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Sent to all the leading Norwegian and Icelandic papers 27 February 2006 Dear Sir I believe will be of
interest of many of your readers. It concerns the site of a famous Norwegian
victory over the English in the year 1066. In the late summer of 1066
king Harald Sigurdson, also known as
‘Hardrada’, set sail with 200 longships to invade England. On 20 September
he beat the northern English army at Fulford, just south of York, after a
hard-fought battle. He accepted the surrender of the northern nobles at a thing
summoned a few days later. The people agreed to join with king Harald to conquer
the rest of England in the spring. England was set to become a province of
Norway. Unknown to king Harald, the
king of England, who was also called Harold, had managed to frustrate the
attempts by William, duke of Normandy, to invade the south coast. So king Harold
was able to bring a new army quickly to the north. Five days after his victory
at Fulford, king Harald was caught without much of his army near Stamford
Bridge. Many of the Norwegians had also left their battle-scared armour with
their ships and were utterly defeated by king Harold of England. King Harald
Hardrada was killed along with most of his army. His youngest son, Olaf, who had
been guarding the ships at Riccall 23 km away, was allowed to take the survivors
home. The reason for this history
lesson is to draw your reader’s attention to the plans that have been approved
to cover this battlesite at Fulford with 700 houses in spite of the historic
importance and substantial local protests. There is now to be a public inquiry
and this is due to start in June. I would like to enlist your
support for our campaign to save the site which is an important part of the
heritage of our two countries. I am encouraged by the news we received from
France recently. The French electricity company decided not to build a forest of
wind-turbines planned on the battle site in Agincourt. Agincourt was a
remarkable victory by England’s king Henry V over the French which was won
against all the odds. The French company is quoted as saying that they had not
appreciated the site had such significance to European heritage. French history
has little to say about their defeat at Agincourt just as English history says
almost nothing about their defeat at Fulford. Please could I ask your
readers to protest at the planned destruction of this superb battlesite. The
area has survived for 940 years with little disturbance. It would be a tragedy
if the site was destroyed now, especially as the developers have refused to
undertake any relevant investigations and banned our society from working on the
site. We have, nevertheless, managed to uncover extensive evidence to show that
this is the site of the battle. Please help us reclaim this
piece of your heritage from the house builders. Details about the battle, the
plans for the site and how to protest are on the website www.battleoffulford.org.uk
Yours sincerely
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