It was the final defining clash of England’s Viking age, pitting an English king against the most formidable Norse invader of his era. On a Yorkshire battlefield, two battle-hardened rulers faced one another for control of England: one English, one Norwegian. Neither had inherited power simply through royal blood. Both had won and held their kingdoms through brutal campaigns, military skill and the force of their swords.
The prize was among the most coveted in Europe: the English crown. By the time the fighting was over, only one of the two kings would be alive to witness another sunset.
The result was an extraordinary English triumph, one that deserves recognition among the greatest victories achieved by any King of England. For most monarchs, it would have been enough to define an entire reign. In September 1066, a newly crowned but daring and capable English king led his royal army against a Viking invasion force poised to restore Scandinavian control over England — and destroyed it.
This was the Battle of Stamford Bridge. It ought to stand among England’s most celebrated battlefield successes, but its reputation was swiftly eclipsed by the calamitous defeat that followed just 19 days later on the hills of southern England: the Battle of Hastings.
As thousands prepare to visit the British Museum’s Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, with its account of that later defeat, Stamford Bridge also merits renewed attention. Its history has been transformed by a determined team of archaeologists and metal detectorists. Over the past several years, I have had the privilege of following their work while filming a documentary for the online channel History Hit.
Through their painstaking efforts, the long-lost battlefield has been rediscovered after nearly a millennium. I watched them bring remarkable artefacts to light: weapons and fragments of mail armour, dropped, abandoned or crushed into ground soaked in blood. These objects have remained undisturbed since that terrible day in 1066. Now, in holding them, it feels as though we can almost touch the battle itself.
Dan Snow, pictured at Stamford Bridge, says the 1066 battle deserves to be remembered alongside the Battle of Hastings
A new History Hit documentary showcases the remarkable work of archaeologists and metal detectorists who have radically reshaped the story of the battlefield
As with so many great medieval dramas, the story begins with a king’s final breath. Succession was perilous, and in the opening days of January 1066, Edward the Confessor — England’s childless king — died. A royal vacuum could not last. One leading candidate emerged from within England: a wealthy warrior and proven leader with no royal blood in his veins.
He had defeated the Welsh, fought in France and defended England against Viking raids. His name was Harold, Earl of Wessex. Before the old king had scarcely been laid to rest, Harold was crowned King of England. But he was far from the only man who believed the throne was his to claim.
Across the Channel, William, Duke of Normandy, felt that the throne should be his. In the far North there was a man who believed that he should rule England. He was already King of Norway, a throne he had won at the tip of a spear. He was Harald known as Hardrada, the Hard Ruler.
Hardrada was the Thunderbolt of the North, said to be 7ft tall. Years earlier he had been exiled from his native land and found fame and fortune fighting in the East along the rivers of Russia and Ukraine for the Byzantine empire. He helped the Christians conquer Sicily, served in Southern Italy and shattered a revolt in Bulgaria where he took the nickname ‘Bulgar Burner’. When he returned home to Scandinavia, his ships listed with the amount of gold in their holds.
Viking brutality was beyond comprehension and Hardrada’s was the most infamous of all. He was immortalised in a 13th century Icelandic saga that recounts the frenzy of Vikings in battle; how they laid waste to anyone in their way. One scene describes a warrior slashing the outline of an eagle on a prisoner’s back, through which he wrenched his ribs from the spine and tore out his lungs as an offering to the god Odin.
It was by the late 1040s that Hardrada was established as King of Norway. Then, in 1066, he set his eyes upon the English crown. Never before or since has the English throne been contested between two such charismatic and warlike candidates. It is that which makes 1066 such an astonishing year.
Hardrada assembled a fleet and received a welcome recruit: the English King Harold’s brother, Tostig. He felt his older brother had betrayed him and forced him into exile. His revenge was to turn traitor.
In early September, Hardrada’s fleet arrived at the Tyne. The Vikings were back. When Hardrada landed he would have made a striking figure striding up the beach, above him, unfurled and flapping in the breeze, his banner the ‘Land Waster’ – white with a black mythical raven.
Leo Suter playing Harald Sigurdsson, who is based on Norse king Harald Hardrada, in the series Vikings: Valhalla… Hardrada was said to be 7ft tall and had his eyes on the English throne
The people of Scarborough made the extraordinary decision to resist. In return, Hardrada ordered bundles of burning logs to be rolled down on the town. The few escaping survivors were hacked down by merciless warriors. The settlement was annihilated. Scarborough does not appear in the Domesday Book a generation later. Gone.
