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In 1066, Duke William of Normandy left France on a fleet of ships to fight his cousin and competitor for the vacant English throne, Harold Godwinson, and at the Battle of Hastings, the matter was settled. Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon claimant, was dead, and a new age for England began.(1) Had the EU existed then, he'd have never had the chance. Given current EU red tape, efforts to make a replica of La Mora, the ship Williams used to become The Conqueror, mean it may still not be ready for the 1,000 year anniversary. Unless Great Britain, having shucked off...

Today, a rather old book from the late 11th century England (1086 to be precise) will be brought online to be searched. The Domesday Book, is the earliest surviving survey and valuation of the King, his senior supporters, the land they owned and their resources. If you'd wanted to look through it previously, you had to drag yourself over to the National Archive in a rather calm building in Kew West London, or cough up a couple of thousand pounds to get them on CD. By going to the Domesday Web site, you can search and get an idea if...

IT IS AN idyllic hamlet based around a single street of picturesque thatched cottages in rural Dorset. But however lovely Shitterton is, the tiny collection of homes on the edge of the village of Bere Regis has been named as Britain’s most unfortunate place name in a new survey. The tiny settlement between Dorchester and Poole beat the nearby valley of Scratchy Bottom, near Durdle Door in Dorset and Brokenwind in Aberdeenshire in the survey by findmypast.co.uk, Shitterton is a very literal English translation of the village name recorded in Norman French in the 11th century Domesday Book as Scatera...

The ghosts of thousands of long-forgotten villages haunt Britain, inhabitations suddenly deserted and left to ruin. As a new campaign begins to shed further light on these forgotten histories, the Magazine asks - what happened and why?Albert Nash, blacksmith for 44 years in the village of Imber, Wiltshire, was found by his wife Martha slumped over the anvil in his forge. He was, in her words, crying like a baby. It was the beginning of November 1943, a day or two after Mr Nash and the rest of the villagers had been told by the War Office they had 47...

What this will do is force anyone who produces food of any kind, and then transports it to a different location for sale, to register with a new federal agency called the “Food Safety Administration.” Even growers who sell just fruit and/or vegetables at farmers markets would not only have to register, but they would be subject inspections by federal agents of their property and all records related to food production. The frequency of these inspections will be determined by the whim of the Food Safety Administration. Mandatory “safety” records would have to be kept. Anyone who fails to register...

Genetic analysis of men in modern-day central England shows that more than half of them possess a Y-chromosome that can be traced to Germania - an ancient region of central Europe... Evidence of the apartheid system can be found in ancient texts such as the 7th century laws of Ine, Thomas says, which place a greater value on the life of an Anglo-Saxon. For example, these laws stated that if an Anglo-Saxon was killed, the "blood money", or "Wergild", payable to the family was up to five times more than the fine payable for the life of a native Celt.

Sunday, 30 June, 2002, 15:31 GMT 16:31 UK English and Welsh are races apart Gene scientists claim to have found proof that the Welsh are the "true" Britons. The research supports the idea that Celtic Britain underwent a form of ethnic cleansing by Anglo-Saxons invaders following the Roman withdrawal in the fifth century. Genetic tests show clear differences between the Welsh and English It suggests that between 50% and 100% of the indigenous population of what was to become England was wiped out, with Offa's Dyke acting as a "genetic barrier" protecting those on the Welsh side. And the upheaval...

A campaign has been launched to bring the Bayeux Tapestry, one of the world’s great works of art, back to Britain for the first time centuries, and put it on display in Canterbury Cathedral. The famous embroidery of the 1066 Norman Conquest is the subject of a major conference of world experts being held at the British Museum next month......

The work has been carried out by specialists in the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification (CAHID) at the University of Dundee, one of the world's leading centres for facial reconstruction. Caroline Erolin, Lecturer in Forensic and Medical Art at CAHID, said, "His grave lay slightly under an important sarcophagus burial, which had resulted in excellent preservation of his skull making it the best candidate among the skeletons for facial reconstruction." ... "The burial of this man was one of eight burials which were interred inside a small stone church or chapel which predates Lincoln Castle and was previously unknown,"...

A metal detector enthusiast believes he has found a royal crown jewel buried in a field. Peter Beasley, 67, was stunned when he pulled a heavy gold ring from the ground while out with his metal detector near Petersfield. He claims the ring is 900 years old and belonged to Robert, the eldest son of William the Conquerer, whose name is engraved on the ring. Robert, known as 'Short-legs', unsuccessfully attempted to take the English throne when he landed in Portsmouth in 1101. But Mr Beasley is now involved in a dispute over the authenticity of the ring. The British...