News

Battle of Winwick - New Information Board Installed in St Oswald's Church

15 September 2026

The Battle of Winwick Society has arranged for a new information board it produced to be installed in St Oswald’s Church, Winwick.

The board tells the stories of a soldier buried there after the battle and the church building being used to hold captured Scottish prisoners.

The information board was handed over by Society Secretary Dr Andrew Abram to Rev Martin Fuller and unveiled during a small ceremony on 12 September.

Major John Cholmley was recorded in the parish register as being buried there on 5 September 1648, two weeks after the battle. He was therefore probably wounded in the fighting and subsequently died. His is the only burial recorded in the register, though over 1,000 soldiers are likely to have been killed in the fighting.

According to Major John Sanderson, a parliamentarian officer who fought in the battle, around 1,500 prisoners were held in the church. But the day after the battle Cromwell urged Parliament to decide how to dispose of the prisoners and by 3 September they had been removed. 

Paul Wright, Chair of the Winwick Battlefield Society said, ‘we aimed to have the board installed in time for the St Oswald’s Church Heritage Open Weekend and are pleased to see it in place as it is the very first battlefield information board that the Society has produced’.

The Battle of Winwick was fought on 19 August 1648 between the remnants of an Anglo–Scottish Engager army, which had been defeated at Preston two days earlier, and the parliamentarian New Model Army commanded by Lieutenant General Oliver Cromwell. The Anglo–Scottish army was defeated during the battle.