Stoke Golding, Leicestershire

Stoke Golding is a village and civil parish in the Hinckley and Bosworth district of Leicestershire, England, which lies in the heart of England, in South West Leicestershire, close to the Leicestershire county border. According to the 2001 census the total population was 1,721, living in just over 700 houses. The population at the 2011 census was 1,684 living in 723 households. The village is 16 miles from the City of Leicester, about three miles north-west of the market town of Hinckley, and 4 miles along scenic country lanes from the village of Fenny Drayton, the birthplace and childhood home of George Fox (the founder of the worldwide Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) movement). The village is bordered on one side by the Ashby Canal, well-used for recreational purposes.HistoryStoke Golding's unique historical claim to fame is that in 1485 the people of the village witnessed the rural coronation of Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch. His defeat of King Richard III, last of the Plantagenets, at the Battle of Bosworth marked the end of the Wars of the Roses and heralded the accession to the throne of the Tudor dynasty of three Kings and two Queens. So doing Stoke Golding claims to be the "Birthplace of the Tudor Dynasty".After Henry Tudor was victorious over Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth, which took place in the healthy marshland known as the Redemore between Stoke Golding, Dadlington, Shenton and Sutton Cheney. Henry's entourage retired to hilly ground near the village of Stoke Golding. Here the impromptu coronation of King Henry VII was performed with a circlet by tradition retrieved from a nearby thorn bush. This area became known as Crown Hill and Crownhill Field.