Battle of Nantwich
fantastic day out at the re enactment today, still no idea who won though (oops, that’s one to ask Duke then…) Lots of men dressed up and pretending to fight each other, some death throes worthy of Oscars, gunpowder going bang all over the place and a finalee of a whole line of them "charging" the spectators wtih full battle cry - very startling even if I did know it was all in jest - those pike look serious when they are pointed right at you!
Had a bit of trouble explaining to Aprilia why both "sides" were English troops but was rescued by one of the Sealed Knotters who explained pretty well what was going on without missing a beat from her braid-making.
Took some pictures but my camera is really not up to much in really bright sunlight (or rather I don’t know how to override the general setting to set it up properly for really bright sunlight!) so nothing much to show for it sadly. They are all here if you want to look at them though.
I did come away with several craft ideas including Lucet braid making and another form of braid which a net search seems to suggest is far from 16th Century European but more like Oriental in origin although she was using a wooden disk not a poly one. There was also Stick Weaving which I thought I could sacrifice a set of double point needles to have a go at and she was rather excited to have had a go at writing wtih a real quill - I am so glad pens have come on from then….
Off for the 3rd and final night in a few minutes, still faintly smelling of woodsmoke but I’m sure no one will mind!
seen the first two, but stick weaving is a new one. We saw circular weaving at Conisbrough I think with some reenactors there, so guess either we’ve seen the same bunch, or it’s a common misunderstanding as to origin.
Comment by Jax — August 26, 2007 @ 5:58 pm
Can’t see too much wrong with your pics, they’re fine. OK, you’re no David Bailey (but you are too young to remember him anyway), you could do with postfixing them a little though. Does your install of MS Office include a thing called Office Picture Manager (probably in a sub folder called tools)? It is usually chucked in as a freebie. If so, it is very good at quickly correcting photos. Otherwise Paint.Net is a neat FREE download for graphics tinkering.
Comment by Tim — August 26, 2007 @ 6:01 pm
sounds a brilliant day. ooh will look at your pics
Comment by HelenHaricot — August 26, 2007 @ 6:04 pm
Jax - Stick weaving looked really good, I thought it could be reletively small child friendly.
Tim- I tried to tart the pics up a bit with the Picture Manager but didn’t get as good a result as I’d hoped. I need to install the software that came wtih teh camera, i had a lot of success with that. And (whispers) I do know who David Bailey is… I’m just “well preserved”
Comment by Administrator — August 27, 2007 @ 8:15 am
Hello! Found your site whilst looking for info on this year’s Battle of Nantwich. A number of other events prevented me from popping along but from whatyou say and the reports in the local press, it sounds like a good time was had by all. Was there a big turn out?
I should imagine a lot of the Sealed Knot regulars were actually quite pleased not to be freezing their pikestaffs on Mill Island in the middle of January…
Comment by Jim — August 29, 2007 @ 5:45 pm