Thursday 18 December 2014

I've heard that if you repeat a keyword enough times, your blog will come high up on a search engine. Let's see- Magna Carta, Trowbridge, Magna Carta, Trowbridge, Magna Carta, Trowbridge. Let's see if it works.
See above for proof that we went to a real smithy. Hector Cole makes arrowheads, sword and knife blades, spearheads and decorative wrought ironwork amongst many other things. We are also hoping to borrow items from Richard Head, who specialises in longbows and arrows but also makes bucklers and coifs to help protect anyone unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of an English arrow...
http://www.english-longbow.co.uk/
Crossbows were also much in use in 1215, the year that Magna Carta was created. Experimental archaeology (i.e. people having fun shooting at things ranging from a chocolate easter egg to a water melon) shows that a soldier with a bow could loose off many more shots than one with a crossbow. Crossbows, however, had a huge amount of power behind them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mip4wDgZ03Q
King Richard I, known as "Richard the Lionheart", was killed by a quarrel from a crossbow. He was besieging a town called Chalus, and the story goes that one of the defenders, who had run out of quarrels, dug one out which had stuck in the town wall and re-used it, wounding Richard. The King died from an infection in this wound not long afterwards.


Magna Carta- Game of Barons

What links a powerful medieval baron, a Bad King, a Lego castle and two local craftsmen? 

Not sure? Well, it's Trowbridge Museum's 

exhibition on Magna Carta, 

February 28th to July 25th 

2015.

To find out how we go about putting together a major exhibition like this, just follow this blog and witness the trials and torments of an Assistant Curator and her colleagues...
Blacksmith Hector Cole (as seen on TV!) pumping the bellows at his forge in Little Somerford, Wiltshire.
http://www.evado.co.uk/Hector%20Cole/index.html


Some of Hector's fantastic pieces will be on display for the duration of the exhibition, as part of the Museum's aim to bring the Magna Carta story to life.

So, how does a museum go about re-creating the feel of the early Thirteenth Century? Watch this space!
















The Education Officer and a volunteer,
pondering on the amount of damage a
battleaxe could do to their enemies...