Historic Battlefields

Debate between Julian Knight and Chris Skidmore

Wednesday 12th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the preservation of historic battlefields.

Thank you, Mr Hollobone, for your generous words and for chairing the debate. I chose this subject to allow other Members to contribute, as I am aware that there are historic battlefields, both on land and at sea, in or near many constituencies. This is a national issue, and it is right that it is given national attention by the Minister. However, I wish to turn my attention to a specific battlefield that is currently under threat. The battle of Bosworth is one of our nation’s most historic and important battles. It is where the last English king to be killed fighting in battle, Richard III, fell. It is where the Tudor dynasty under Henry VII was born. It truly changed the course of English history.

I must declare an interest. As the author of a book about the battle of Bosworth itself and a recent biography of Richard III, I have spent years researching the battlefield. I went from climbing rickety ladders to the top of St Margaret’s church in Stoke Golding to view the original site of the battlefield, to searching for original documentary evidence in the Vatican library. I was present at the 2010 conference at which a new location of the battlefield site was unveiled. It was demonstrated that the battlefield was far larger and stretched across a far wider area than previously thought. An expert archaeological team led by Dr Glenn Foard found nearly 40 cannonballs—the most ever found on a medieval battlefield—and the famous gilt silver boar badge, Richard III’s insignia, demonstrating that Richard’s men fought in a different location from previously thought. Those archaeological surveys of the battle, limited though they naturally were by time and resource pressures, provided a glimpse into what lies beneath the fields of Bosworth battlefield. More will surely be discovered if future archaeological investigation is allowed. Who knows what new technology will reveal in time?

The battlefield site, which is centred on Fenn Lane in what was then a marshy area known as Redemore, retains its rural setting and, crucially, provides us with an understanding of the contours and landscape of Henry Tudor’s approach to the battle on the morning of 22 August 1485. Given that we know Henry himself remained at the back of the battle as fighting began—he had never actually experienced open combat—only for Richard III to spot his standards and charge with his household cavalry towards Tudor, who was surrounded by his men, it is also likely that the final phase of the battle took place around the location of Fenn Lane.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. I also congratulate him on growing a beard over the summer, in true Tudor fashion. I have received a host of emails about this matter, from Ricardians and non-Ricardians alike, which shows how much the preservation of the Bosworth battlefield matters to the public. As I think he will agree, the battle marked the transformation of this country from the middle ages to the early modern world, with all that means for our national story.

[Chris Skidmore]

I could not agree more. I know that, aside from representing a constituency in relative proximity to the battlefields of the midlands, my hon. Friend is himself an historian and scholar and has read several books about the battle. We have talked privately about the matter, and I appreciate his input to the debate.

Henry VII was crowned at Stoke Golding and instituted a battlefield chapel at St James church in Dadlington. That indicates that the battle of Bosworth was fought in that area rather than in the traditionally accepted area of Ambion Hill, where Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre is based. Ambion Hill seems more likely to have been Richard III’s encampment the night before the battle. The fact that recent archaeological and documentary evidence demonstrates that the site of the battle was far wider and in a different place—around Fenn Lane—from the previous registered battlefield location overwhelmingly proves the need for caution in preserving the existing battlefield area and its surroundings.

However, that need is not being heeded. As the Minister will be aware, a recent planning application for an 83-acre driverless car testing track in Higham on the Hill, adjoining the Fenn Lane area, has been the subject of intense local and national opposition. Earlier this week more than 12,500 people had signed an online petition against the application, and hundreds of written objections have been submitted to the official planning process. A final decision on the application by Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council has been deferred to 25 September.

I am fully aware—I am sure the Minister will remind me—that that is a local decision that will be made by the council. I am sure the council will reflect on the overwhelming number of written submissions and the huge petition that will be submitted later this month. I want to put on the record my gratitude to the people and organisations who have been in touch with me since I secured the debate. I thank in particular the Battlefields Trust and Julian Humphrys; the historian Michael Jones; Richard Mackinder, who has been integral to some of the archaeological work on the battlefield site; and of course the Richard III Society, for their kind input to my speech. Their voices, along with those of the thousands who have expressed deep concern about what may happen to an area of the Bosworth battlefield, should be listened to closely. I hope councillors do so, for the sake of future research and knowledge about the battle. The application threatens to destroy precious historical material that I believe should be preserved.

We must recognise the national precedent that the local application risks setting, and ask ourselves how we managed to get into a situation in which a battlefield of historic national importance is threatened in this manner. It is worth considering the current national framework for the recognition and preservation of battlefields. Battlefield sites in England are material considerations in the planning process, and they are designated by Historic England and put on the register of historic battlefields under powers conferred by the Historic Buildings and Ancient Monuments Act 1953, as amended. Although that legislation does not confer a specific responsibility to create a register of battlefields, one was created in 1995 by a joint project of English Heritage, the National Army Museum and the Battlefields Trust. In 2011 that register was incorporated into the national heritage list for England, which is administered by Historic England.

In Scotland, an inventory of historic battlefields was introduced in 2009. It is compiled by Historic Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Ministers under the Historic Environment (Amendment) (Scotland) Act 2011, which followed the Scottish historic environment policy of July 2009. Further guidance was issued in March 2011.

