We first had the pleasure of meeting this lovely school whilst working at Bodiam Castle. We saw them every year for about 6 years. Every year they’d turn up, with different groups of children each in different coloured baseball caps. Ingenious! It helped the teachers see at a glance who was in their group, it helped us check we had the right group and it helped keep the sun off the children too. We were always delighted when we knew that they were visiting as we enjoyed their visits so much. ‘Oh goodie’ was always the cry when we heard it was their day to visit. We knew we were assured a well organised day and lovely children. Sadly i believe the topic was not run the next year and we were sad to see them leave Bodiam. Fortunately for us it seems the topic has returned and yesterday we visited the school itself. Huzzah!
We were up bright & early at 4.30AM, leaving the house at 5.30 with the lovely Lenny, who has become a regular staff member of ours and is brilliant with children. We had a good journey in with barely a hold up. We arrived at the school about 7.45AM and were immeadiately shown to the hall. We were very lucky as although the hall is a lunch hall, they only use the upper part of the hall so there was very little packing down and resetting of the workshop as we usually have to do. Most crucial of all we were were offered a lovely cup of tea!
The first workshop started just after 9AM. The children throughout the day were extremely excited and full of wonderful questions, with some very good knowledge. It’s the first time a Year 2 has mentioned the word ‘hopper’ to me, i was extremely impressed by the use of this word. I was also told that stale bread was used as plates! All correct and a very impressive fact for a 6/7 year old to know. I was told by him that he’d learnt this fact in class. A great reflection on the school and teachers.
However my favourite comment of the day was whilst asking if they knew what gave power to the cookers in their own homes. ‘Lava!’ Said one of the boys quite matter of factly! It bought to mind wonderful images of lava powered ovens. I couldn’t help but smile. It sounded like something that the Flintstones would have! Children’s inventive imaginations are one of the best bits about this job.
We made LOTS of flour and butter over the day and the spitted goose was a favourite. , with one boy turning it continuously for 5 mins. I think his goose was well and truly cooked!
A huge thanks to Robin Hood staff for looking after us and being so friendly towards us. We hope you enjoyed the day as much as we did and we hope to see you again next year.
With next weeks big freeze in mind, here’s some very seasonal Victorian photos taken for us by Lucas & Izabela Pitcher of Prior Attire. We had a wonderful afternoon yesterday visiting them.
You’d think we’d stepped into a cold snowy Victorian Winters day wouldn’t you? Can you feel the cold North wind making your nose tingle? I hate to ruin the surprise but these photos were taken in their conservatory, with use of clever backgrounds and great lighting and skill. All props, bar Wels wig, glasses & pocket watch belong to them. Wel suggested that it’d look great with a toboggan or similar in the photo and can you believe it, they said ‘Hold on’ and out came an old toboggan and pair of skates!
One of my newest hobbies is illumination. I did a 4 day course at the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts in February 2015 and loved it. I have just created an illumination of St Barbara, based on an original, as a Christmas present for a friend. You can read all about St Barbara’s life here:
I then used a fine brush to paint gum ammoniac on to the areas that i wanted gold to stick to. GA is like a glue. I used a tube of rolled paper to breathe through on to the GA to revive it. This helps the gold to stick. It took 3 layers of GA to have enough for the gold to stick to. I used transfer gold. Loose leaf gold is harder to use as the slightest breath can send it flying away (as i found out on my course). Transfer gold is basically stuck to a sort of paper which makes it easier to apply. I then burnished the gold of her halo with a dog tooth burnisher. This involved placing a piece of glassine paper over the gold and gently rubbing the burnisher over it.
The square design was more complex than i gave it credit for. I should have painted within the red lines but unfortunately i didn’t. This would have given me a neater grid more like the original. But i’m learning as i go.
I then applied black outlines where needed to outline the figure and the squares. The drawing really starts to come together at this point.
As she was a present i treated her to her own frame, i adore this one which my local framer did for me. I really enjoyed making her, and for only the second time ever experienced when creating an image, i really felt that she had created herself under my fingertips. I have become very attached to my creation but her new owner is very happy with her i think! It’s lovely creating a gift for someone you know will appreciate it.
We were very honoured to have been invited to attend the Harrington Companye Banquet yesterday. It took place in a small village hall near Northampton. It’s the first medieval banquet that we’ve been to in a long while and it was a great opportunity for us to relax and make some new friends.
hall. With many hands helping out, the hall was soon festooned with brightly coloured banners, the tables were bejewelled with candles, greenery and everyone’s finest tableware, which sparkled and shimmered in the candlelight.
The feasting began about 7PM. We’d been told that there were some great cooks in the Harringtons and we weren’t disappointed. We started with a lovely vegetable pottage served in a bread trencher. This was followed by the mains, which was an amazing vegetable, bacon and cheese pie with roast pork and roast roe deer. Everyone agreed the pie was amazing. I can’t recall the name of the dish but I know that they’d researched lots of authentic recipes as they’d borrowed our medieval recipe books. The venison was especially fine and not too gamey. Then dessert was baked apples with a delicious period rice pudding recipe. I believe they said it was made with almond milk. Almond milk was quite common in medieval recipes, especially during lent.
There were entertainments in between courses too, there were some amazing & beautifully sung medieval carols. At the end of the night we were entertained by a wonderful mummers play, all performed by members of the Harringtons. You can see one of the sings being performed here:
Sadly the night was then over and we all had to clear up and go home. Strange to suddenly see everyone back in the modern world, I felt like the ‘Lady after the ball’, a poem from my childhood, who looks glamorous and beautiful at the ball, then goes home, takes off her wig and her wooden leg, takes out her glass eye and false teeth. Back to the modern world it felt like a dream but hopefully we’ll return to the 15th century sometime very soon!
Happening History 
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