New site for the Battle of Hastings, UK 1066

Nov. 24, 2009 - PRLog -- A new site for the Battle of Hastings has been identified by the historian and amateur archaeologist Nick Austin, who located the site of the Norman Invasion in 1996, on the edge of Hastings at a site he claimed was the original port of Hastings. Austin has now identified the site of the Battle of Hastings, low down on the western side of the ridge that surrounds Hastings, at Crowhurst about three miles from the Invasion camp of William the Conqueror and two miles nearer Hastings than previously thought.

Austin has spent the last twelve years researching the Battle site, which until now has been thought to be located at Battle, East Sussex - the town named after the most famous early medieval battle in history, between King Harold and William the Conqueror. Austin is convinced he has a positive identification of the correct site, because he has researched the Chronicle of Battle Abbey, the document that asserts the Abbey was built on the battle site. Austin says it is now known that this document was created to support a fake charter prepared by the monks around a hundred years after the Battle of Hastings. The monks lied about their Charter and they lied about the place where the battle was fought, in order to avoid paying taxes. It really is as simple as that.

Now the truth has come out, as a result of Austin researching the document which confirms that the Abbey was moved three years after the building started. Austin states the Chronicle was written in two parts and because the first part could not be re-created it retained the information confirming the original location of where the Abbey was first built. That information in conjunction with a computer analysis of the Domesday Book data on the wasted manors of Sussex, confirms Crowhurst as the site of the Battle of Hastings and by the same logic confirms the Norman Invasion site.

"An irreconcilable issue that has haunted historians for two hundred years has now been laid to rest" says Austin. A number of documents written at the time confirmed that William and Harold were both in their camps on the night of the Battle and could see each other's standards. That simply is impossible where Battle Abbey is located, because William was known to be camped at the port of Hastings. The discovery of the correct battle site with line of sight visibility from the Norman camp at Wilting Manor confirms that all the reports in all the documents were correct.

Confirmation of the correct site for the Battle of Hastings has happened now because Austin has found evidence that he considered irrefutable. He says it has been confirmed to him by an armory expert that an excavation has produced an early crossbow and was found exactly where it is believed the Saxons made their last stand. "The Carmen of Hastings states that crossbows were used at the Battle of Hastings - there is no other reason it could be there "  says Austin. "No archaeology has ever been found at Battle Abbey to support a battlefield location. it is clear to me that this is because the Battle of Hastings was not at Battle, but in what was then the Hastings locality of Crowhurst. That is why it became known as the Battle of Hastings".

Austin runs the web site that is probably the largest learning resource in the UK for the Norman Invasion (a National Curriculum subject) and has had over 500,000 unique visitors since it was started in 1996
www.secretsofthenormaninvasion.com