Battle of Edgcote 1469
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Outline: officially registered battlefield boundary.
Key facts
| Date (year) | 1469 | Historic England NHLE name |
|---|---|---|
| Century | 15th century | derived |
| Period | Wars of the Roses & late medieval | derived |
| Country | England | derived |
| War / conflict | Wars of the Roses | Wikidata |
| Participants | House of York | Wikidata |
| Registered area | 371.9 ha | Historic England |
| Grid reference | SP5161346839 | Historic England |
| Historic England list entry | 1413782 | Historic England |
| Designated | 2013-10-07 | Historic England |
About the battle
The Battle of Edgcote (also known as the Battle of Banbury or the Battle of Danes Moor) took place on 24 July 1469, during the Wars of the Roses. It was fought between a royal army, commanded by the earls of Pembroke and Devon, and a rebel force led by supporters of the Earl of Warwick.
The battle took place 6 miles (9.7 km) northeast of Banbury in Oxfordshire; it resulted in a rebel victory which temporarily handed power over to the Earl of Warwick. By September, though, Edward IV of England was back in control, and Warwick found himself in a situation similar to the one before the battle, prompting him to plan a second rebellion. After Edgcote there was no turning back. Edward could no longer trust him fully and he was inexorably moving towards becoming a Lancastrian.
Edgcote has a reputation for being one of the least well-documented battles of the period, though numerous contemporary, or near contemporary, records and chronicles refer to it. Details in accounts diverge in terms of numbers, leaders, casualties, and the course of the fighting, but not all of these "divergences" are contradictory.
Visiting the battlefield
On 12 and 13 September 2009 there was a re-creation of the battle on the actual battlefield, staged by the Medieval Siege Society and the English Tournament Society to commemorate the 540th anniversary.
Following the success of the 2009 commemoration and re-enactment, a second recreation was staged on 11 and 12 September 2010 for the 541st anniversary.
The Registered Battlefield area is described by Historic England as "largely undeveloped" and that " comparisons with other War of the Roses sites indicates that a high order of archaeological potential can be anticipated here". In August 2020 One Planet Ltd, experts in obtaining planning permission for renewable energy projects submitted a screening proposal on behalf of the landowners, Culworth Grounds, requesting the waiver of an Environmental Impact Assessment ahead of a full planning application. The proposal places the development on the "East Hill" mentioned in the sources, at the heart of the fighting.
Location
- OS grid reference: SP5161346839
- Approximate centre of registered area: 52.1175, -1.2476
- Registered area: 371.9 hectares
Battlefields are often on private farmland: please keep to public rights of way and respect landowners.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Edgcote (revision 1370439729), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Commemoration and re-enactments”, “Threats”; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations removed. No text added.
Battlefield data © Historic England 2026. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.