Stamford Bridge.

Due to a cock up on the planning front, I had a very important bee meeting at home so it was a hurried journey to get there to be followed tomorrow by another long journey back to resume my holiday. This morning, I stopped at Stamford Bridge to take a quick picture of the famous structure, in fact, it was so quick that there was a certain lack of quality - hence the treatment it received.

Although I was aware of The Battle of Stamford Bridge, my school education was rather deficient on the history front and so I was unaware of either it's significance or even to which period it belonged. In 1066, the Viking invaders under Harald Hardrada and Tostig Godwinson were routed by the English army led by Tostig's brother, Harold, in a bloody skirmish which saw the end of the Vikings in England. Harold gained victory by stealth, having marched nearly 200 miles from the south coast in four days without being noticed, he was able to launch an unexpected attack on his adversaries. He then marched back again to be slain three weeks later at the Battle of Hastings by the Normans. It seems that Harald, Tostig and William all had designs on Harold's crown.

It seems that it was unlikely that either the village or the bridge existed at the time as neither are mentioned in The Doomsday Book of 1085.

As a footnote, William Saint Clair of Rosslyn, the founder of Roslin Chapel, was a direct descendant of one of the Norman nobles present at the Battle of Hastings.