Despite the poor weather, we had one of our national training events in January at Islip, Oxfordshire. This, combined with our own local training in Tollerton & Derby, helped blow away the cobwebs & get the lads ready for our first event of the year, the Yorvik Viking festival in York. Although we had a lovely sunny day on the Saturday (20th February) for the training & battles, there was thick snow the next morning, making homeward journeys difficult. There was good attendance, as usual, with 200 warriors taking part.
There is a second national training weekend before the show season really starts up. This one is held in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. As well as the usual battle fighting, there is also archery practice, and some informal living history training sometimes occurs.
There will be a re-enactors bring and buy at Rufford Abbey, Nottinghamshire on 24-25th April. Last year we had our wic set up & did a bit of training in the arena. As yet we are undecided if we will have this set up, or just attend for the sales. Other periods are represented, and it is interesting to see how things change throughout history.
May is always a busy month, having 2 bank holidays.On the early May bank holiday, 1-3rd May, we have a show in St. Ives, Cambridgeshire. The dateline will be 1110AD. This is a new venue for us & relatively local.
Nottinghamshire has declared May to be Robin Hood month, to coincide with the opening of the new Robin Hood film by Ridley Scott, staring Russell Crowe. There are various events throughout the county for the whole of the month, culminating in our show at Nottingham castle for the Whit bank holiday (29-31st). To fit in with the legend, the dateline will be 1180s ish.
Regia has a show at our permanent site at Wychurst in Kent on 12-13th June, dateline 1000AD. The show gives the society a chance to reap the rewards of all the hard work people have put in the building our own longhall there.
We have our own local show on 19th June, on our training ground in Tollerton, Nottinghamshire. Last year we did a late period show, slightly later than our core period. This year we intend to return to an earlier date, 1016, when the Scandinavians were giving the local Saxons a hard time. We didn't do too well in the tug-of-war last year, so some team training may be in order before this year's event!
A fair distance away, but some of us may make it up to Northumberland, drawn by the chance of doing a show in the beautiful castle at Alnwick on 7-8th August. Dateline 1000AD. A lot of the national shows have a late dateline this year. It does give us a chance to show off some different finery, although the lower strata of society looks much the same!
Late in the year, there will be a show, including a wedding at Wychurst, 2-3rd October. Some of the group may attend, but it is a long haul from here to Kent.
There are other shows we may attend, but as yet we've not had confirmation. Occasionally some shows get dropped, so do contact us if you are making a special journey.
Shows run by our national group, Regia Anglorum, are marked & more details can be found on their web site. The local shows involving Conroi de Vey, but not the national group are marked.
We'd love to see you at one of our events. Do come & chat, & ask us about what we do. We're happy to talk to folk about life in a period of history that we find fascinating. After this winter we're keeping our fingers crossed for kind weather!