Background
Between 1 and 3 August 1798 a British fleet, under Admiral Horatio Nelson, defeated a French fleet, under François-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers, in Aboukir Bay, in the Battle of the Nile. The French fleet consisted of thirteen ships of the line and four frigates. Nelson had fourteen ships of the line. All but four of the French ships were destroyed or captured. No British ships were lost.
After Nelson's death at the Battle of Trafalgar, it is believed that Charles Douglas, 6th Marquess of Queensberry, a friend of Nelson's mistress, Emma Hamilton, planted clumps of beech trees on his estate near Amesbury to commemorate him. Each clump represented the location of a British or French ship at a particular point in the battle.
There may have been as many as twenty six clumps originally, spread out over three quarters of a mile, of which some seventeen remain.
Read more about this topic: Nile Clumps
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