This site is run by Nick Austin, author of the book Secrets of the Norman Invasion. I report here anything that I feel is relevant to the story leading to the identification of the Norman Invasion site and more recently the Link Road that is threatening it. If you want to contact me please call me at my office on:
01424 830628 during the daytime
or my email address nick @ landscapetv.com (no gaps antispam)
To Nick & all the team, best wishes from Australia, following your news with interest. One question, could you tell me the name of the music which accompanies your aerial videos ?
copyright secret:)
Greetings Nick,and all ,if you should read this Nick,I just wanted to say ,glad I popped my nose in the site again to find the recent posts of yours.I am still a very interested and fellow supporter of your “battle for the truth of 1066” )
Nick,
Contrary to what you and what your acolytes may believe you and your very interesting theory fared very badly in last night’s C4 offering. Although you expressed yourself well, unfortunately you did across as a bit of a crank (Dousing – really? Or was this just a Time Team smear?) with an overactive imagination.
You would help your cause considerably if you were more intellectually rigorous and polished in your approach. I humbly suggest that you start with your syntax and grammar – some of your posts wouldn’t look out of place on a football fans’ forum.
On the balance of probabilities you may well be right that the first Saxon/Norman confrontation took place at Crowhurst. However your obsession with the site of what was probably an inconclusive (major)skirmish leads you to overlook the main reason why the Normans went on to steal the Kingdom -skilfull diplomatic manoeuvering that split the Saxon nobility.
Ut! Ut! Ut!
Fyrdman
Thank you Harry. Yesterday’s programme routed Battle Abbey and Caldbeck hill as potential sites – the powers that be decided not to look at my work and the editing was designed to discredit my case. If you read all the evidence you will see that the fat lady hasn’t sung yet and sometimes she has the last laugh
regards
Nick
Hi Nick,
I found last evening’s C4 TV presentation very interesting indeed, and it seems to me, does prove the site was NOT Caldbec Hill and the roundabout is now famous!! However, what I, as a Geographer found very interesting in your book was the map you included showing possible changes to the outline of the coastline, and you suggested that it could have been a possible landing site for the Norman boats, rather than Pevensey. Certainly I cannot see the coast at Pevensey as it is today, would have been a good site for the landing, yet given the greater length of coastline that would have existed from the inlets in 1066 the landing would have been much easier. At no time have Historians other than yourself mentioned the changed coast. It is a pity that Tony Robinson and the Time Team were not made aware of the coastal changes, because they ought to have flown that bit further over the Crowhurst site with their laser analysis equipment and perhaps it would have shown an interesting analysis, in removing all the current buildings as it did in Battle. Much as I would like to be able to research this aspect, I am unable to do so as advancing years are taking their toll on my mobility to do ‘Fieldwork’ any more so I can only wish you more luck with your own investigations, and the road works could possibly throw up something, if its not ‘suppressed’ by those who should know better
I have just emailed Channel 4 to ask why the Time Team programme was so oddly set up. To work at Battle Abbey and Caldbec yet ignore Crowhurst just didn’t make sense. They introduced the Bayeux Tappestry and even had sections on screen, yet ignored the evidence that it gives. Particularly odd as this would have given them telegenic evidence of the highest quality.
I have an open mind as to the various claims made in recent years but was really disappointed by the amount of solid information and informed opinion that Channel 4 chose to ignore.
My brother was told by a old lady that lives in crowhurst that when she was a you girl she was out riding and came across a farmer who had spoken to the men who where digging the foundation for the water tower at telham he said that they had found a load of horses bones and metal was found.
I spent the early years of my life on Nash’s Farm in Crowhurst. My grandfather lived there for many years. There is a folk tale memory it states that the stream running through the southern part of the farm land(watermill stream) runs red with the blood of Saxon men from the battle of Hastings and that some of the battles were fought on the farms land.
I think Time Team misled. The battle that resulted in the death of Harold was not the only fighting, looting, etc that took place. The soldiers would have cleared the path as they made there way forward, This is born out by the Bayeux Tapestry.
I know that there is iron in the Watermill stream, but perhaps, Saxon soldiers were buried were the stream rises, hence the folk memory.
I remember learning from my old History teacher, dear old Mr pierce, (who was a Pevensey man and this was his area of passion) turning up years after I had already left school , he turned up out of the blue on a very short slot on the local TV, explaining that the red in these parts was due to the amount of Iron oxide present and like you say how the blood legend was born .He was at battle near the abbey somewhere if I remember right showing this clearly in the water,,if not floating in the water itself, then clearly reflecting red from the bottom to the surface.And,im sure having worked in the grounds many moons ago that I have seen it for my self.)
The lady said the farmer (was that your grandfather? )did some digging at the site. Any usual family heirlooms? It was after the Second World War that the water tower was built. My brother has made the point that if it was on Battle Hill how come when the road, water and gas pipes have been laid no one has found any more evidence. I thought that this was not Time Teams usual format all a bit rushed??
I watched with interest the C4 Time Team special on the site of the battle and I feel that C4 treated your case very poorly, maybe some influence from English Heritage perhaps. I lived in Battle at one time and I feel myself that you are correct as to the true site of the battle. To dismiss your findings with so little air time was very unprofessional of the C4 production team.
