The Wardour Garrison is a group of enthusiastic people who enjoy leaving their more conventional lives behind and meeting up at various locations around the country to re-create life as it might have been during the seventeenth century.

Over the bank holiday weekend, the garrison of around seventy men, women and children set themselves up at Goodrich Castle.

Various tents were erected on the encampment, where visitors were able to observe family life as it would have been over three hundred years ago. The demonstrations of gunpowder and candle making and various other period crafts which took place were entertaining to watch.

Some fine demonstrations of dancing were also given. Pictured left, Melanie Lycett-King entertains the crowd, playing music of the period while entertainers and audience alike danced around the traditional Maypole. Ribbons on the Maypole were an invention of the Victorians, it was explained.

Battle demonstrations, involving Pikemen and Musketeers took place at various times throughout the event, involving some very loud bangs. Having photographed and watched the whole show through on Sunday, I returned again on Monday, taking up a high position on the castle so that I would not get shot myself and photographed the musketeers from the front.

Year One children at Ashfield Park Primary School were visited last Tuesday by Nina Williams of the Hereford Material Museum. The children were shown exhibits such as volcanic rock, a dinosaur tooth, a quartz geode, a shell and a natural sponge.

Left to right with Nina in the photograph below are Susan Yaldiz, Alice Wilson, Joshua Simmons, Joshua Collins, Grace Poole and Jack Dobbs.