The fighting (re-enactments) at Herstmonceux was quite realistic (apart form the smiles on the guys faces, they were obviously enjoying themselves), the armour and clothing all looked quite realistic, it really was a grest day out.
photograph of knights fighting at Herstmonceux medieval festival
photograph of 2 knights jousting
As I am very much into horses one of the star events for me was the jousting, real people on real horses with real armour rode towards each other with lances (note I didn’t say real lances). They start at opposite ends of the arena and charge towards each other and 2 strides out stop to a walk aim the joust pole at the shield and the end falls off very easily, I think if the pole breaks the knight gets a point, the rules wer not too clear. There were 4 knights who rode against each other and the black night from abroad won (she was the only female participant). It was quite a laugh with lots of audience participation and well worth watching. Click on the link below to view their website for next years dates:
Back to the Herstmonceux medieval festival, which was great fun. I am really into horses (owned one for 10 years) so I made a bee-line for the jousting section and took lots of photos of that. It’s really tricky to capture the action shots but I got a couple that work quite well in the end.
photograph of jousting practice
I had the most amazing day out on the August bank holiday weekend at Herstmonceux Castle in Sussex at the medieval festival held there. There were lots of people dressed in clothing of the era re-en-acting life of the medieval times including cooking and living like they did then. There were battle re-en-actments with canon and archers, knights and wenches!!! There was jousting and various archery competitions as well, plus craft stands and stalls selling all sorts of things. A most enjoyable day, so below are a couple of shots from the day of the knights getting ready to go to battle and then on the battle field walking towards their opponents.
photograph of knights waiting to go to battle
photograph of knights walking into battle
If you click on the link below it will take you to the website for the Herstmonceux medieval festival.