Bosworth Field and Sutton Cheney

The walk explores the site of the historic battle, now pleasant farmland, and the country round about. It begins at the car park for the Battle of Bosworth Field Heritage Centre, near the hamlet of Sutton Cheney. Most of the actual fighting took place on Ambion Hill, close to here, but the battle was named after the small town of Market Bosworth, which lies on the skyline to the north. The excellent displays in the visitor centre are augmented by events throughout the summer, while the well laid out and very informative Battlefield Trail gives an account of the battle and the events that led up to it.

From the visitor centre, you walk through the conifers of Ambion Wood to the Ashby Canal, which was built between 1794 and 1804 to transport coal from the developing coalfields in the northwest of the country to Hinckley and Leicester. It was never a very successful venture, and was superseded by the Leicester and Swannington Railway, one of the earliest lines to be built in Britain in the 1830s.

Where the canal is crossed by a lane at Sutton Wharf, you turn up the quiet road to Sutton Cheney. Richard III marched through here from Leicester with his troops before camping out on Ambion Hill the night before the battle. The quaint 14th-century church was standing then, and tradition has it that he attended his last Mass here on the morning before the battle. To the east of the church there is an attractive row of almshouses, founded in 1612.

Just outside the village, as you walk down another lane back to the car park, you pass an early Bronze Age burial mound. Richard is said to have addressed his forces at this ancient site on the eve of the battle.

Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.