Mortimer’s Cross is not a village, but merely consists of a respectable but small country inn, called the Mortimer’s Cross Inn, and one or two other houses, at a junction of four roads; where in former times a cross is said to have been erected by one of the Mortimers; but it has long been removed, and I could not learn, upon inquiry, that it had been there within the memory of man. Relics of the conflict have been occasionally dug up in the fields in front (to the westward) of the pedestal, and of the point of junction of the two roads. When I first visited the field of battle, on the 16th of May, 1854, I met with a husbandman at work there, who had lived near it many years, and who informed me, that some years ago, in ploughing in the next fields immediately to the right and left of the turnpike road, after leaving the pedestal and the place of junction of the two roads, he had not unfrequently discovered remains of bridle-bits, stirrups, fragments of iron, and, amongst others, long pieces of iron, which, from their shape and size, he concluded had been sword-blades, besides other indications of the battle. Within the recollection of the Rev. R. D. Evans, rector of Kingsland, some arms, swords, and spear-heads, were found on the field of battle, and were presented to the Museum at Hereford. {76a} He also showed me, when I visited the field of battle in 1856, a large buckle, perfectly plain, conjectured to have formed part of the trappings of a horse; a small buckle, rather ornamented, probably intended for a sword-belt, both of iron or steel; and a small silver coin, seemingly a groat, all found upon the field of battle in 1854. {76b} I have also been informed by him, that there was within his recollection, in a close near the field of battle, a mound said to have been a place of burial of those slain in the battle, but that it is now quite ploughed down, and no vestige of it remains. Although the field of battle is now entirely enclosed, there were old persons living, when I visited it in 1855 and 1856, who recollected large parts of it, when the thorn fences of its enclosures were small, and not much grown, from having been recently planted, and even when a portion of the land near the pedestal was open and unenclosed. The ruins of Wigmore Castle are little more than four miles further than the field of battle, on the road from Leominster, from which it is about nine miles and a half distant; and when I was on three occasions in the neighbourhood, I did not hesitate to prolong my excursion, and visit the remains of a castle which in days of yore was of importance, and a principal residence of the Mortimers and of Richard Duke of York. Leland does not give any information of moment respecting the castle, but merely states concisely, “Wigmore Castle a XX myles from Shreusbiri, standing on a Brooket sumtime almost dry.” {77}