WARWICKSHIRE, ENGLAND—The Guardian reports that the bases of two towers from a late medieval fortified gatehouse have been found at the site of Coleshill Manor, the home of a seventeenth-century royalist situated next to a strategic crossing of the River Cole in England’s West Midlands. Examination of the towers’ stone walls revealed pockmarks made by musket balls and pistol shot. Dozens of musket balls have also been recovered. Stuart Pierson of Wessex Archaeology and his colleagues think the damage may have occurred in August 1642, since Parliamentarian troops could have passed by Coleshill Manor as they headed to the Battle of Curdworth Bridge, long thought to be the first skirmish of England’s Civil War. “There are always stories about royalty and the lead parliamentarians, but there’s not so much focus given to the people themselves, even the upper classes who found themselves involved but weren’t necessarily really part of it,” Pierson said. To read about the aftermath of a civil war skirmish in Scotland in 1650, go to "After the Battle."
