FT273


Early in 2009, an empty stone coffin was donated to Bosworth Battlefield, scene of the death of King Richard III. Unearthed in a garden in nearby Earl Shilton, it was dated as possibly 15th-century and judged to be of a type made for a person of high rank. It now has pride of place in the courtyard of the prestigious Battle­field Visitors Centre. Not bad for a lidless, trough-like object used for years as a flowerbed in a villager’s water-garden.

A mediæval coffin? The archæo­logists say so. Expensive in its day? The historians are confident. Richard III’s sarcophagus? Silence… except for a spirited declaration from the Leicester­shire County Council that the coffin is a “tremendous find and an excellent addition to the Battlefield Centre”.