Arms and Armour Heritage Trust

08/02/2024

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Call for Papers, War and Peace in the Age of Napoleon. The conference is being organised by Napoleonic and Revolutionary Graves Charity and War and York St John University and will be held in York. 5-7 Sep 2024. 20 min Call for 20 min papers. Deadl;ine for response to [email protected] by 19...

08/12/2023

Relaunch of Arms and Armour Heritage Trust
Posted on28th January 2017

AAHT Supports New Historic Weaponry Exhibition at Stow on the Wold
4610367578_469x352Robert Hardy, star of All Creatures Great and Small and more recently Harry Potter, confessed to an audience in Stow-on-the-Wold that he communicates with the ghosts on ancient battlefields.

The veteran actor was at Stow’s St Edward’s Hall on Thursday 29th May 2014 to perform the official opening of the town’s new permanent exhibition of historic weapons and armour. When handed the microphone to begin his speech, he announced in booming tones, to laughter from the crowd, ‘I don’t believe I need this.’

Hardy, who is President of the Battlefields Trust, joked with his audience that he might be able to pinpoint the exact site of the 1646 battle of Stow which is regarded as something of a mystery.
‘As a supposed expert,’ he said, ‘when I walk a battlefield, I always know exactly where the fighting took place from the ghosts of the past that I meet.’

Then, flanked by members of the Sealed Knot Society in full Civil War costume, he unveiled a plaque to inaugurate the exhibition in the lobby of Stow’s library. On display are several pieces of seventeenth century armour, a musket, two pike staffs and a gigantic broad sword.

Tim Norris, Chairman of the Stow and District Civic Society, which jointly with the Arms and Armour Heritage Trust funded the new theft-proof display cabinet, said: ‘This is the first time in fifty years that Stow has had a permanent secure location to show off its wonderful collection of Civil War weaponry and armour.’

Stow acquired its valuable collection of military paraphernalia in 1948 from a Captain Christie Crawfurd. He had visited the town with his wife in the 1930s. She became ill there, and he was so struck by the kindness of the people of Stow that he bequeathed his collection of historic artefacts to the town. Until now there’s been no way of safely displaying them. A few items were on show in St Edward’s Hall, but during the Stow Festival in 2011, two civil war helmets were stolen.

It was this theft however, that prompted the Stow Civic Society to commission the new secure museum display case.

‘This is a great collection,’ said Robert Hardy, ‘and it’s important for it to be on show to the public.’

08/12/2023

Arms and Armour display cabinet in Stow on the Wold

As part of our bequest of Civil War items from Capt. Christie Crawfurd, the Town of Stow received items of arms and armour, including 3 17th C muskets, swords,pole arms, helmets and other items f armour. These were originally displayed in cabinets in the former reading room on the ground floor of St Edward’s hall. Later a branch of the County Library was installed here and the arms were stored in a secure room in the attic, having nowhere else to put them on display. They were occasionally put on show for special occasions, but two helmets were displayed in some imitation-watches glass fronted units in the library foyer. During one of our Festivals the helmets were stolen. They were not forced so were clearly insecure and all display items were removed.

Finds display 1A planned refurbishment of the Library gave the Civic Society an opportunity to remove the old cabinets and replace them with a full height, museum standard, secure display cabinet. Tenders were invited and a company from Swindon were chosen. Though they submitted a very competitive quote, the Society needed to seek some additional funding from elsewhere. The most suitable organisation to approach was the Arms and Armour Heritage Trust, associated with the Royal Armouries at Leeds. A bid for funding was submitted and after a period of waiting a generous cheque arrived which enabled the Society, with a little help from their own resources, to proceed with the final design and purchase of the current handsome cabinet. A most appropriate local person to inaugurate this exciting installation was Robert Hardy, the actor and historian, also the President of the Battlefields Trust. He kindly agreed to come from his home in Charlbury in Oxfordshire to perform the ceremony, and we were delighted with his company at a small reception in the main hall, surrounded by the collection of portraits also part of the Capt. Christie Crawfrud bequest.

We were, and continue to be, delighted by their support and the cabinet makes an impressive display not only for visitors to the Library, but for the Visitor Information Centre which is now in the library. This creates a large volume of people passing through, many of whom stop to view. It has also been useful to display other related items, for instance during the 100th anniversary commemorations for WW1 and for the anniversary the community of Apomattox, USA, where the American Civil War was finally concluded and the formal surrender took place wholesale replica christian louboutin wallets We have established a link with the Town and sent them a commemorative quilt, which was on display.

