ON THIS SPOT WAS FOUGHT THE BATTLE OF BLORE HEATH IN 1459; LORD AUDLEY WHO COMMANDED FOR THE SIDE OF LANCASTER WAS DEFEATED & SLAIN. TO PERPETUATE THE MEMORY OF THE ACTION & THE PLACE, THIS ANCIENT MONUMENT WAS REPAIRED IN 1765, AT THE CHARGE OF THE LORD OF THE MANOR, CHARLES BOOTHBY SCHRYMSHER. Plot, in his _Natural History of Staffordshire_, {35} published in 1686, mentions, amongst the antiquities of that county, “The stone set up upon Blore Heath, in memory of the fall of James Lord Audley, slain just in that place;” which is an additional proof of an ancient monument having been there, during a long period of time. Opposite the gate of the Cross Field, and at the distance of a field’s breadth, on the other side of the road, is a farmhouse and farm called Audley Cross Farm, of which that field forms a part. The farm belongs to Sir John N. L. Chetwode, Bart., and is occupied by Mr. William Hughes, a respectable and intelligent farmer, with whom I have had several conversations, during the visits which I made to the field of battle, as I was in hopes of hearing from him of some relics having been dug up; but he had not held the farm many years, and was not aware of any discoveries of that nature having been recently made. He, however, informed me, that some relics of the battle had formerly been discovered. On the 16th of May, 1856, I saw in the possession of Mr. George Goodall, a respectable farmer residing in that neighbourhood, a sword in tolerable preservation, which is said to have been found on the field of battle. {36} Near the back of the farmhouse, in a little enclosure, is a small raised mount of earth, of a long square shape, on which a thorn-tree of rather large size is growing, which is said to have been raised in memory of some person of distinction who was slain there. If that be so, the probability is, that he was one of the Yorkists, because it is a little in the rear of the spot where their right wing must have been.