First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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Walking south from Market Bosworth under the horse chestnuts along Sutton Lane, we saw ahead the tump of Ambion Hill, twin banners streaming from its summit. One showed a rampant lion, the other a rampaging dragon – England against Wales, Richard of York versus Henry Tudor, in a famous clash of arms hereabouts on a summer’s day in 1485.
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For centuries historians believed that the Battle of Bosworth took place in the fields around Ambion Hill. That’s why there is a visitor centre with all the trimmings up here. But recent discoveries of lead shot, hacked-about armour and a badge of a silver boar – King Richard III’s emblem – place the battle in low-lying fields a mile or so away.
The former marshland where Crookback Dick lost crown and life lay today in a steamy grey light. We gazed our fill from Ambion Hill, then went down to where the Ashby-de-le-Zouch Canal snaked its way under alders and willows. At Sutton Warf narrowboats lay moored, Danny Boy and Doris stem to stem, Black Pearl a little distant, festooned in macabre style with gargoyles, ghosties and a skeleton clambering out of a coffin.
At a humpbacked bridge we left the old coal canal for pastures where fat red cattle sat the day stolidly away and stout ewes attended to the toilet of their tiny lambs. In cornfields under lark song the crumbly Leicestershire soil was scattered with pebbles smoothed and rounded by some unremembered river aeons ago.
A brown hare jumped up and pelted away as we crossed newly harrowed ploughlands into Sutton Cheney. A pint in the Hercules Revived pub, and we were on the homeward path through the broad acres of Bosworth Park.
Through binoculars we made out a distant statue of Hercules himself, rising heroically out of a beanfield. The statue was ‘acquired’ on the Grand Tour of Europe – a common enough practice in Georgian times – by Sir Wolstan Dixie, 4th Baronet of Bosworth. By all accounts Sir Wolstan was an angry, litigious bully, famed for his ignorance and ready to knock anyone who crossed him into the middle of next week. Back then a squire could do just what he damn well liked on his own estate – and Sir Wolstan Dixie certainly did.
Start: Market Place, Market Bosworth, Leics CV13 0LF (OS ref SK 405031)
Getting there: Bus 153 from Leicester.
Road – Market Bosworth is signed off A447 (Hinckley-Coalville)
Walk (8¾ miles, easy, OS Explorers 232, 233):
South down Market Place. From corner of Rectory Lane, follow Sutton Lane south out of town. In ¾ mile, right (fingerpost) across footbridge (406019); left along field edges. In 2nd field, right at bottom corner; in 100m, left through hedge (405016). Follow yellow arrows and yellow-topped posts/YTP across fields to road (404006). Ahead uphill to Bosworth Battlefield Visitor Centre (403000). Follow waymarked Leicestershire Round/LR south through Ambion Wood to Ashby Canal (406995). Left along canal to Sutton Wharf (411994) and Bridge 33 (412986). From here, follow LR across fields; left along Stapleton Lane (413982). 200m past St George’s Farm, left over stile (418984); follow YTPs north for just over 1 mile to Sutton Cheney (417003). Right along Main Street. Beside Royal Arms Inn, left (419008, LR) and follow LR through Bosworth Park for 1½ miles to Market Bosworth.
Lunch: Hercules Revived PH, Sutton Cheney (01455-699336, herculesrevived.co.uk)
Accommodation: Softleys, Market Place, Market Bosworth CV13 0LE (01455-290464, softleys.com) – excellent restaurant-with-rooms
Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre; 01455-290429, bosworthbattlefield.org.uk
Info: visitleicestershire.com
visitengland.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk