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Dead Man's Plack

Monument
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What is recorded here

Dead Man's Plack is an 1825 stone memorial to a medieval murder story about King Edgar, Ælfthryth and the nobleman Æthelwald.

Why it was made

Lieutenant-Colonel William Iremonger raised the monument in Harewood Forest to mark the supposed place where King Edgar killed his friend and rival Æthelwald.

People and events

The story says Æthelwald hid Ælfthryth's beauty from Edgar and married her himself, prompting royal revenge, although historians cannot treat the tale as established fact.

How it worked

Its inscribed stone face turned a woodland spot into a physical setting for a moral story of desire, betrayal and punishment from England's royal past.

What remains

The tall stone monument and its long inscription survive among the trees, while later writing helped keep the legend in public memory.

Why it mattered

It matters as evidence of how nineteenth-century landowners placed romantic readings of medieval history directly into the English landscape.

Sources for this account

Sources checked 16 August 2026.

From OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors) n1428089227

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Photo credits
  • Kelvin Davies, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Jim Champion, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Ron Strutt, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • David Martin, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • David Howard, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Chris Talbot, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Mike Searle, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Robin Webster, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
  • Colin Bates, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
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