Historical Places

Contemporary research * suggests that the focus of the battle was in an area of meadow and marshland in a place called Sandford. It was here that King Richard’s horse floundered in the marsh adjacent to the Fenn Lanes in the direction of Shenton. What is known is that the bodies of those slain in the battle were brought to St. James and buried in communal pits some within the churchyard and others elsewhere in the neighbourhood. In 1886, the Leicester Chronicle reported that ‘skeletons and broken fragments of rusty armour still frequently obstruct the peasant’s plough, and the old churchyard has known many ghastly reinterments of the poor soldiers’ remains.’

In 1511, Henry VIII authorized a license for the churchwardens of Dadlington to ask for alms in several dioceses towards the chapel of St. James, ‘standing upon a parcell of the grounde where Bosworth Feld otherwise called Dadlyngton Feld in our county of Leicester was done …’ Land was purchased to provide an income for a priest to say Masses for those who died on the battlefield. This continued until the suppression of the chantries during the brief reign of Edward VI. Happily, on or near the anniversary of the battle, a special commemorative service is held and prayers are offered for the souls of all those slain on the day.

* P.J. Foss, The Field of Redemore (1990) and A Church for Bosworth Field (1987)