Battle of Leominster 1052 (no dogs hurt during the refight of this battle)

We moved back to the Welsh borders for our next battle. The Anglo Saxon chronicles have a fairly brief entry identifying that Llwellyn ap Gryffydd brought an army across the Welsh borders to raid. This force sacked Leominster in 1052 but was then attacked by an Anglo Saxon force led by Ranulph Earl of Herefordshire, supported by ‘mercenary’ French troops from a nearby castle. The welsh often employed Dublin Vikings in his raiding forces. Almost nothing seems to be really known about the battle although apparently there is a marker in the town of Leominster indicating the battle took place near to a bridge possibly over the town defensive ditch ?

The location of the battle from my recently purchased Anglo Saxon atlas (I knew it would come in 🙂)

The Normans in their castle, possibly Comfordt Castle ?

Dublin Vikings with some loot 

Llewelyn with his main force of welsh

The Anglo Saxons have positioned themselves to block to road back to wales, nominally the scenario was for the Welsh and Vikings to escape with the three items of loot, in reality both sides sought to slaughter the enemy !

The Vikings on the left are hampered by the ditch which is effectively a stream

The Norman’s with crossbows push out of their defensive position

Everybody rushes forward 😀

The Saxons head for the high ground to try and take the small wood

The Dubliners unleash packs of wild fighting dogs but they have little impact against heavily mailed Norman knights who unceremoniously dispatch them with axes 🙁

The welsh have the numbers but as to be expected are generally lighter troops

The Vikings advance is constrained by the stream

Welsh light cavalry get up into the woods and exchange missile fire with the Saxons

In the valley the two armies come head to head

Overkill by the Normans as their heavy cavalry chase off some more fighting dogs

The welsh have managed to break though the woods and threaten to outflank the Saxons

The Norman cavalry is restricted by the terrain so they send in their infantry who are bad treated by the Vikings 

Saxons and welsh, in this case one of the few mail armed welsh units protecting the baggage clash

The Norman cavalry looking for some space choose to cross the bridge

Crashing into some of the light welsh troops holding their left flank 

The slog of battle continues, in the distance on the hill the Saxons are retaking the woods

Eventually the Vikings ferocious of course beat back the Norman infantry claiming a victory on the left

But on the right the Saxons have pretty much overwhelmed the welsh and captured the baggage. The battle ends with almost nobody left to tell the tale !

A fine run out for the Dark age collection and an entertaining period we will return to in the future.

I’m still behind on posts but have done some painting……

Finally completed an army command stand for the British in Spain.

Thanks as usual for checking in

Matt 😎