Keep Your Powder Dry

Newark played an important role in the Civil War and has a number of places of interest for the Civil War enthusiast. First off is the  National Civil War Centre , housed in the old Newark museum the buildings have been tastefully renovated. The main gallery is devoted to the Civil Wars, mostly interpretative panels and interactive stuff (and dressing up) for the kids. They have recently acquired 25 pieces of armour which they hope to display in the coming years. This should pad out the collection nicely. The museum has a slowly revolving exhibition upstairs, the current exhibition is '‌The World Turned Upside Down'; previous exhibitions have looked at C17th battlefield medicine, and (at the time when I first wrote this entry) ' Cutting Edge' - which had a number of Sir Thomas Fairfax's military items (complimenting his wheelchair which takes pride of place in the entrance). There are also a number of other military items on display. The followin...

The Commandery in Worcester is a magnificent building rooted in the history of the ancient city of Worcester. For the ECW gamer it becomes particularly relevant as Charles II's headquarters during the Battle of Worcester.  The building has been beautifully renovated, and is approached from the city centre by crossing a bridge which has a balustrade resplendent with pikes, breast plates and helmets. The galleries were revamped last year, and now tell the tale of Worcester in the Civil Wars more appropriately.  The galleries don't just tell the story of the building during the Civil Wars but also it's  role in medieval times.  For the ECW aficionado there are a number of artefacts and interpretive panels, some reproduction uniforms and artillery pieces, as well as some hands on exhibits for the small people. But what really shines out is the beauty of the building itself. Bank holiday weekends often have a re-enactment society event on...

The mental images we have of seventeenth century dress are invariably of a dashing cavalier, wearing extravagant clothing and an ostentatious feather in a broad-brimmed hat; or a dour Puritan dressed in black and white. A heavily stylised, but very enduring set of images created by the Victorians. But what was the reality? Some clothing from the time still exists, although this will, by the very nature of things, have belonged to rich owners. It has been suggested too, that due to interest in the civil wars, that these surviving garments have been fancydress-ified by the Victorians to achieve the romantic nature of dashing cavaliers and their ladies. Thanks to rising temperatures the C17th and C18th graveyard at Spitsbergen is giving up its inhabitants - whalers buried in their clothes. Many of these remarkable garments are on display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (they also have the fantastic Night Watch painting). If you can't just pop into Amsterdam you can see some high res...

Since I visited both Naseby and Marston Moor it was only a matter of time before I went for the hat-trick and visited Edgehill:  but it is a bit of a trek from deepest darkest Derbyshire. A weekend in London gave me the opportunity to have a detour and a break from driving on the way home. Sadly there is precious little to see as most of the site is occupied by an MoD site and as such is closed to public access. However, good views of the battlefield can be had from the ridgeline above. The best starting place is The Castle at Edgehill pub, where there is a Battlefield's Trust information board located in the beer garden. There have been a number of recorded ghost sightings of armies fighting. This was first reported in January 1643: A Great Wonder in Heaven and The New Year’s Wonder  both recounted the ghostly goings on. Mr Marshall, the minister in Kineton, went to Oxford to report the occurrences to the King. Charles sent six gentlemen to investigate, and th...

A quick thank you to everybody who has popped by to read my inane drivel / look at the pictures. Thank you too for the kind comments here, on forums and via e-mail. Much appreciated . Here's a  selfie of me dictating this post to my blog assistant. This blog was meant to be a way of organising my thoughts and ideas, with the bonus that anyone else interested could share in my research / thoughts. So far in it's  first five months just shy of 5000 page views, with two posts clocking up over 200 views each: Naseby Windmill, and Parliamentarian Foot (which staggeringly is only 8 days old). So I'm guessing one or two of you share my interest. If you enjoyed reading this, or any of the other posts, please consider  supporting  the blog.  Thanks .