Sussex Exclusive Editor, Lucy Pitts, shares her extraordinary search for William the Conqueror, not as a historian but as one woman trying to get to grips with one man via a dividing gap of nearly a thousand years.
In mid-2025, I developed a bit of an obsession with William the Conqueror. It began with research into the Battle of Hastings ahead of the 960th anniversary of the battle and the approaching Millennium Year of the Normans. In the name of that research, I decided to follow in the Sussex footsteps of the two key players in that story.
In doing so, my interest was truly piqued. As I trod the many Sussex paths that William had trodden all those years ago, my sense of wonder gradually extended beyond Sussex into Kent, Hampshire and London, before eventually carrying me across the Channel to Normandy itself.
And what had started out as historical and architectural curiosity began to evolve. At every stop along the way, I tried to pause long enough to absorb the view and ask myself two simple questions: what would the men standing here nearly a thousand years ago have seen? More importantly, what must they have felt? Anticipation, fear, pride, ambition, uncertainty and satisfaction were just some of the feelings that emerged, giving me emotional context to one of the most significant turning points in English history. And it all slowly started to feel very real.
In some places, the connection felt faint, perhaps because those locations, like Caen Castle (France) and Pevensey Castle (Sussex) have been softened by time. Over the course of a millennium, so many people have lived, built and walked there that the intensity of the past sometimes felt diluted beneath the layers of history that followed. But in other places, the emotions that were stirred were genuinely remarkable and almost tangible. There were moments when the distance between past and present seemed to narrow and William began to emerge from the shadows. And when I finally met him, well his tomb at least, he too felt tangible.
Searching for William
My obsession truly began on a stretch of the South Downs just west of Eastbourne. It was a glorious October day with a perfectly clear sky. I was walking an old drover’s and smuggler’s trail from East Dean towards Jevington when I paused and looked out across Pevensey Bay.
I realised then that, had I been a Saxon standing on that same hillside 960 years earlier, I would have witnessed one of the most extraordinary sights in English history unfolding below me: the arrival of William’s fleet into the bay at Pevensey. There remains a dispute over exactly how many ships there were, but it must have been a terrifying sight and that thought sent a genuine shiver down my spine.
Hastings Castle and Dover Castle
I visited many Norman castles during the course of my travels, but two stood out above all others: Hastings Castle and Dover Castle. At Hastings, there is little left now beyond ruins clinging dramatically to the cliff edge. At Dover, although the castle remains mighty and imposing, most of William’s original structure has been absorbed beneath centuries of redevelopment.
Yet despite that, I felt William strongly in both places. Both castles stand high above the towns, sea and Channel below. Standing at both, I found myself wondering not so much what William saw, but what he felt. At Hastings Castle, strangely, the emotion that came to me was relief. One of the first stages of the invasion had succeeded. England lay ahead. William made his way to Hastings shortly after landing at Pevensey and after the Battle of Hastings, it was to become the first Norman castle in England.
From Hastings, William’s army made their way east to Dover. Dover quickly surrendered and a wooden Norman motte and bailey castle was built either next to or near the Saxon church which still crowns the castle today. I stood near that Saxon church high within the castle grounds on a bleak winter’s day, wind howling across the cliffs, rain soaking me to the skin, imagining William. Here, the confidence felt stronger. Not arrogance, never that, but growing authority and belief. We’ve made it this far. We’ve got this and a slight sense of awe and excitement at the sea and the land beyond.
Bosham and Harold
Of course, as part of my travels, I followed Harold Godwinson too, and that journey took me to Bosham. Harold held a manor there and it was from Bosham that he set sail two years before the Battle of Hastings. The village still carries strong echoes of him. There is the church which although rebuilt since is where he would almost certainly have worshipped and there are even the remains of what is said to have been his privy (in a privately owned garden next door). There also remains a debate about whether Harold may actually be buried there and I stood on the spot where his coffin may lie (under the flagstones).
After the church, I wandered down towards the shore of what is part of Chichester Harbour. There, more than anywhere else connected with Harold, I got a powerful sense not of the warrior or king, but of the family man. I imagined him walking those shores with his wife, talking with his mother, playing with his children. Perhaps they urged him not to go. Perhaps they simply feared he might never return. Standing there, the story suddenly felt very human.
