Byrhtnoth and the Battle of Maldon

The second trip out over the school break also included my youngest daughter (who is actually at university) as well as my youngest son. This time we went for something a little closer to home both time-wise and geographically; we went to visit the town and local environs of the Battle of Maldon from late Anglo-Saxon times.

The Ealdorman of Essex, Byrhtnoth, died at the Battle of Maldon on 10/11th August 991 AD and a tragic poem about the event was written in Anglo-Saxon soon after - we still have over 300 lines of it surviving.

The plaque at the bottom of the statue at the end of Maldon promenade.

Our day started by visiting the small museum in Maldon that houses the Maldon Tapestry (really an embroidery). It costs nothing to enter but I left a few pounds in the collection jar to help keep it running. The first two panels were of most interest to me but the rest of the embroidery was worth a look at and a quick read of the guide book the staff lent me explained what everything meant.

The 1st Panel

The 2nd Panel

These first two panels tell the story of Maldon's foundation and the battle that occurred nearby just over one thousand years ago. I won't go into the details as all that history can be found elsewhere on the web.

After spending a little more time looking at a few more of the exhibits we wandered up the road to view a couple of churches. The first had a statue/carving of Byrhtnoth on the outside, whilst the second has the only triangular tower in the UK.

Byrhtnoth carving on a local church

The only triangular church tower in the UK apparently

I had heard internet rumours that there was a stained glass window in his honour in one of the churches, but I was unable to find that on our travels.

Next we headed down to the estuary, via a local bakery where we picked up some lovely cakes for a snack, to the modern statue of the ealdorman at the end of the promenade. This is a nice little walk as it takes in lots of local historical flavour; Thames barges, historical fishing huts and local crafts stalls, as well as lots of places to eat and a huge recreational park.

We got to the end of the promenade and took a few moments to look at the modern bronze statue of Byrhtnoth. The plaque from the first picture is located here (it can be seen just behind the statue, to the right, in the first picture below).

Ealdorman Byrhtnoth (front)

Ealdorman Byrhtnoth (rear)

The plinth tells the story of the Battle of Maldon

Unfortunately (or fortunately?), the sun was very strong today so none of my pictures of the plinth turned out particularly well (the best of them is shown above).

No visit would have been complete without visiting the actual battle site. This was a lot harder to find than initially expected. We looked all over the place but could not find the National Trust sign that I found on the internet that denotes where it is thought the battle took place.

The National Trust sign for the battle site

We found the causeway (or a modernised version of it) and looked around there for several hundred meters in each direction but only found a modern National Trust sign that only mentioned the battle in passing - it was more about the wetlands recovery and bird species in the area (fascinating in its own way but not what I was looking for today). Maybe the above sign has been removed in favour of the newer signage? If anyone knows about this I would love to hear from you about it in the comments.

Northey Island causeway

My daughter was becoming a little tired from all the walking (at least 5 miles was covered today), so only my son and I walked over the causeway (we had to be careful as it was very slippery), but there was nothing within easy reach that was of interest. What looks like water in the above photo is in fact a huge expanse of mud flats as the tide was out at the time of our visit.

We headed back to the car park after the visit, almost exactly three hours after we left (just in time, as the ticket expired after three hours). We chatted about all that we had seen on the walk back but were a little upset by the fact we didn't see the actual battle site according to the missing signage. That said, we were heartened by a comment one of the ladies in the museum made whilst I was chatting to her about the tapestry - a local historian seems to think that the battle site might not have been where The National Trust sign was but further into town, due to the fact a Viking Age (10th century) sword was found at a construction site a few decades back. This may have been a coincidental find, but nothing has been found at the "official" site anyway to corroborate that theory. Something for future historians and archaeologists to ponder?

Like Tuesday's visit to the Ramses exhibition, we had a wonderful day out and caught some of the spring sun's early rays to boot!