Since 1995, 47 battlefields in England have been designated as registered battlefields by Historic England—previously called English Heritage. Under planning legislation, the effect on the site and setting of a registered battlefield should be a material consideration for any proposed development. Planning policy statement 5, “Planning for the Historic Environment”, states that there should be a presumption in favour of the conservation of designated historic assets, and that local authorities should assess whether the benefits of an application for development outweigh the disbenefits. It also recognises that many historic assets are not currently designated and that, despite that, there should be a presumption in favour of conservation such that substantial harm to, or loss of, the battlefield should be “wholly exceptional”.

Several issues with the legal status quo deserve to be reconsidered. Substantial harm to a battlefield location should be “wholly exceptional”, but what of “minor harm”? Notwithstanding that those definitions are entirely subjective, a series of planning applications granted over a period of time may individually be defined as causing only minor harm, but in combination may cause incremental damage that is defined as substantial harm. The culture of permissiveness in our planning process allows for historic sites to be substantially eroded without the law ever being broken. Over time, subjective decisions that encroach on an historic battlefield site create an objective reality of destruction. No one would suggest that to take a single stone from Stonehenge would be considered minor harm, for clearly that would not be the case. One stone of many, once taken, would permanently alter the appearance and the historic preservation of the site.

Perhaps one of the long-standing issues with getting battlefield preservation taken seriously is that so much of it is not visible to the naked eye. The dead, their remains and their relics are buried, so we are faced with what is unknown rather than what is known. If we knew what was there hidden beneath the fields, we would preserve it; yet not knowing currently allows for battlefields to be thrown into the mix of the planning process. To argue that just 1% of a battlefield might be affected by a development is entirely to miss the point. That could be the 1% of a battlefield that witnessed the most important stages of combat or may yield archaeological treasures of national importance, just as the discovery of the Bosworth boar demonstrated.

In the past, planning and development were dealt with with consideration for battlefield heritage by the then English Heritage battlefields panel, a non-executive specialist panel that advised the organisation on policy and practice and included membership of organisations such as the Battlefields Trust. Yet following the establishment of Historic England, that specialist panel was disbanded. Will the Minister consider either writing to, or convening a meeting with, Historic England to see whether the panel could be re-established? Will he also investigate whether the Battlefields Trust could be registered as a statutory consultee when it comes to any planning applications within the area of registered battlefield sites? Currently it is not, which has resulted in the trust becoming aware of the planning application at Bosworth only at a very late stage, placing the battlefield at risk. It would have made sense for it to have been consulted and indeed advised earlier on in the planning process.

Finally, there is the issue of the boundary of the registered battlefield site to consider and whether the register meets all of the preservation needs of historic battlefields. Bosworth battlefield has been on that register since its inception in 1995, originally as an area of 632 hectares. That has been expanded to 1,072 hectares, together with an extended area of newly located battlefield agreed by the English Heritage battlefields panel in July 2011 and formally adopted in June 2013 following an extended consultation period.

In addition, the battlefield has its own conservation plan—effectively a form of local plan—drawn up by Leicestershire County Council and approved by the local planning authority, Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council, for use as part of the evidence base for its local plan. The conservation management plan includes a set of guiding principles and policies intended for those involved in the management of the battlefield area, including those dealing with recreational activity, land management and planning matters.

It is interesting to note that in the plan, policies were drawn up to

“ensure that topographic views across the Battlefield and within its setting are conserved and managed in order to protect significance enabling understanding and interpretation”

and also to ensure that

“any new development within the area and its setting does not have an adverse visual or landscape impact on the special qualities of the area, and that existing development which detracts from the area, where appropriate, is mitigated”.

One might ask whether that conservation plan was not being mitigated by the current planning application, which indeed seems to run contrary to those policies. That is for Hinckley and Bosworth borough councillors to decide on 25 September, but councillors can be responsible only for implementing and adhering to existing legal guidance and frameworks as they stand in the national planning policy framework.

The current guidance and frameworks clearly do not afford historic battlefields adequate protection against development and destruction; hence we are faced with this important test case at Bosworth. I have called this debate today because this issue is of national significance. It is time to think again and revisit the entire topic of how battlefields are protected through the register of historic battlefields, and indeed the spatial limit in which the register itself self-defines battlefields. The register was first created over 23 years ago, and it is perhaps worth reflecting on the massive advances in battlefield archaeology and heritage studies since then. A review of how we could best preserve our historic battlefields and landscapes should be considered. Just as we have areas of outstanding natural beauty, it is worth considering whether for the future we should be creating areas of national historic importance that would recognise historic sites and their surroundings as areas that we wish—and need—to conserve for the future, just as we do with parks. I urge the Minister to consider my suggestion for a review. Perhaps he would be kind enough to consult his Department and see whether that might be possible.

Bosworth is the battlefield under threat today but, while the current legal framework continues, no doubt there will be others. To build over one part of a battlefield site threatens to set a precedent of permissiveness that could erode our ability to protect our battlefields across the country. We should plant our standard squarely on preserving Bosworth and its heritage, both past and yet to be discovered.