes Humber and Pickering.[ii]
Figure
2.1 The last ice sheet. The grey area is the glacier, which formed about 20,000
years BP. Only the Moors and Wolds remain clear of ice. The outline of the
modern Yorkshire coast and the river Humber are marked. The glacier acted as a
conveyor belt and rock-grinder. If a glacier flows forward at the same rate as
the melting front retreats then it forms a crescent-shaped front, with layers of
compacted sand, clay and gravel - forming a terminal moraine - marked on this
sketch map representing two phases of moraine building. The dark areas are
trapped water.
“The southern tongue was deflected southwards down the Vale of York probably reaching the Isle of Axholme in north-western Lincolnshire (Gaur 1976) before quickly wasting back to a more prolonged front, where the crescentric till, sand and gravel ridges of the York and Escrick moraines were formed. These moraines curve north-eastwards and run into the hummocky tills, sands and gravels on the western sides of the Howardian and Hambleton hills.
The geological processes during, and since, the last ice age are critical to the interpretation of the battle.
-
Geology has given us an understanding of the formation and role of Germany Beck and provided us with a way to model many of the landscape changes that have taken place since 1066.
-
The moraine often provided the fixed points and datum levels for the research. We know that 1066 surface could not have been lower than the moraine since there has been no technology available that could reshape this material. In the next chapter the actual shape of the landscape in 1066 will be reconstructed on this firm foundation.
-
The model of the annual rise in the level of the Ings and the underlying moraine and the data from the boreholes suggests that the land has risen at a steady rate of 2.51mm per year over the Ings and that this would have created a muddy ford just to the east of the moraine gap.
The conclusion from the landscape work was that Germany Beck is the unique place to block any attack from the south. Just as important, a study of the maps and geology provide no suitable alternative locations for the battle south of the city. While this was well short of proving that this was the site of the battle, the work did provide a strong focus for further work along the beck.
[i] The Stainmore Gap crosses the northern Pennines, roughly following the line of the modern A66 road.
[ii] Bell, Richard Yorkshire Rock, a journey through time BGS publication