IMG_1378Stow was the location of the final battle of the English Civil War, where the last remaining troops were defeated by the Parliamentarians, leading to the departure of the King from Oxford and the ceding of the City to Cromwell. The Royalist commander, Sir Jacob Astley surrendered by the market cross where a plaque has been placed by the Civic Society to mark the occasion. However, the exact location of the battle has never been identified. A monument has been placed near the village of Donnington, north of Stow, but subsequent survey carried out by the Battlefields Trust have shown this location to be incorrect, and work continues to find the correct site. Some evidence of the possible retreat has been found in a field nearer the Town and the cabinet has enabled us to exhibit the items found on display. The work is continuing.

The possibility of a Town museum has long been considered, but no suitable premises in the Town are available. As a result we are especially grateful to AAHT for helping to provide us with a space to show items from our local history.

08/12/2023

WW1 Soldier’s Tale

In June 2013, we were musing about the forthcoming centenary of the First World War and a colleague said “I wonder what it would have been like if Facebook had existed in 1914.” From this somewhat bizarre remark grew a not‐for‐profit project which has virtually taken over our lives and continues to do”
Launched in June 2014 (1914), it tells the story of a young man – Walter Carter – from Battersea, who joins the Territorial Force in 1912 and goes to war in March 1915 as a member of 1/23rd Battalion The London Regiment. The story covers the entire War and provides not only his experiences but importantly, those of his family and girlfriend back in England. We also wanted to reference topics still hugely important today – the role of the Reserves, the effect of the War on communities, the changing role of women, and the badly injured and the mentally affected – but in a balanced way which includes the lighter moments of wartime life. Thus, uniquely, it gives a simultaneous account of the War and life at home. Whilst it is fictitious, it is meticulously researched, entirely based on fact and is continuously checked by military historians both for accuracy and authenticity.
We tell the story in real time via Facebook, Twitter and a website posting three or four times a week. Over the years the regular audience on Facebook has grown to over 23,000 – mainly younger people, which was one of our objectives, and also people from other countries.
To provide the maximum interest we wanted our characters to illustrate different aspects of the War both at home and in the trenches – for instance, Walter’s sister becomes a nurse in France.

The fictional characters – Walter and Lily
The fictional characters – Walter and Lily
Because Walter was a member of an infantry regiment, we particularly wanted to involve a different branch of the Army – the artillery – and so his brother Ed, initially a reluctant conscript, fulfilled that role. In order to better understand the artillery at that time, we contacted AAHT who were incredibly helpful and organised for us to visit the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, a trip we found utterly absorbing and which vastly increased our knowledge and allowed us to be accurate about weaponry. Members of AAHT have also been very helpful with bibliographies and web links.
The project has been not-for-profit from the outset and we have been totally reliant on grants primarily to pay for the researcher/writer – Nikky Pye – who has done a truly outstanding job since we started. We are enormously grateful to AAHT who gave us a most generous donation in 2015 which has helped us continue with WW1 Soldier’s Tale. It has also allowed us to take the project into schools, museums, WW1 events and notably, the 3-day commemoration of the Battle of the Somme held in Manchester last summer.

David Noble Managing Director of DNA Limited
Follow the project at

www.facebook.com/WW1SoldiersTale www.twitter.com/ww1SoldiersTale www.ww1soldierstale.co.uk

08/12/2023

Sept 2019
Battlefields Trust Handling Collections
The Battlefields Trust successfully applied for and received a £1,864 grant from the Arms and Armour Heritage Trust in July 2014 for two handling collections that the Trust could use in its walks, talks and displays. The items purchased included two of a sallet, a morion, a partizan, a halberd, six2.BT HANDLING COLLN, PPhilo & display, Marske Hall 16-04-18 arrows with different heads, a powder flask, bandolier and an inert matchlock musket. These were divided into two collections located in northern and southern England and were created to allow Battlefields Trust regions to demonstrate weapons and armour to the public as part of its charitable aims of preserving, researching and interpreting battlefields as historical and educational resources. The collections, which were focused around the Wars of the Roses and British Civil War periods, allow members of the public to get a sense of the challenges of using such weapons and armour.

