PLANS to repurpose a historic pub building which oversaw one of the most significant battles in English history have been approved.

Parts of the Mortimers Cross Inn north of Hereford date back to the 13th Century, and echoed to the sound of battle in February 1461 when the Yorkist forces of the future King Edward IV took on the Lancastrian forces of Jasper Tudor, uncle of the future Henry VII.

The Battle of Mortimer's Cross, immortalised in Shakespeare's play Henry VI Part III, was part of the War of the Roses, and the Yorkist victory led to Edward seizing the throne from Henry VI with the help of Warwick the Kingmaker.

Shakespeare's battle scenes include the appearance of a three-sun parhelion in the sky, an atmospheric optical phenomenon that Edward reputedly interpreted as an omen of victory.

Jasper Tudor escaped the battlefield to later spirit his young nephew overseas before returning in 1485 to help seize the throne from Edward's brother Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth.

But his 69-year-old father Owen ap Tudor was less fortunate, captured as the beaten Lancastrian forces fled south, and beheaded next day in Hereford, which is remembered with a plaque near the Butter Market.

Jasper later took his revenge, executing the man responsible for killing his father, Sir Roger Vaughan, after capturing him near Chepstow.

Hereford's connection with the battle resurfaced two years ago when King Charles was declared king in a public ceremony, with Owen ap Tudor's 'King's Steel' or 'Mourning' sword - bequeathed to Hereford by his great-grandson Henry VIII and kept at the town hall – carried for the first time since 1952 to announce the change of monarch, the only time it is paraded.

Now, more than 550 years later, Annaly Goodwin of the Mortimers Cross Inn on the A4110/B3642 junction, has obtained planning permission to change the historic building, which previously included bed-and-breakfast accommodation, into a café and shop on the ground floor, with five one and two-bedroom flats on the upper floors, two of which would also occupy a section of the ground floor.

This will require several new internal partition walls, but only minor external changes including the creation of two new doorways and a first-floor extension to enclose an area of decking.

The proposed changes were part-retrospective, with a café and crafts and antiques shop already trading alongside the bar and a bed-and-breakfast offer since 2021.

All five public comments on the application to Herefordshire Council planners were supportive, with Penny Vigus of Pembridge calling it a “good use of the large building”.

“There is a great need for affordable housing for one or two people,” while a café and shop rather than a pub “would be much better to live above”, she added.

Aymestrey parish council also welcomed the creation of flats “rather than one or two larger units”, and asked that a minimum figure of five be made a condition of the permission.

Planning officer Emma Aram said there was no need to condition the number of flats as any deviation from the submitted plans would have to be re-approved anyway.

Conditions that were attached to the approval include requirements for secure cycle parking and the installation of bird and bat boxes.