Hero
Colonel Boles's last stand
He held the church until the last man fell.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Medieval church with musket holes in the door
- Legend from
- History / tradition
- Tone
- Dark history
A colonel's last stand in a parish church, and the bullet holes in the door.
At the Battle of Alton on 13 December 1643, Parliamentarian troops under William Waller drove Royalist infantry under Colonel Richard Boles into St Lawrence's Church. They fought on in the churchyard and then inside the church. Boles is said to have killed several men before he fell, reputedly on the pulpit steps. When Charles I heard, he called for a mourning scarf and named Boles among the best commanders in his kingdom. Musket holes from the fight can still be seen in the south door and inside the church.