They have been used extensively by the Trust, from explaining the design of a bassinet helmet on Wars of the Roses battlefield walks to demonstrating the loading and firing of a musket during Civil War battlefield talks and during school visits. Members of the public have also handled the weapons themselves; obtaining a sense of their weight and cumbersome nature and, for the head piece armour, how constricting this can be for the soldier in battle.

The provision of the grant has helped the Trust better educate the public about arms and armour and have allowed it to bring more to life the experience of battle.

08/12/2023

Sep 2020
York Mansion House
The Mansion House, dominating as it does the beautiful St Helens Square, remained a building visibly hidden, its treasures, history and significance on the story of York being almost forgotten in a city full of antiquity and memory. The building, with its’ treasures, remained a place few visited or gained entry to as the fabric of the building slowly decayed.

Therefore, the Mansion House ‘Opening Doors’ restoration project was conceived as a response to the issues facing a grade-one listed public building and to make the house fit for the 21st century. The restoration project was the largest and most comprehensive restoration in nearly three hundred years since the house was built in 1725-32. The project had four key aims;

Display of the gold and silver collections
Restoration of the eighteenth century kitchen and basements
Installation of new mechanical and engineering services and structural repairs
Oral history project to capture the memories of the people who worked and lived in the building
The outcome identified for the project was;

Greater public access and being open five days a week to public
Improved display and conservation of the collection
Reducing the carbon foot print of the building
To make the Mansion House a key attraction in the city
To provide an educational resource for children and adult learning groups
Mount makers attaching the 1731 support bracket for the Bowes swordThe conditions that the gold and silver and the city regalia were kept in were far from ideal as the location was cramped, did not meet conservation standards and significantly hindered public access to the objects. Because of this issue it was important to display the regalia within a protective case replica rolex datejust turn o graph mens rolex calibre 2813 116261 12mm two tone china for security and conservation and to increase public access and knowledge of the objects.

The great trinity of regalia

Within the collection are three key pieces of city civic regalia. These are items carried before kings, queens, chocolate Lord Mayors and railways kings. These are intrinsic items of regalia that can be seen on virtually every coat of arms of the city that range from the city council arms through to the local scout groups. Items of regalia which are still used for the ceremonial procession the Lord Mayor is involved in, whether that is at full council meetings or Remembrance Sunday.

Each of the three key items were originally weapons of war and through time became symbols of authority and power.

The Sword of Sigismund

The great State sword, probably originally belonging to the holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, arrived in the city in 1439 and has been carried in ceremonial processions ever since. A Sword of international importance that has been displayed around the United Kingdom and Europe.

The Bowes Sword

This was presented to the city in 1545 by Sir Martin Bowes, a native of York who became Lord Mayor of London. It is this sword that is depicted in portraits of each Lord Mayor as they held the Bowes sword in high regard.

The Great Mace

It is hard to imagine that the Mace started out as a weapon of war before it was adapted and became a ceremonial item. This Mace dates from 1647 and incorporates parts of an earlier 1396 Mace.

The display case and grant

The display case required careful design and integration to sit sensitively within the historic dining room of the Mansion House. The dining room was chosen as the location of the display because this room was originally a meet and greet room of the mayor, their public facing ‘Office’ on the walls of which the items were displayed.

Project manager, lead architect, Historic England, Zurich insurers, City of York Council Conservation department, structural engineers and case designers were all involved in the conception, visualisation and creation of the display case. The design of the case had a number of challenging constraints: it had to be as minimalistic as possible, to compliment the historic environment of the room and yet of sufficient strength to hold the weight of the objects in place. Additionally the case could not be attached to the panelling that decorated the room. Therefore the case was going to be expensive if it was going to meet all these criteria.

Sword and mace caseThe initial approach to the Arms and Armour Heritage Trust, application for a grant and the subsequent grant funding made the concept a reality. The grant meant that the great trinity of regalia would be on permanent display in a specially designed case for the first time in their history. The installation of the regalia has improved public access, has improved visitor appreciation, interaction and understanding of the items and their significance, whilst allowing the regalia to be displayed to the best conservation standards possible. The display case has enabled public engagement while allowing the regalia to keep their stateliness.

