TWO Vale historians have unlocked the mystery of Mosham Meadow, the place where weary soldiers pitched their tents the night before the historic Battle of Evesham in 1265.

Michael Barnard writes that as he travels along the Old Worcester Road beneath overhanging branches near the stark Leicester Tower he always feels the eerie presence of knights in armour, a bloody battle and of ghosts of the past still lingering among the undergrowth.

About a mile further along, the old Craycombe Bank rises from the water meadows on the left and gently slopes up to Craycombe coppice on the right. Except for admiring the lovely views of this tranquil countryside, the historic importance to Evesham has never been queried.

That is until this year when, during a radio programme on Simon de Montfort, Mosham Meadow was mentioned.

The whereabouts of the meadow was a complete mystery and no one in Evesham seemed to know where it was.

So Gordon Alcock, vice president of the Vale of Evesham Historical Society, got in touch with Dr David Cox who sent him an account of the Last Hours of Simon de Montfort. The work is a text discovered by Olivier de Laborderie.

The meadow is on the right as you come down Craycombe Hill, referred to as the Great Meadow in the text and stretches from the foot of Craycombe Hill to the dyke and sluice gates by the almost right angle turn in the river, a meadow of some 30 acres.

The importance of Mosham Meadow to Evesham and English history is that on the eve of the Battle of Evesham on August 4, 1265, the armies of Prince Edward and Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester, pitched tents and camped there after their march from Worcester. Several individuals were knighted during their rest stay.

On the early morning of August 4 the armies left en masse before splitting their troops into three divisions around Chadbury.

Roger Mortimer and his division stayed back holding the Squire's Road and grounds west of the Alcester Road turnpike position at the top of Blaney's Lane.

The Earl of Gloucester and his troops covered the east side down Blaney's Lane to the river in what is now known as the Oxstalls area.

Mr Barnard is grateful to Howard Dawes, of Craycombe House, who let him explore the meadow, provided the Highland cattle were not in residence, which helped him reconstruct and illustrate the scene of the camping armies on that fateful evening of August 3, 1265.

Both Gordon Alcock and Michael Barnard spent several inspiring hours walking the 30 acre Mosham Meadow and also the remaining 60 acres that stretch towards the BBC playing fields.

Could it be that these two lush meadows were one meadow in 1265 and the reference to the Great Meadow in this Anglo-Norman manuscript, which was preserved in the collection of the College of Arms, describes the Mosham Meadow as it was then.