{"id":728776,"date":"2026-01-29T14:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T14:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/728776\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T14:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T14:51:10","slug":"what-five-of-the-uks-most-famous-battlefields-look-like-then-and-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/728776\/","title":{"rendered":"What five of the UK\u2019s most famous battlefields look like: then and now"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Battle of Hastings<\/a>, which took place on 14 October 1066, was the moment William of Normandy invaded Britain<\/a> and defeated King Harold II. Simon Marsh from The Battlefields Trust says it\u2019s significant because it marked the end of one era and the beginning of another, as England went from being Anglo Saxon<\/a> to Norman. The Normans brought with them \u201ca different administration, language, motte and bailey castles, the Domesday Book<\/a> \u2013 a whole new way of doing things.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, what did the battlefield look like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Battle of Hastings took place on Senlac Hill, seven miles outside of what is now Hastings, on the Hastings peninsula: \u201cSenlac Hill is a really good position because you\u2019re sat on top of the hill on the main road down into the peninsula, which was surrounded by water on both sides at this time,\u201d says Simon Marsh.<\/p>\n

The ground at the bottom was a bit marshy and spongy but it didn\u2019t stop the Normans, under William, marching his cavalry (men on horses) into battle against Harold on the hill, and breaking the lines of Anglo Saxon foot soldiers. Men will have carried shields and weapons such as spears, swords and axes. It will have been a noisy and violent battlefield \u2013 you can get an idea of the battle itself from the Bayeux Tapestry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Battle of Hastings, which took place on 14 October 1066, was the moment William of Normandy invaded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-728776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115978953328929094","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}