I agree with Harry’s comments having just re watched Time Team plus Nick’s video response.
I am unconvinced by the lack of hard evidence for any of the location theories. But I do think Nick can come across as a bit of a crank (apologies for any hard feelings) whereas the other arguments for Battle and Caldbec seem presented in a much more erudite manner. I felt Nick’s video response could have been better rehearsed. Small things like this make a difference.
I also feel that the way the website is constructed is very poor. It is simply a list of posts. There doesn’t seem to me a decent home page which outlines Nick’s conclusions properly and/or which maps the main arguments.
The fact that no evidence for any site has been found (or shared if it has been found), together with the enthusiasm Nick shows, means that I am inclined to give Nick the benefit of the doubt (i want Nick to be right), but something lacks. Not just the hard evidence, but some acceptance from academia that Nick may be right, or some other form of credibility.
Is anyone still looking at this web site for recent information . Is there any new information ? does anyone have news on the progress ? has anything else been put forward to the powers that be regarding the link road and the devastation if not stopped ? who is out there looking for the proof this year ,and is any one like myself hoping to volunteer to help oxford archaeology group so we can record finds for our selves that may other wise not be shown to the relevant institutions that will at least halt link road progress until all the sufficient surveys and digs be carried out ?
Nick,
Very intrigued by your video response to Time Team’s odd Battle episode. I’m very sorry only to discover you and your site not, after visiting Hastings and environs in August with my family (from Canada). We toured Pevensey and Battle without knowing there was controversy.
By the way, we also visited Stamford Bridge where Tom Wyles laid out the competing theories of battle location there. It seems there needs to be some intense archeological efforts to straighten out the facts of 1066 altogether.
I’ll be buying your book and following your blog. I wish you all the best.
Andrew Scheidl
Sorry, thought you had a book out, but don’t see one. Are you considering publishing your theory in book form, by chance?
http://www.secretsofthenormaninvasion.com
Thank you. Just bought it and it looks very interesting!
Hello Nick,
I just finished your book, and found it impressive and compelling. Impressive that you have been so persistent and exhaustive over so many years. Compelling because your conclusions are so specific and appear so consistent with the primary sources. They must raise doubt in even the most decided minds.
I hope that historians and archaeologists are drawn to the investigations you call for.
As an English Heritage member who just last summer paid for my family to see Pevensey and the Abbey without hearing a whisper of doubt, I’ll be sending them a letter expressing disappointment.
Andrew Scheidl
Ottawa
Re-enactment day at Battle, and all the media still perpetuating the myths. They did state that no relics of the battle had ever been found but didn’t then ask the obvious question. Why? Can’t upset English Heritage now can we.
England’s Brave Stand – 1066 AD
——————————————-
The Devil did a Bastard begat in Norman-land
Who dids’t become the scourge of English-land
The Bastard usurping, in conspriacy Papal
Did desire our Crown to grasp
And did make claim with Papal Claim
That Brave Stigand and Valiant Harold be outcast
That into the mass grave of the Pit of Hell
Brothers Celtic and English be cast
And all hopes. Our children’s hopes be…ash.
Well refused we to yield up our own
Refused we to surrender our Brave Stigand and Valiant Harold
‘stead in our Summer Saxon Halls
Dids’t we proclaim
That we would rather be Battle-slain
Than accept one lying, vile, usurping, Norman-Papal Claim
And so to England’s sweet fair virgin shore
Did destroying Norman ashore
And with Valiant Harold – in Hastings sight
Defended we Our Saxon shore
From sunrise to sunfallen
Daylong against our Line-English
Did charges Norman crash
And our axes drunk bloody, of arrogant Norman dash
Held all we steadfast
Fighting till night-fallen amidst our dying and fallen
Held all we steadfast, with victory in our grasp
Till last-cast, hard fast, against our Line-English
Broke furious-frantic desperate Norman smash
And in fight Valiant
With Valiant Harold
Fought All we to the last;
Fought All we to the last
In fight Valiant
With Valiant Harold.
With Brave Harold dead
And Battle-lost
Desired we to exact an oath-born cost:
“Mind must be Firmer!
Heart Stronger!
Courage Greater!
As our strength weakens
And our ranks fall”
So presented they their blooded swords, in English Battle-Honour
With Linden shields and Hearts of Oak, with Spears of Steel
Advanced to smash the Norman Yoke
Advanced ‘gainst numbers that gave no-hope
And though to a Man their ranks did fall
Yet no back-step did their valiant feet fall
And into Outer-Darkness
Did House of Wessex pass
Into the mass grave of Hell
Were brothers Celtic and English cast
And all Our hopes. Our children’s hopes…ash.
King Harold. Brave Harold. Our Harold.
In life stained by vile, usurping Norman Lie
In death Pagan-Buried on Hastings fields
His body doth not lie
In Chapel Minster West
Yet his spirit yearns and cries and will rest
Till he is brought home in Sacred and Solemn Home-coming
In Christian-dress
And lain to Rest
With England’s Greatest
And most Treasured Best
Future Kin, you who live and breathe
Break not Trust for which we are dead
For out on Hastings fields unburied
Lie we, with our King, your dead
Break not Trust for which we are dead.
Copyright Geoff R. Shoun. 2005