The 1066 trees
Some of the most powerful places I encountered were not castles or abbeys at all. They were trees. What I now think of as the “1066 trees”.
The most moving of all was an ancient yew tree at Crowhurst, just outside Battle. Harold or his wife held a manor there, meaning Harold would almost certainly have visited. Between the manor and the church stands a remarkable yew tree believed to date back around a thousand years, perhaps even to the Roman era. It is also believed that William camped nearby shortly before the battle, and local legend suggests one of Harold’s men may have been hanged from the tree by William’s men. William was deeply religious, so it is entirely possible he worshipped at the church beside it.
And that was the thought I could not escape as I stood beneath its branches. There is, in my mind, a very strong possibility that both Harold and William, separately, of course, had stood beneath that same tree nearly a millennium ago. Perhaps they touched its bark while deep in thought or conversation or sheltered beneath it from the weather.
The other tree that left a deep impression on me stands at Wilmington, beside the Norman church there. Nearby once stood a priory founded by William’s mother, Herleva and her second husband. William was known to have been devoted to his mother, and he was unquestionably a pious man at times. It is entirely possible then that he visited the church and priory connected to his family.
Standing beneath that ancient tree, I found myself again imagining quieter moments rather than grand historical ones. William sheltering from the wind beneath its branches. Escaping the heat of the day in its shade. Perhaps simply talking with his mother after church. William the man. William the son.
Chichester and Winchester
I have visited Chichester Cathedral many times over the years, and it has always struck me as an intensely evocative place. Curiously, though, it was harder for me to feel a direct sense of William there than at some of the smaller places I visited.
The strongest connection came when I combined my visit with time spent at Selsey, where the original cathedral once stood before William ordered the seat moved to Chichester.
At Winchester Cathedral, meanwhile, it was not inside the cathedral where I felt closest to William, but in the bustling backstreets of Winchester itself. Walking through the older parts of the city, I sensed business, intrigue and urgency. It was easy to imagine messengers hurrying through the streets, loyalties shifting and decisions being made that would shape the future of a newly conquered England. There, more than anywhere within the cathedral walls, I sensed William not as warrior or pilgrim, but as ruler.
Falaise and Caen
In Normandy in France, I visited Falaise Castle, where William was born and spent the first years of his life. The castle was grand, imposing and immensely strong, yet also remote. And perhaps because of that isolation, it felt personal. This was not simply a great Norman castle. This was William the child’s home.
From the castle walls there are magnificent views stretching across Normandy, landscapes that must surely have shaped his imagination and ambitions. The castle radiates fortitude and security, though William’s own childhood was anything but secure. I cannot honestly say I sensed playfulness there, but I did feel something quieter and perhaps more important: a sense of home. The curator at the castle pointed out that the gift shop now stands where the kitchen once stood and so it was not hard to imagine little William eating there.
Caen Castle was far more complex emotionally. The castle today is enormous, layered and complicated, rebuilt by different rulers over centuries. Yet despite that complexity, what came through most strongly was grandeur, prestige and permanence. A place of retreat and security but a place of status, although yet again, there was no sense of arrogance. When I compared it to some of our Sussex Norman castles, they felt dwarfed and Sussex suddenly felt very small.
The streets of Caen
Perhaps it should go without saying that the streets of Caen felt utterly different from the streets of Hastings Old Town. But perhaps the contrast felt so powerful because I had travelled directly between the two. The cultural shift was immediate and remarkably striking. The pace felt different. The atmosphere felt different.
Crossing the Channel in William’s footsteps made me realise that the Norman Conquest was never simply a military event. It was also a collision and ultimately a blending of cultures, identities and ways of living. And not for the first time for the Duchy of Normandy.
Fécamp and the manuscript
I wasn’t sure what to expect at Fécamp which is on the coast north east of Rouen. I knew, historically, that it had once been enormously important within the Duchy of Normandy. Richard I of Normandy was born there, while Richard II of Normandy made it one of the great centres of Norman power. It was really only later, under William the Conqueror, that political emphasis gradually shifted elsewhere towards places like Caen.
