The New Murrey and Blue blog

The Battle of Towton took place on the 29^th of March1461 on an open field between the villages of Towton and Saxton in North Yorkshire on Palm Sunday. The battle took place during a snow storm and is believed to be the largest and bloodiest battle to be fought on English soil.

The battle was fought between York and Lancaster after the death of Richard Duke of York with his eighteen year old son Edward leading the Yorkist army. SEE HERE.

Several years ago I went to York on a weekend visit with the Richard III Worcestershire Branch. During the weekend visited Towton and walked to look at the memorial to the battle which was just off the main road. One of my friends suggested that we walk down to the Cock Beck. It was a nice sunny day and an enjoyable walk even though the way down was very steep. When we got down the beck it was much shallower than I had imagined. Obviously on the day of the battle it was probably much deeper and running faster.

As we were walking down it was becoming quieter and quieter and on reaching the bottom there was a very eery silence. I thought it was just me but all four of us had noticed it. As we walked back up the hill and neared the top we began to notice the sounds of the traffic and bird song. One of my friends suggested that the silence had been because we were so far away from the road so we couldn’t hear the sounds of the traffic. The other three of us agreed that was possible but we wondered why we couldn’t hear the birds. While it was very eery at the time it also meant that we all had spent some time contemplating the horrors of that day and the people who had died on both sides.