Battle lines drawn over turbines at Agincourt
Heritage fans join fight to stop huge wind farm being built near site of Henry V’s great victory over French
A NEW battle of Agincourt has erupted over plans to build a wind farm within full view of the medieval site of Henry V’s victory in northern France.
Preparations are now under way to build 16 wind turbines beside the battlefield immortalised by Shakespeare which has remained largely untouched for 600 years.
Several towering 500 ft structures would stand as close as 800yards from the site of one of England’s greatest military triumphs. It was on this muddy field on St Crispin’s Day (Oct 25), 1415, that King Henry’s “happy few”, his “band of brothers”, overcame apparently insuperable odds to massacre a vast French army.
Gary Ashley, 62, a battlefield guide from Rotherham who is based near Azincourt – as the French know the site – said: “Where do you draw the line on wind farms? Verdun, Valmy, Omaha Beach? Agincourt is a red line. I’m not here just to defend a British battlefield. This field is soaked in French blood.
“You can’t make this stuff up, it’s Game of Thrones for real.”
This time, however, the fighting is pitting one camp of French mayors against another, backed by British residents and heritage fans including the actor Jeremy Irons and Jane Hawking, first wife of the late scientist Stephen.
It has also highlighted the fractious nature of rural French politics, which has almost as many fiefdoms as during the Hundred Years’ War.
Similar plans in 2003 sparked a fierce and victorious cross-channel protest. The coup de grace in that twoyear tussle was delivered by the late actor Robert Hardy, who in a letter to The Daily Telegraph wrote: “A battlefield is much more than a place of burial: if unspoilt, it is a place to pursue historical truth.”
However, a new developer has unearthed the hatchet by signing up five surrounding villages. Service roads and electric cabling have been authorised and two 200ft test masts put up.
“Now the threat is even greater because it’s nearer and they are higher,” warned Patrick Fenet, 70, a medieval history enthusiast who staged a protest at the battlefield this week.
Holding a longbow, the weapon that swung the battle Henry’s way thanks to the firepower of Welsh archers, Mr Fenet said: “These turbines will spoil the surroundings, all that the battlefield represents and the efforts of those trying to develop historical tourism.” Dr Hawking, who bought a house in the area with her ex-husband in 1989, said: “Let us go once more unto the breach at Agincourt, but this time in support of our French friends and an important part of our own heritage.”
In a measured message, Mr Irons said although wind energy was “wonderful” it must be “carefully placed”.
“The field at Azincourt may not be ideal as we should be allowed to be aware and to travel on those magical historical places,” wrote the actor, who visited in 2012 for the BBC series Shakespeare Uncovered and galloped across the battlefield on horseback.
However, Daniel Boquet, 71, the prowind farm mayor of the nearby village of Béalencourt, denied he was trampling on history and declared: “Each of us is boss in our village.
“Personally, I don’t think this will stop people coming,” he said, pointing out that there were dozens of turbines in Fruges, about four miles north. Mr Boquet personally stands to receive at least €6,000 (£5,300) per year for allowing the operator to lease his land. He and two other councillors did not take part in the vote approving the turbines to avoid a “conflict of interest”.
A further €22,000 per year would be shared among 69 villages and about €1,000 would go the village itself.
Etienne Périn, 47, mayor of the prowind farm village of Maisoncelle, said that while he supported historical initiatives, he also backed renewable energy and his tiny village could benefit.
“It’s much easier to be against everything than for it, particularly in France. Everyone is for ecology but not in my backyard,” he said.
He has even come up with a cunning plan. “We could paint medieval knights on the masts of the turbines,” he said.
However, the mayor of Azincourt is dead against the idea. “I will not be the mayor who builds wind farms around the battlefield,” said Nicolas Poclet. “We absolutely have to protect it from any visual pollution.”
The timing could not be worse, he added, as the community had invested €4 million into a battlefield observation tower and a revamped museum. The aim is to double annual visits to 50,000.
The museum will challenge the Shakespearean myth that Henry was outnumbered by up to five to one, as research has suggested up to 9,000 English soldiers faced 12,500 French.
Patrick Desreumaux, vice-president of the umbrella municipal grouping for the area, who opposes the turbines, said he had “high hopes” that the regional state prefect – who has the last word – would turn the project down.
He has a powerful ally in Xavier Bertrand, head of the Hauts-de-france region, who in a recent angry outburst told the government to “give us a break over wind farms”. Mr Desreumaux said: “We are pulling every personal and political string. It is everyone’s duty to respect this battlefield.”
‘Where do you draw the line on wind farms? Verdun, Valmy, Omaha Beach? Agincourt is a red line’