It is one of the most decisive and famous battles ever fought on English soil.

The Battle of Hastings in 1066 – long accepted as taking place in the fields around Battle Abbey a few miles north of the Sussex seaside town – launched the Norman Conquest.

Generations of schoolchildren have been taught the story of how England's King Harold was killed by a Norman arrow through the eye – and thousands of visitors every year walk the famous battlefield.

But now the history books may have to be rewritten after a claim that the bloody encounter between  the armies of Harold and William the Conqueror did not take place at Battle at all....