Working with the Trust was very straightforward; they had confidence in the design team and in the rationale for the display. Effective and engaging arms and armour displays, sometimes overlooked in domestic heritage attractions, would clearly benefit from the assistance of the Arms and Armour Heritage Trust, the Trust is in a perfect position to fill this niche. The Arms and Armour Heritage Trust deserves praise for the donation to allow the display to reach its full potential.

Richard Pollitt

Mansion House Manager and Curator, and Restoration Project Manager

08/12/2023

Month: September 2019
Battlefields Trust Stow-on-the-Wold Survey
The location of the battle of Stow on the Wold (1646) is unknown. Historic England registered an area around 2 kilometres north of Stow on a ridge beside the village of Donnington as the battlefield area in 1995, but questioned this in a paper to its Battlefield Panel in 1999. In order to settle this, the Battlefields Trust wanted to organise a metal detecting survey to find the battlefield’s location.

Stow survey Oct 2015
The survey at Stow was originally conceived as part of a wider Heritage Lottery funded project, but this was rejected by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). Alternative finance needed to be found and the Mercia Region of the Battlefields Trust, in which area the battlefield fell, made a grant application to the Arms and Armour Heritage Trust and funding of £2460 was generously made. A further £500 was set aside from existing regional funds for the project.

The grant was used to purchase a set of surveying equipment – ranging poles, surveyors tape measures, transects and finds marker flags and finds bags. This set of equipment jb rolex datejust 36mm m126284rbr 0021 ladies jubilee bracelet automatic is now available for wider use in the Battlefields Trust. It was also used to pay a qualified archaeologist to lead the survey, for accommodation and subsistence for the survey team and to cover travelling expenses.

The survey was conducted in October 2015. Sample areas several hundred metres in length and breadth were detected at 10m intervals and the finds collected, bagged, marked and location recorded in advance of them being cleaned, measured and recorded on a spreadsheet.

Areas over the possible battlefield area were examined, though no battlefield related finds were discovered over a six day period. This provided useful negative information about the battlefield location and has led to the development of a new hypothesis that the battle was fought much closer to Stow than has hitherto been considered.

Further archaeological work was undertaken in 2018 using the equipment funded by the Arms and Armour Heritage Trust as well as the residual part of the original grant and additional funding from the Battlefields Trust. This located an area of fighting at Stow and further work is planned to establish whether it represents part of the rout or the initial stand of royalist forces.

Find 1035 #2 musket ball

Find 50 Detail bastard musket double shotted

Find 1039 #1 possible bastard musket ball

Find 56 #1 Detail carbine slug

08/12/2023

Month: November 2019
Norwich Castle

Due to the generous donation received from the AAHT, Norwich Castle has significantly supplemented its collection of replica medieval arms and armour. Previously, visitors to the castle have found the arms and armour talks to be one of the most engaging events held at Norwich Castle, with 90% of visitors rating it as excellent in 2015 and 92% in 2016. Thanks to the AAHT’s grant the Arms and Armour Talks received an incredible 98% excellent rating last year (2018).

Slide4
Swords aren’t always pretty
The additional equipment that the AAHT grant allowed us to produce has filled significant gaps in the timeline of the evolution of medieval arms and armour. As a result, we have been able to depict a range of historic soldier’s equipment across different strata of feudal life throughout the middle ages. Visitors of all ages, interests, backgrounds and genders have been able to understand the variety of equipment that was used and develop a greater emotional connection to the past. Importantly, we have also used examples of skeletal remains to ground the talk with the reality of medieval warfare, revealing the true, terrifying effects of the weaponry to highlight why evolving designs of armour were essential to surviving the medieval battlefield.

Norwich Museum at Night
Discussing converted farming tools
The Arms and Armour Talks have been enjoyed by thousands of visitors since the collection was improved and have featured throughout the summer holidays and at all the major public events held at Norwich Castle such as Heritage Open Day, Museums at Night, and televised on Children in Need!

We have received heartfelt feedback from visitors who have really begun to appreciate the skill, science and engineering that can go into making arms and armour – or the hurried conversion of farming tools to makeshift weapons. Visitors can now appreciate the sense of panic that peasants would feel as trained and armoured knights charge towards them, or the replica designer rolex daytona 40mm mens 116568 watch oyster bracelet feeling of invulnerability that a full harness of armour could provide. We have received wonderful stories from children who have been inspired by the collection and adults who have taken their new-found interest to the next level by taking up blacksmithing.

