The Battle of Towton Landscape Project

ARCHAEOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Division of Archaeological, Geographical and Environmental Sciences

The Battle of Towton Landscape Project

Towton Battlefield Cross. Tim Sutherland (T.L.Sutherland@Bradford.ac.uk)
Armin Schmidt
Steve Dockrill
The Battle of Towton was the last of a series of battles in the middle of the War of the Roses, where the Lancastrian and Yorkshire forces faced each other in a snowstorm on Palm Sunday (the 29th of March) 1461. The Lancastrians lost the battle with heavy casualties and as a result, Edward IV was crowned king of England. Richard III later built a small chapel at Towton to commemorate the dead although the whereabouts of the remains of this structure are unknown.

In 1996 a mass grave was detected at Towton Hall and excavated by a team from the Department of Archaeological Sciences. Following on from this initial discovery and extensive research project was started (main researcher Tim Sutherland) to investigate the landscape of the battle using the full range of archaeological prospection methods. The search for traces of the chapel and other massgraves from the battle form a part of this research project.

Last updated on 2 July 2009