British battlefield heritage is a national disgrace. There is no other way to describe it. The great majority of our battlefields remain largely devoid of visitor centre, signs, paths, maintenance, and protection. This despite the best efforts of the Battlefields Trust (www.battlefieldstrust.com), set up in 1991 in response to government vandalism – the driving of a motorway link-road through the site of the Battle of Naseby. What they actually destroyed was the line of Prince Rupert’s famous cavalry charge.
This – for the information of American readers who may be unsure – is the equivalent of driving a major trunk-road across the line of Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. This is the sort of thing they do in Britain. That this could not happen in the States is largely thanks to the superb National Parks system. And I can tell you, as a British visitor to a fair few of the Civil War sites, coming from the poverty of battlefield heritage over here, they are a stunning national achievement, a monument to public service and Americans’ respect for their nation’s history.
In Britain, there are one or two places where we have something to compare with a minor Civil War site in the States – though nothing that comes anywhere close to sites like Antietam, Manassas, or Gettysburg. Hastings and Culloden spring to mind. Otherwise, if there is no castle or fort or underground bunker or other substantive structure, you will be on your own, hacking through the brambles and nettles, entirely dependent on your guidebook. So which one?
Affluent hunters