The weekend of October 9th/10th, my older sister Rebekah and I took a trip to Sussex, where we spent the weekend touring around. Our first stop on Saturday, was to Hastings, very specifically to the grounds where the Battle of Hastings took place. On this particular day that we went, English Heritage was sponsoring a reenactment of the Battle of Hastings.
It was pretty cool.
When we first arrived (earlier in the day from when the battle would be, around 10:00am) there was not much going on, and so we just wandered around the tents and booths they had set up. It was sort of like a laid-back Renaissance Festival. It made me wonder if the people who were involved with the reenactment were also involved with the “Medieval Fairs”, the English equivalent of a Ren Fest. After awhile we headed up the hill to the Abbey that William the Conqueror had built after the battle in 1066. Inside the Abbey there was a demonstration of period music, which I enjoyed enough to actually purchase a CD. After the music performance was over we went and searched for seats at the battle ground so we could watch the Norman cavalry demonstration. While we watched we ate our picnic lunch (I make a mean sandwich) and were incredibly silly with these precious older women who were sitting with us. One of the Norman knights actually came over and told us to quiet down. Yeah, that’s us, and our reputation for causing problems.
After the demonstration we hunted out center front row seats, and then agreed someone had to protect them (seating was DEFINITELY at a premium). So she stayed and I went to walk around the Fair for awhile. I went to a talk on the Bayeaux tapestry (because I didn’t actually get enough of studying that in high school Mom!) and tried the old fashioned drinks like Mead and Ginger Wine. Pretty tasty, but the Ginger Wine burns on the way down. After I had my fun, I let Rebekah walk around where she went to a falconry display (I think she went to try the Mead too!). After that we were finally ready to watch the actual reenactment, which was all kinds of silly and ridiculous, because it’s a little hard to reenact a battle that happened almost 1000 years ago.
On Sunday we drove the long route by the coast (more scenic) to Pevensy Castle, which was mostly ruins, but it was an English Heritage site, so it was free for us, plus free audio guides! After that we visited Herst-Monceaux Castle, which was never really a practical castle when built, but a manor house. Not it’s the international study centre for Queens College, Canada. Go figure.
Our last stop of the day was the Michelham Priory, capping a very Middle Ages weekend.
Photos of said weekend, including great amounts of silliness, can be viewed here.
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