THE TIMES: Historian relocates Battle of Brunanburh site to lay-by near Doncaster

Description

It was the battle that secured the destiny of England, a bloody clash between a combined army of Vikings, Scots and wild Northumbrians defeated by Anglo-Saxons under the leadership of the grandson of Alfred the Great.

Historians agree the Battle of Brunanburh in AD937 was the bloodiest and most important on British soil until the Battle of Hastings in 1066. What they cannot agree on is where it took place.

More than 30 places had been suggested as possible sites before the consensus settled on Bromborough on the Wirral, Merseyside. Now the historian Michael Wood, professor of public history at the University of Manchester and a TV presenter, says this is wrong.