A group of intrepid re-enactors will leave York on Sunday 25 September on an epic journey inspired by the one taken by King Harold to the Battle of Hastings, 950 years ago. Organised by English Heritage as part of its programme marking the anniversary of the Norman Conquest, re-enactors on foot and horseback will travel south over three weeks, arriving at the East Sussex battlefield on Friday 14 October, the exact date in 1066 when the forces of Harold and Duke William of Normandy met in arguably the most famous and important battle in English history.

English Heritage hope that the march will engage local communities with the history of 1066, and the route will include several workshops with local groups and a number of schools. Two major events are also planned – a pop-up Saxon encampment in Hyde Park on Saturday 8 October and the annual re-enactment of the battle itself on the battlefield over the weekend of 15-16 October.

The 1066 March will depart from Clifford’s Tower in York on Sunday 25 September, the anniversary of King Harold’s victory over a Viking army at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Journeying through Yorkshire and the East Midlands, the march will visit the historic city of Lincoln, passing through the same Roman arch Harold and his men would have done on their way south.

Travelling through the Fens and on to Essex, the participants will visit Waltham Abbey, the church richly endowed by the English king, and where tradition says he may have been buried. On the final weekend, the group will march into central London, joining a ‘pop-up’ Saxon encampment within Hyde Park on Saturday 8 October.

The final week’s journey will travel from Westminster into Kent, through the Weald to East Sussex, paying tribute to what would be King Harold’s final journey. Three weeks and three hundred miles after setting off, the re-enactors will arrive at Battle Abbey on the anniversary itself, in time to take part in the annual re-enactment event over the weekend of 15 and 16 October.