Slide2
Hands on with a 140lb longbow
The benefits of the improved Arms and Armour collection have been felt beyond the public Arms and Armour talks. Summer schools, scout groups, home educators, and youth groups have all requested arms and armour sessions as part of their visit to Norwich Castle. The daily tours of the castle now use the hand-crafted 140lb draw weight longbow to engage with visitors, dispel myths, and help them to appreciate the incredible strength that would have been required to use this iconic weapon. School groups have been requesting additional sessions on medieval arms and armour to begin their topic on medieval history. Our upcoming outreach program, ‘A Knight Out’, will be taking the show on the road to thousands of people at events across the country next year. The improved arms and armour collection now features proudly in the visitor experience of Norwich Castle.

The grant received from AAHT has allowed all of this to happen, fascinating people with the history of arms and armour, which we shall continue to do for years to come.

08/12/2023

Royal Armouries 17th Century Marine salvage project

Portrait of Pepys by John Hayls
“This morning is brought me to the office the sad newes of “The London,” in which Sir J(ohn) Lawson’s men were all bringing her from Chatham to the Hope, and thence he was to go to sea in her; but a little a’this side the buoy of the Nower, she suddenly blew up. About 24 [men] and a woman that were in the round-house and coach saved; the rest, being above 300, drowned: the ship breaking all in pieces, with 80 pieces of brass ordnance. She lies sunk, with her round- house above water. Sir J(ohn) Lawson hath a great loss in this of so many good chosen men, and many relations among them. I went to the ‘Change, where the news taken very much to heart.” Diary of Samuel Pepys, March 1665″

This is an important conservation project which is also enhancing our understanding of the design and evolution of Naval guns from a period when the Commonwealth had just fought the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652-1654) and by the time of the Restoration aspired to become a supreme tool of War and guarantor of Commerce.

The project focuses on 3 guns, 2 from the wreck of the London a warship which was blown asunder by an explosion of powder cartridges and sank in 1656, and one composite Drake gun. It is estimated as a 5 year elapse project and is supported by funding from The Arms and Armour Heritage Trust, the Radcliffe Trust and the Leche Trust.

Conservator Matthew Hancock during a talk
The project is trialling the latest processes for removing chloride ions from metallic relics recovered from sea water, This will be of critical importance to other tag heuer formula 1 42mm mens waz1112 ba0875 silver tone stainless steel conservation initiatives that pre-dated these techniques developed between the 1960s and 1980s. This will be enable evaluation of the impact on the long term stability of items treated with earlier techniques.

The guns recovered from the London are both very rare bronze cannon, one by gun founder Peter Gill, thought to be the only surviving example of his work and the other bearing the Commonwealth crest and thought to be one of a handful of surviving examples of a bronze gun of the Commonwealth. The Drake is helping to increase our understanding of the evolution and production methods of this genre of solution to producing lighter weapons whilst preserving hitting power.

AAHT Web 17th century marine salvage project- MH-CompressedDownload

Three guns once on HMS London which sank off Southend in the Thames Estuary during the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-1667).
Some on the guns on the HMS London were originally used on Dutch warships before being placed on HMS London, the cannons are believed to have been involved in The Restoration, transporting the son of Charles II, the future King James II, from his exile in the Netherlands.
The cannon were sold to a buyer in the US at an auction in 2010 having been found by a diver in around 2007.
Following a two-year investigation involving the Essex and Kent police, Historic England, the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the diver was prosecuted for making a fraudulent claim of where he had found the cannons. He had insisted they had been found in international waters. However following the investigation it was proved they were from HMS London, which was at the bottom off the estuary just off Chatham in Kent.

