'Bloody Ditch', Beacon Hill, near Heddington

purdey12345, on October 18, said:

In 1643 during the English Civil War a famous battle took place a few kilometres east of here between Royalist forces on the one hand and Parliamentary forces on the other. The battle was engendered by the siege of Devizes where Royalists were contained by a Parliamentary army. In response, the King sent a cavalry unit accompanied by two artillery pieces. As that unit came over Morgan's Hill and advanced south-west it met the Parliamentary forces. It seems that the battle was somewhat one-sided, perhaps because the tactics adopted by the Parliamentarians were inappropriate for the circumstances. In any event, the Royalists prevailed and drove many of the enemy in disarray towards the viewpoint where they literally fell off the battlefield to their deaths down the steep face of Beacon Hill and into the area you see here. Because of this massacre the area became known as 'Bloody Ditch'. The Parliamentarians took months to recover from the defeat.