I also knew that the Abbey of Fécamp had played a surprisingly significant role in the story of 1066 and in the long relationship between Normandy and Sussex. Before the Norman Conquest, Edward the Confessor granted the royal minster church at Steyning to the abbey at Fécamp in gratitude for Norman protection during his exile. The abbey already held lands around Rye, Winchelsea and Hastings, gifted earlier by King Cnut. I also knew that perhaps more important than the boats the abbey provided to William, was the intelligence about Sussex that they had. To this end, Fécamp was a place where much of the planning may have happened.
A few streets back from the seafront, is the vast and opulent Palais Bénédictine, now best known for producing the famous Bénédictine liqueur. Here, I was fortunate enough to meet the archivist, who showed me several extraordinary medieval documents connected to William the Conqueror. One is believed to have been signed by William himself, although some historians still debate its authenticity. Another, however, is accepted as genuine. The document was astonishingly intact and vibrant despite its age, the ink and parchment still remarkably clear after nearly a thousand years. Beside William’s name were two simple crosses, the marks he used in place of a written signature.
Standing there looking at those marks was a strange moment indeed. A little piece of the puzzle that had been missing. William had held that document. He had stood somewhere nearby and physically placed those crosses onto the parchment. After months spent tracing him through landscapes, castles and legends, suddenly there was something very tangible – the direct imprint of his hand.
Jumièges and the departure point
Today Jumièges Abbey (just outside Rouen) stands in magnificent ruin, but in William’s day it would have been extraordinary: newly rebuilt, gleaming white and immense. William attended its reconsecration in 1067 after becoming King of England. Standing there, it was easy to imagine him striding through the great doorway full of confidence and pride. Here, more than anywhere else, I sensed majesty and achievement.
The abbey was also home to William of Jumièges, one of the great chroniclers of Norman history. That gave the place another atmosphere entirely. Alongside the grandeur, I also felt a connection as a fellow writer, imagining him scratching away with his quill onto parchment trying to record the events of the time in a way that would please William himself and confuse hardworking historians for generations to come.
Finally, I visited the places from which William’s invasion fleet departed: Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, about an hour north of Dieppe. Here, I looked out across the inlet where William and his fleet waited before finally setting sail for England. There, perhaps more than anywhere else, I felt the tension of the unknown: anticipation, apprehension, excitement and determination. It’s a pretty town but on a cloudy day it felt forbading.
The Abbaye aux Hommes
It was a cold, quiet early morning when I finally visited Abbaye aux Hommes, where William is buried in Caen. I entered almost accidentally through an unremarkable back door and wandered quietly through the abbey before suddenly stumbling upon William’s tomb. That was the most profound moment of all my travels. Standing there, after months spent tracing William’s footsteps across Sussex, Kent, Hampshire, London and Normandy, I felt a real connection to William the man. He was roughly 58 when he died. My age. I knelt before the tomb not out of worship particularly, but simply because I wanted to feel that moment. And quietly, almost instinctively, I spoke to him. It was the single most powerful moment of the entire journey and one that will stay with me for a long time.
So what did I learn about William the Conqueror?
First and foremost, I learned that it would be arrogant of me to imagine that my own wanderings across Sussex, England and Normandy could somehow solve the complex puzzle of who William the Conqueror really was, when so many great historians before me still wrestle with that very question.
Am I a historian? No. These are just my personal reflections after following my own 1066 trail. Have I over romanticised or imagined my emotions? Very probably. But I did begin to understand that, in order to understand William the man, you first have to understand the world that shaped him. You have to understand the story of the Vikings arriving in what is now Normandy, and the legacy of William’s great-great-grandfather, Rollo. You have to understand not only the violence of the Viking conquest, but also the remarkable Viking and Norman ability to assimilate, adapt and build. The Normans became something more complex than simply Vikings. They absorbed language, religion, politics and culture, eventually creating one of the most sophisticated and formidable duchies in Europe.
And of course, you have to understand William’s childhood. His father died when he was still a child. He grew up vulnerable, illegitimate and politically exposed. People close to him were assassinated. His position was repeatedly threatened. He was mocked for being a bastard and lived through a childhood shaped by insecurity, danger and survival.
