Britain’s “oldest war memorial to bear the names of individual people” is nothing of the sort, a recent study suggests. A stained-glass window said to commemorate Lancastrian archers who fought the Scots at Flodden in 1513 records instead “an entirely peaceful context” commemorating a local toxophilitic fraternity.
The so-called “Flodden Window”, at the church of St Leonard, Middleton, midway between Manchester and Rochdale, is certainly of late-medieval date. It once had three lights and was in the north aisle. Damage when it was moved to the chancel in 1846-47 reduced it to two lights, with some parts now jumbled, but