Historical places near me...

[Cfury]

... That you may or may not have heard of.

Sorry if this has already been done, but I have noticed from some of the other threads there is a wealth of not so well known places round the UK that may be well known to locals but not on the tourist maps. I got an AA atlas of the UK a few weeks ago, and while it showed Marston Moor, there were no 'crossed swords' over places such as Towton, Adwalton Moor, even Naseby. A few miles from where I live we have Bolling Hall in Bradford, Adwalton Moor between Bradford and Leeds, Marston Moor and Seacroft Moor (a battlefield unknown even to the residents of Seacroft!), Skipton, Pontefract, Sandal, Bolton and Ripley castles (all involved in the ECW), the birthplaces of Thomas Fairfax and John Lambert and the Royal Armouries! Does anybody else have any places local to them they want to make more people aware of? I don't think we make anywhere near enough of a fuss about our fantastic history!

[mikeland]

Indeed. I was really pleased to hear that Naseby battlefield got the green light for the battlefield centre, finally! We have some great spots here in the Midlands too, was recently at Coughton Court which has very interesting links to the Gunpowder plot. That and we have many, many Royal Oak pubs, often built on the 'actual' site of the oak Charles the 2nd hid in. Perhaps he did an 'oak crawl' all the way to France!

We also have Powick Bridge in Worcestershire, the first encounter of the first civil war. The original bridge is still standing i believe. And we also have the wall, cathedral and Commandry in Worcester, the battle which ended the third civil war, including fort Royal Park built on the site of the old earthworks.

[Big Al]

Well, the road to the Magna Centre near me is Templeborough, a Roman road. Rotherham and Doncaster lay claim to Conisbrough Castle, which is situated between the two. Rotherham is also one of the only places that still has a Chantry Bridge. Oh yes, and we also have the original Bailey bridge in situ, where it was invented.

[clivethecelt]

Local for me is both Cumbria and Lancashire; there's not a lot in the way of museums in NE Lancs (unless you like medieval tapestries or Tiffany), though General Scarlett of the Heavy Brigade is buried in Burnley and it has put forward a case for being the site of the Battle of Brunanburgh; there is a great Roman museum at Ribchester.
Cumbria, though, has a large number of Roman sites and lots of dramatic stone circles, but the pick of little-known places of interest are (IMHO):
The Senhouse Museum, Maryport: http://www.senhousemuseum.co.uk/
The oldest collection of Roman artefacts in Britain (1570s), with a reconstruction of a Roman watchtower overlooking the sea, at the "end" of Hadrian's wall. Largest collection of Roman military altar stones in the country
Burgh-by-Sands: Hadrian's Wall runs through the village; the site once was that of a Roman fort, Aballava. It has also been mooted as a possible site for Avalon, but is, more significantly, where Edward I died; his corpse lay at the village's 12th century church until its eventual removal to Westminster Abbey. There's a monument on the marshes erected in 1685 to mark the place where he died.
Dacre: In William of Malmesbury's account of the Treaty of Eamont Bridge, he states that the meeting of Æthelstan and Constantine II, King of Scots, took place in Dacre ('ad locum qui Dacor uocatur'), near Penrith, establishing "Great" Britain under a sole Monarch and adopting Christianity as the State religion. There's a monument in the local churchyard.

[Parus Ater]

I live a mile or so from the center of the battlefield for the Battle of Prestonpans in during the 1745 rebellion but that's not the most exciting to me. It's the two XT midget subs were both used as target practice using experimental weapons by the RAF that are wrecked on the Aberlady Bay mudflats just along the road. The squadron in question were from RAF Drem who invented the Drem Lightin System for landing aircraft in poor weather and night and spent much of the war weapon testing with aircraft. Both were moored to anti tank blocks on the flat where the floated in high tide and were eventually blown to bits. Wrecks are still there and visible on google maps.

[stampedingviking]

Here in Basingstoke, north Hampshire, in my area of interest I have Basing House just down the road with Cheriton, Reading and Newbury not too far off either.

[HobbitMiles]

I do live near the real "Royal Oak", it is at Boscobel House - not sure if it is technically Staffordshire or Shropshire - I believe that the original tree died a significant time ago but the "current" tree was taken from a cutting. It is well documented that this is the real site and not just local pub legend.

There is also Holbeche House nearby which is where many of the Gunpowder Plotters were evenyually captured or killed - unfortunately it is now a private old folks home and doesn't encourage visitors. Dudley Castle has quite an interesting ECW history but unfortunately is now in the middle of a 1930s zoo (and is unfortunately in Dudley ).

RAF Cosford is also nearby and houses the Cold War Museum. Interesting, but at times chilling to think what could have happened(indeed still could happen) if someone pressed a big red button.

[carvel2]

Live near Padiham which has a great ECW story.In brief... Royalists come to clear out some arms stored at Whallley Abbey, bit of a skirmish Royalists have the Ps on the run. Locals in Padiham, who havent changed a lot, decide to have a fight wit strangers and take them on at Read bridge. They hide behind a hedge , make a lot of noise then charge out and make the Royalists run away! Nowt much changes...a friend was living in Padiham went out to two fellows kicking the living daylights out of each other...too near his new car...'Oi' he says. They apologise...family dispute...calmly move 100m down the street then carry on.
We have a cromwell's bridge too near Whalley : )
@Clivethe celt...remember the fantastic diorama at Townley hall depicting the charge of the heavy brigade? Now sadly confined to the store room. His helmet also on display with a big sabre dint!.

[pbeccas]

I live 5km from the Australian 10th Light Horse barracks/camp. It's been preserved with horse lines etc still intact. Historical note - the 10th Lighthorse were depicted in the Mel Gibson film Gallipoli charging The Nek at the end of the movie.

[carvel2]

@ pbeccas...so where is that in the land down under?