William is undeniably associated with terrible violence, most notably the Harrying of the North. Was it those childhood experiences that inevitably created the brutal ruler history remembers? But he also seems to have possessed a remarkable understanding of people. He was clearly intelligent, strategic and possessed immense self-belief with an apparent ability to recognise strengths, to place capable individuals around him and to inspire loyalty. What is difficult to comprehend is how William developed such extraordinary political instinct and strategic insight without the guidance of a strong father figure for most of his life … unless it was quite literally handed down to him via his blood.
One of the historians I spoke to at Falaise, Mathias Dilys, raised the “great man theory”: the notion that certain individuals alter the course of history through force of character, vision or ability. His view was clear: William was one of those men.
In many ways, the odds were stacked against him from the very beginning. Yet somehow, piece by piece, William consolidated power and secured control over territories that had long been unstable. And then, in 1066, events seemed almost unbelievably to align in his favour. Viking invasions in the north forced Harold to divert his attention and strength. The winds on the Channel quite literally changed. Harold then made the decision to march south rapidly and meet William in Sussex rather than waiting and consolidating his position in London. One after another, circumstances shifted in ways that ultimately secured William’s victory.
So was it luck? Destiny? Timing? The work of one extraordinary individual? Or the cumulative effect of countless people, decisions and events converging at precisely the right moment? Perhaps it was all of those things at once.
And then there is domestic William, the pious and god fearing man who founded enormous abbeys and churches. Buildings which I often found not merely grand but strangely restrained and humble inside despite their awe-inspiring scale. And let’s not forget William the husband, who, unusually for the era, appears to have been deeply loyal and faithful to his wife, Matilda of Flanders.
As for what William himself might actually have been like to meet, I suspect he would have been an intensely intriguing presence. Charismatic, certainly. Confident too. Arrogant? Not in my view. But the sort of person who naturally commanded attention the moment he entered a room. I like to imagine him with a steely exterior but I also like to believe that away from court and warfare, there was also softness to him.
Why does this matter?
Why does any of this matter nearly a thousand years later? Why spend months tracing William’s footsteps across Sussex, England and Normandy? For me, it matters because William represents one of the great junctions in history, a kind of historical linchpin through which so many cultures, dynasties and identities converged before spreading outward again in entirely new forms.
Within William, you can see echoes of the Vikings through Rollo and the early Norman rulers. You see the blending of Scandinavian and Frankish culture that created Normandy itself. And then, through the conquest of England, those Norman identities merged again with the Saxons and, to some extent, with the lingering influence of earlier Scandinavian settlers and the descendants of Cnut the Great. All of those great bloodlines, cultures, political traditions and inherited traits seem to narrow into a single historical point in William.
And then, from him, history fans outward again. From William emerges the complex story of Norman England, the beginnings of what would become the House of Plantagenet, and centuries of entangled relationships between England and France that would shape both nations for generations. And that means that what happened on 14 October 1066 is not distant from us at all. For those of us born and raised in Sussex especially, but really for anyone across England, these events are woven deeply into our cultural and historical identity. The battle itself was the culmination of centuries of inheritance, migration, politics and dynastic complexity that flowed into William. And in turn, the outcome of that single day influenced centuries of Sussex and English history afterwards.
And perhaps that is why William still fascinates us nearly a thousand years later. Not simply because he conquered England, but because he sits at that extraordinary crossroads where personality, circumstance, luck, ambition and history itself all collided.
And did I find William?
Did I find William? I found as much of William as I think he allows of himself to be found. There were moments when he felt startlingly close. When he stepped forward from the clouds of the past. And then there were moments when he slipped back into myth, contradiction and uncertainty. Perhaps that is inevitable with someone like William. But in those windswepts moments, as I looked out to see, stood in the shade of a yew tree or walked a path that he walked before me, I think I found enough.
Thanks go to: the Normandy Tourist Office, Atout France, historian Mathias Dilys, Educational Officer and cultural mediator at Falaise castle, and Sébastien Roncin, Head of Archives at the Palais Bénédictine, Fecamp,
If you are interested in visiting Normandy, visit https://en.normandie-tourisme.fr/
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