King Richard’s Well

On the field of Bosworth, fought on 22 August 1485, is a spring from which tradition says Richard III drank during the heat of the battle. Dr Samuel Parr found Dick’s Well about 1807 in dirty, mossy ground where cattle were likely to trample it out. Some years later, guided by a neighbouring farmer whose family had drawn water from it, he dug down to its large stones and square woodwork, and had it covered over. Parr wrote a Latin inscription for a stone to be set over the well, saying that here the king quenched his thirst on the day he lost his crown and his life, and a correspondent sent Hone a drawing of it as it stood in 1826.