Video: Notts TV’s Richard Minkley fires a musket
Over 350 actors are coming to Nottinghamshire to re-create Britain’s first 370-year-old civil war which ‘shaped the future of England’.
Battles with actors posing as musketeers and pikemen will break out at the Queen’s Sconce in Newark, a surviving civil war fort, along with six cannons.
There is also due to be a living history encampment in the grounds of Newark Castle to reveal how armies were clothed and fed at the third Pikes and Plunder annual civil war festival which takes place on Sunday (April 30) and Bank Holiday Monday (May 1).
In 1646, the Royalist outpost was cut off by 16,000 Parliamentarian and Scots troops and its fall on May 8 marked the end of the first civil war on the British Isles.
Carol King from the National Civil War Centre said: “It will be a spectacular couple of days for visitors with the town garrisoned by hundreds of costume clad re-enactors.
“This will be a much bigger event than last year and the setting could not be more authentic.
“We have ordered the gunpowder, cleaned the musket and unpacked the pikes – so it’s time to decide the fate of the nation once again.”
Jo Sarney, commanding officer of Robert Overton’s regiment, who is co-ordinating the re-enactors, said: “We have worked hard to create a colourful and exciting event drawing 17 regiments from all across the UK.
“The Sconce, castle and parts of the National Civil War Centre building all witnessed and survived the deadliest conflict in our history.
“That makes Newark a very special place for re-enactors, offering a chance to fight, drill and camp in one of the nation’s best civil war landscapes.”
