Timelines Re-enactment

 I've just got back from Hay Castle, where the 17thC re-enactors will be carrying on until about 5pm.

They're set up with a row of tents across one end of the lawn, with an open area for pike drill, and an extra roped off area for musket drill.

I ended up staying a lot longer than I thought I would - the re-enactors were all happy to talk, and very knowledgeable.

There was a calligrapher, using genuine 17thC inks ground from minerals like lapis (bright blue) and gum arabic, and a red colour that was made from a particular beetle that lives on oak trees in Africa - just showing the immense distances some desirable substances travelled to be used in Britain.  

Further along, a chap was cooking over an open fire, on a raised firebox so the grass wasn't burned.  He was making maize meal pancakes - the New World had been known for well over a hundred years by this point, so maize was available to 17thC cooks.  

There was a lady with a spinning wheel, and another who had a basket with a variety of craft materials in it - she was doing five stick weaving, which I used to demonstrate to school children when I was being a Viking, and a lucet, which makes cords.

Another chap was playing board games with a pair of fascinated children.

The musket drill had to be at a distance from the public for fairly obvious reasons (real gunpowder!), but pike drill was open to the public, including small children with little pikes.  A proper pike is between 16 and 20 feet long.

The best bit of this was the demonstration of how pikes were used against cavalry.  The pike person grounds the butt of the pike against their foot and leans it out at an angle.  Massed together, this was a formidable barrier to cavalry charges.  Since the re-enactors didn't have any horses, the attackers rode on hobby horses!  One of them even had a lady running behind him with coconut shells, making horses' hoof noises!

Also in town is a troupe of morris dancers - they're dancing on the raised pavement in front of the old Barclays Bank on Broad Street, bashing sticks together and jingling.

Apparently there was a historical tour based on the Major Armstrong murder case, too - they went up to Cusop Churchyard (where Mrs Armstrong was buried) and various places around Hay associated with the case.