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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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The author of the content is Charles Jones - fulfordthing@gmail.com   Last updated April 2015

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