Events

Battlefields Trust Online Talk: Sieges as Battlefield sites: Example of Newark-upon-Trent,1642-46

Monday 24th November 2025

Battlefields are often associated with fields and open countryside. Yet over the course of the English Civil Wars (1642-1651) sieges played a considerable part of the military actions of this period

Sieges, especially where garrisons were established in towns, had to engage with several key military issues with implications for both soldiers and civilians. Amongst these are logistics, provisions, accommodation, disease and care of the wounded. Construction of defences and siege works which often involved a long period of construction and often leave considerable features on the landscape.

The town of Newark is an excellent example of the potential historians and archaeologist might gain from the study of such sites. It endured three sieges: 1643, 1644 and 1645-1646, the final one lasting for six months. During the third siege, disease and the mounting number of wounded placed considerable pressure on all the protagonists, as well as on the civilians within the town

In this talk we explore these issues for Battlefield studies using an extremely well documented Civil War Garrison where there still remains on the landscape a number of siege works.

Stuart Jennings is a historian specialising in Early Modern British History, a retired Methodist Minister and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He also serves as am academic advisor to the National Civil War Centre at Newark. He holds a MA in History from Nottingham and a PhD in Early Modern History from Nottingham Trent University. Dr Jennings has published four books and over 20 academic papers and has also contributed several articles to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

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