I have in several successive years {34b} paid visits to the field of battle. At the distance of two miles and a half on the road from Drayton, and soon after entering Staffordshire, the stream before mentioned, which is scarcely large enough to be considered a river, crosses the road; and more than once when I have visited it, it contained so little water, that I could easily have skipped over it. It is called Hemp Mill Brook, and is a tributary of the river Tern; its banks are rather steep, and it flows through a narrow valley, over which the road is now carried by a modern bridge. At present, from the raising and improving of the road, and probably from its having been in some degree turned, the descent on either side to the bridge is not great; but at the period when the battle was fought, the position of the Lancastrians must have been strong, in consequence of the height of the banks of Hemp Mill Brook, the depression of the valley, and the abrupt ascent from the stream on the Drayton side, where the Lancastrians were posted; and there is no reason to suppose that at that period there was a bridge over the stream. The place is evidently much changed, yet even now sufficient remains to show that they were strongly posted. The exact spot where the battle was fought is easily identified. After the traveller has crossed the modern bridge and ascended the rising ground at Blore Heath, by the road leading from Drayton towards Newcastle, he will observe, at a couple of fields’ breadth beyond the stream, and on the right side of the road, a field called the Cross Field, which at present is entered by the third gate on the right from the bridge. This field extends from the road in a curved form backwards, and slopes down the declivity, until it reaches the stream at another point at a little distance from the bridge. The battle of Blore Heath was fought on the spot where the Cross Field and the other fields near it on each side of the road now are; but, as the name implies, it should seem that the field of battle was open and unenclosed, in 1459. Near the middle of the Cross Field, Lord Audley is said to have been slain. A square pedestal, seemingly of great age, with a rude stone cross standing upon it, now much battered and injured, has been erected to mark the spot where he fell. On the pedestal is the following inscription, which is a good deal worn by time:—