Leicester car park where Richard III was buried given protected status

Heritage minister says protecting site as a scheduled monument will ensure its preservation for future generations

The scruffy council car park in Leicester that was revealed in 2012 to an astonished world as the site where Richard III was buried in 1485 is being given scheduled monument status by the government.

The listing is to protect "one of the most important sites in our national history", the remains of the medieval friary where the battered, naked body of the last Plantagenet king was buried after he lost the Battle of Bosworth, his life and his crown to Henry Tudor.