Midlands meander and East Anglia

We have just returned from a visit to family in East Anglia.  On our trip south we called in at Newstead Abbey, one time home of Lord Byron.  In the library there was a display case with helmets worn in the Greek Wars of Independence in the 1820's.

Byron had to sell Newstead to meet his debts and the purchaser, Thomas Wildman spent large sums refurbishing the house in the Gothic style.  One element of this was the installation of stained glass windows in the Great Hall.  These commemorated the military achievements of the Wildman family.

In Norfolk we did a few walks linked to the Weaver's Way.  One round North Walsham passed the possible site of a battle from the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.  Nearby was this cross, unfortunately without an accompanying plaque.

Later in the week we visited Castle Acre.  The remains of the castle demonstrate the archetypal 'motte and bailey' castle.  With free access it is well worth a visit if you are in the area.  The village church also has some impressive medieval paintings.

Information board

Ditch protecting the bailey

Remains of the gatehouse

On the way back from holiday we called in at Kedleston Hall.  The main reason was to see the neo-classical house, but the attached church provided a wealth of heraldry.

This is a copy of a banner carried by the Curzon retinue in the Hundred Years War

Tucked away in a corridor with a collection of game trophies was this object from the 18th century (or possibly earlier?)

The Hall is owned by the National Trust.

flags and fences

The present SYW game is likely to be spread over a few nights of gaming, so this is by way of a 'pot pourri' post of snippets from recent wargames related activity.

Last month we spent a long weekend in London and visited the Royal Hospital at Chelsea. In the pensioners'dining room has replicas of flags captured during the AWI and French and Revolutionary Wars. Here are a couple of examples.




































In the museum there are displays of medals and the history of the regiments of invalids and examples of the certificates proving the right to a pension. You will also find one of the eagles captured from the 82nd regiment of the line in 1809 when it capitulated to British forces in Martinique.






















I attended the Stoke Challenge show and bought some fences from Ironclad Games. Earlier this year I bought some of their emplacements which are useful for the large scale Shako games. The fences also painted up quite well






Here they are framing some recently painted artillery bases for my British SYW army.









The Heritage Open Days give plenty of opportunities to visit places you wouldn't normally visit. An added attraction at a local event was a ECW camp organised by the Sealed Knot. Memebers of Lilburne's regiment demonstrated drill to good effect. Certainly the amount of smoke generated by a salvo of 20 muskets made you wonder about the visibility on Civil War battlefields, or any battlefield in the 'black powder' era.