Time Team S20 Special - 1066 The Lost Battlefield

Tony Robinson gives the history books one in the eye by discovering where the Battle of Hastings was really fought. The battle is the most famous in English history but not a single bit of archaeological evidence for it has ever been found. Have historians put the battlefield in the wrong place?

Time Team set themselves the task of uncovering the true location of England's most famous defeat.

For decades there has been dispute over the site, even though Battle Abbey is supposed to stand exactly where Harold fell. In 2012 a bestseller claimed that Caldbec Hill, a mile away, was the real site. But most historians still believe the main focus of the fighting was in the fields below the Abbey.

Time Team excavate both sites to seek evidence of either one being a battlefield.

Digging alone is inconclusive. But a cutting edge aerial technology called LIDAR to map the terrain proves that the traditional battlefield would have been too boggy for William's Norman cavalry.

So military analysts study the data to see where Harold, a skilled commander, would most likely have mounted his defence against William's invading army.

They identify the only ideal battlefield. It seems Harold's fearsome Saxon shield wall straddled a narrow strategic pass that is on today's A2100.

It leads to a surprising conclusion about where the heart of the battle was fought, and why William won and Harold lost.