Cropredy Bridge battlefield

The battlefield of Cropredy Bridge lies in the Cherwell valley around Cropredy, north of Banbury, where Charles I's army beat Sir William Waller's Parliamentarians on 29 June 1644. Historic England registered it in 1995. It is farmland now, and the bridge, the canal towpath and the public footpaths show most of it.

The story of the battle

The battle was fought over three crossings of the river. The King's army was marching north from Banbury on the east bank of the Cherwell, with Waller shadowing it on the west. When the royalist column strung out, leaving a gap before its rearguard, Waller tried to cut the rearguard off. He sent Lieutenant General John Middleton over Cropredy Bridge and took about 1,000 men himself over Slat Mill Ford, a mile to the south.

It went wrong quickly. To the north, musketeers held Middleton's horse at Hays Bridge in Wardington, with an overturned cart across it. The Earl of Northampton's brigade drove Waller back over the ford, and the Earl of Cleveland's charges pushed Middleton back to Cropredy Bridge. Parliament's foot held the bridge, but Waller had lost about 700 men, many by desertion, and his artillery: the royalist Sir Edward Walker counted eleven pieces taken, besides two wheeled barricades of small guns. Within days Waller's army, its London City Brigade among it, fell into mutiny.

Historic England's battlefield report of 1995 places the armies' deployment from Bourton Hill to Hays Bridge, and the two key areas of the fight at the bridge with the rising ground just east of it, and at Slat Mill Ford with the rising ground to its north.

What to look for

The registered area covers two parcels, about 3km from north to south, east of the Cherwell between the river and the Banbury to Daventry road. Look for:

• Cropredy Bridge itself, rebuilt in 1937 on the old site, with the inscription on its south side and the Battlefields Trust's panel beside it
• The rising ground just east of the bridge, where the royalist cavalry came back at Middleton
• Slat Mill Ford, a mile south, where Waller crossed and was driven back. Historic England's register entry says public footpaths give good access to it
• Hays Bridge at Wardington, to the north, where the King's musketeers blocked the road

The Oxford Canal runs through the valley now, but it reached Cropredy in 1778, more than a century after the battle, so ignore it when you read the ground.

Visiting the battlefield

The field is open farmland and free to see from the public roads, footpaths and the towpath. The Battlefields Trust put up its panel beside the bridge on 26 June 2005, the first on a trail linking the fields of Edgcote, Cropredy and Edgehill. The trail, from Chipping Warden to Kineton, was finished in the autumn of 2006. Keep to the rights of way across the fields, and expect mud on the valley floor in winter.

Getting there

Park in Cropredy village rather than on the approach to the bridge. The towpath runs from Banbury, about 4 miles south, and our canal walk from Banbury to Cropredy follows it.

Nearby

The Brasenose Arms is in Cropredy, and the Griffin Inn at Chipping Warden is at the trail's start. Our story of the Civil War in Banburyshire gives the campaign, and the Edgehill battlefield is the war's first great fight, two years earlier and a few miles west.