On the Vikings went, south towards the great city of York. The northern lords were drawn up outside the Fulford Gate of York. Hardrada crushed them. It was said there were so many English corpses you could walk across the marshy ground without getting your feet wet. The first great battle of 1066 was a Viking victory. English King Harold was in London at the time and had been watching the south coast, fearing an invasion from Normandy. Suddenly England was invaded, but not from the south.
What does Harold do? He conducted one of the most impressive marches in British military history. He gathered his troops and galloped up the Great North Road by horse. We think he travelled 185 miles in four days. Astonishing.
He went directly to York, where he discovered that local leaders were about to submit to Hardrada. So Harold decided to surprise him. He marched through the city and eight miles east to Stamford Bridge. Meanwhile, Hardrada was overconfident. He and only a third of his troops advanced upriver from their camp towards Stamford Bridge. Many left their armour behind. It was a sweltering hot day. They sauntered along, lolling about in the sun.
It was a clear day, clear enough for Hardrada to get his first inkling that there was trouble. A cloud of dust appeared to the West. Then there was what the Viking sagas tell us was like the glint of sunshine on broken ice.
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It was sunshine all right, but it was glinting off iron, not ice. The morning sun was falling upon the advancing English army, who launched themselves down the gentle slope towards the river.
We can visualise the fighting through the artefacts that have come out of the ground. Shining, razor sharp spear tips tore into human flesh, arrows thudded through protective clothing and clipped arteries. One bent arrowhead has been found suggesting that it struck something hard, perhaps a shield or a human ribcage.
No artefacts have ever been found where modern the Stamford Bridge stands. A heroic group of metal detectorists and archaeologists saw that as a challenge…
We can visualise the fighting through the artefacts that have come out of the ground: battleaxe heads and shining, razor sharp spear tips that tore into human flesh
The tale goes that one berserk Viking, an enormous warrior, held the bridge by himself, an axe-wielding monster holding back the entire English advance.
Apparently he saw off 40 Englishmen before one enterprising soldier clambered into a barrel, drifted it under the bridge and stabbed up into his unprotected groin through the slats of the bridge. He was opened up from crotch to chest. It’s a great story and it might just be true.
There were certainly other places to cross though, fords as well as bridges – I waded across one last summer. A little deeper than I had been led to expect but I kept my footing all the way.
Using the bridge and the fords, the English hurled themselves at the Vikings. There was a brief pause in which Harold offered his brother Tostig a pardon and his lands back. But the only land he promised Hardrada was a grave, six feet of English soil, or a little more as he was taller than most.
Tostig turned his back on his brother for the last time, and took his place beside his new Viking overlord. Hardrada sent for reinforcements and did his best to hold off the English until help arrived. But it was not enough.
Outnumbered and surprised, the Vikings were hacked, stabbed and beaten down. Hardrada went on a mad rampage, a sword in either hand. He cut a gully through the English ranks, this veteran of hundreds of battles. He was eventually brought down by an arrow to the throat. Even the 11th century superman was human after all.
Reinforcements did arrive, sweating and gasping from running, but they came in scattered groups and were also cut down by English iron.
It was a rout. Harold let a few survivors return home. Hardrada’s 16-year-old son Olaf left with just 24 of the hundreds of ships which they’d arrived in. So many men died that 50 years later the site was described by a passing monk as being ‘white with bones’.
And so ended the last major battle fought on English soil against the Norsemen. In many ways, the end of the Viking era in England.
For nearly a thousand years it was assumed that the battle was fought where modern Stamford Bridge stands. I must have filmed on a dozen occasions at that bridge over the past 25 years. But I was in the wrong place. No artefacts have ever been found there.
Metal detectorist Simon Richardson, left, was part of the team that helped to establish where this lost battle was really fought – near the modern village of Low Catton
A heroic group of metal detectorists and archaeologists saw that as a challenge. Simon Richardson and John Benfield teamed up with the Battle of Stamford Bridge Heritage Society, led by Brian Birkett, to establish beyond doubt where this lost battle was fought.
They searched the modern town and found nothing. Poring over old maps and sources they discovered that the main crossing over the Derwent was a Roman bridge a mile south of the modern bridge, near the modern village of Low Catton. There they hit the jackpot. Arrowheads, spear tips, battleaxe heads and shards of mail armour. The ground was rich in the iron harvest of war.
There was a battle here. A Viking battle. The finds exactly fit the dates. Even more exciting, there are Viking objects, like the protective tip of a sword scabbard that appears to come from south east Europe. A Viking who had spent time in the Balkans?
Perhaps, just perhaps, it once belonged to the most notorious Viking of them all, Hardrada.
Thanks to the team of enthusiasts and experts, a lost battle has been found. A forgotten victory, remembered.
Dan Snow’s documentary, 1066: The Lost Battlefield is available to stream at historyhit.com