II KAL. SEP. A.D. M.C.C.C.C.LXXXV.
There are five churches in the immediate neighbourhood of Bosworth Field, all of which were in one way or another associated with that memorable battle. Ratcliffe Culey church has a low square tower and a short stone spire, and there is herbage growing upon its tower and its roof. It is a building of the fourteenth century, one mark of this period being its perpendicular stone font, an octagon in shape, and much frayed by time. In three arches of its chancel, on the south side, the sculpture shows tri-foliated forms, of exceptional beauty. In the east window there are fragments of old glass, rich in colour and quaint and singular. The churchyard is full of odd gravestones, various in shape and irregular in position. An ugly slate-stone is much used in Leicestershire for monuments to the dead. Most of those stones record modern burials, the older graves being unmarked. The grass grows thick and dense all over the churchyard. Upon the church walls are several fine specimens of those mysterious ray and circle marks which have long been a puzzle to the archæological explorer. Such marks are usually found in the last bay but one, on the south side of the nave, toward the west end of the church. On Ratcliffe Culey church they consist of central points with radial lines, like a star, but these are not enclosed, as often happens, with circle lines. Various theories have been advanced by antiquarians to account for these designs. Probably those marks were cut upon the churches, by the pious monks of old, as emblems of eternity and of the Sun of Righteousness.
Shenton Hall (1629), long and still the seat of the Woollastons, stood directly in the path of the combatants at Bosworth Field, and the fury of the battle must have raged all around it. The Hall has been recased, and, except for its old gatehouse and semi-octagon bays, which are of the Tudor style, it presents a modern aspect. Its windows open toward Radmore heath and Ambien Hill, the scene of the conflict between the Red Rose and the White. The church has been entirely rebuilt,—a handsome edifice, of crucial form, containing costly pews of old oak, together with interesting brasses and busts, taken from the old church which it has replaced. The brasses commemorate Richard Coate and Joyce his wife, and Richard Everard and his wife, and are dated 1556, 1597, and 1616. The busts are of white marble, dated 1666, and are commemorative of William Woollaston and his wife, once lord and lady of the manor of Shenton. It was the rule, in building churches, that one end should face to the east and the other to the west, but you frequently find an old church that is set at a slightly different angle,—that, namely, at which the sun arose on the birthday of the saint to whom the church was dedicated. The style of large east and west windows, with trefoil or other ornamentation in the heads of the arches, came into vogue about the time of Edward the First.
Dadlington was Richard's extreme left on the day of the battle, and Bosworth was his extreme right. These positions were intrusted to the Stanleys, both of whom betrayed their king. Sir William Stanley's headquarters were at Dadlington, and traces of the earthworks then thrown up there, by Richard's command, are still visible. Dadlington church has almost crumbled to pieces, and it is to be restored. It is a diminutive structure, with a wooden tower, stuccoed walls, and a tiled roof, and it stands in a graveyard full of scattered mounds and slate-stone monuments. It was built in Norman times, and although still used it has long been little better than a ruin. One of the bells in its tower is marked "Thomas Arnold fecit, 1763,"—but this is comparatively a modern touch. The church contains two pointed arches, and across its roof are five massive oak beams, almost black with age. The plaster ceiling has fallen, in several places, so that patches of laths are visible in the roof. The pews are square, box-like structures, made of oak and very old. The altar is a plain oak table, supported on carved legs, covered with a cloth. On the west wall appears a tablet, inscribed "Thomas Eames, church-warden, 1773." Many human skeletons, arranged in regular tiers, were found in Dadlington churchyard, when a much-beloved clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Bourne, was buried, in 1881; and it is believed that those are remains of men who fell at Bosworth Field. The only inn at this lonely place bears the quaint name of The Dog and Hedgehog.
The following queer epitaph appears upon a gravestone in Dadlington churchyard. It is Thomas Bolland, 1765, who thus expresses his mind, in mortuary reminiscence:
"I lov'd my Honour'd Parents dear,
I lov'd my Wife's and Children dear,
And hope in Heaven to meet them there.
I lov'd my Brothers & Sisters too,
And hope I shall them in Heaven view.