They have since been repatriated to the UK. (Antique traders Gazette, Laura Chesters 15 Dec 2017).
The Warship London is now designated as a historic wreck under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973
Photographs of the Composite Drake gun

HMS London

The ‘London’, as depicted by van de Velde in 1656. © National Maritime Museum

HMS London was a 64 Gun second-rate Ship of the Line deigned by John Taylor a built in Chatham in 1656: see https://threedecks.org

1660 Broadside Weight = 534 Imperial Pound ( 242.169 kg)
Lower Gun Deck 12 British Demi-Cannon (32 Lb)
Lower Gun Deck 12 British Culverin (17 Lb 5 ½ Oz)
Middle Gun Deck 12 British Culverin
Middle Gun Deck 12 British Demi-Culverin (8Lb – 9Lb)
Upper Gun Deck 16 British Demi-Culverin

Crew Complement
Date # of Men
1660 360
1660 450 Establishment for war abroad
1660 360 Establishment for war at home
1660 280 Establishment for peace

A 36 Pounder rigged for action..
Drawing by Antoine Morel-Fatio, Public Domain, Wikipedia
Arming of a Naval Officer

The Commonwealth Gun recovered from the wreck of HMS London resting within its desalination bath.

“Flagmen of Lowestoft”: Admiral of the Red Sir John Lawson, Posthumous portrait by Peter Lely. Portrait: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Greenwich Hospital Collection
Lawson was formerly Captain of the London when in the Parliamentary Navy. In 1660 he again commanded the London as 2nd in command of the expedition to repatriate Charles II from the Netherlands Ϯ. On 3 June 1665 he was wounded in the knee at the Battle of Lowestoft, when engaging the Dutch Fleet. The wound became gangrenous, killing him 2 weeks later. He was buried at the Church of St Dunstan-in-the-East, London at night, only navy officers accompanying the coffin. By this date, in response to the growth in plague fatalities burial at night was mandated, so again compliance with this despite not being a plague death may have been expedient.

Ϯ (See “1666 Plague, War and Hellfire”, Rebecca Rideal, John Murray Publishers, London 2017).

An English buff coat c. 1640-1650. Typically made of oil-tanned cow-hide. The lower skirt where it protects the thighs are up to 5cm thick.
(See http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O78845/coat-unknown/)
Photo V&A T.34-1948
Admiral Sir John Lawson is portrayed wearing a buff coat over a sleeved jacket. Over this is a high quality but relatively plain blackened breast and back-plate. The rivets securing the liner, plated straps and hasps securing these are gilded.

Suspended from his sword belt is what is probably a ceremonial hanger distinguished by a robust lions head pommel. All elements of the hilt are also gilded. A similar style of hilt appears in other Lely portraits in the Flagmen of Lowestoft series. This might indicate a common naval pattern but could just as likely reflect Lely’s artistic preference or perhaps props.

The portrait of (formerly) General-at-Sea George Monck, c.1665/66 Portrait: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Greenwich Hospital Collection.
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Commonwealth Guns

Prior to recovery of the Gun from the London only one cannon still marked with the Arms of the Commonwealth existed. This was the Royal Armouries Leeds – 4.5” demi-culverin – The Commonwealth gun (1649-1653). This cast iron cannon was found in an area which was most probably the site of the Battle of Schveningen fought between the English and the Dutch fleets on 31 July 1653. It seems likely it had been shipped from the Tower to Tilbury for outfitting the Oak, one of two English ships lost that day.

Royal Armouries Leeds Commonwealth Gun:
When compared to the example at Fort Nelson we can see that the escutcheons are of a simpler design, without the cusped upper edges (also seen on commonwealth coinage). However, there are stylistic features common to both guns (such as a very narrow vent field – the section within which the vent hole is found; annular groove to the rear of the 2nd reinforce moulding, above the commonwealth arms etc.) which are found on cannon manufactured. (Nautical Archaeology, 17.1; the Commonwealth Gun, G.M. Wilson).

The bronze London gun appears to bear a more sophisticated representation of the Arms of the Commonwealth. After the Restoration of Charles II Commonwealth Arms would have been effaced hence the extreme rarity of extant pieces.

Close-up of the Commonwealth Gun showing (left) the outline of the Arms of the Commonwealth of England. Left the patinated bronze barrel. Right the same image manipulated to enhance contrast in black & white
Photographs courtesy of the Royal Armouries, Fort Nelson 2018

Flag of the Commonwealth
The Council of State on 22 February 1649 stated: “that the ships at sea in service of the State shall onely beare the red Crosse in a white flag”. The order was signed by Oliver Cromwell on 23 February. On 5 March 1649 the Council ordered “that the Flagg that is to be borne by the Admiral, Vice-Admiral, and Rere-Admiral be that now presented, viz., the Armes of England [Red St. George Cross on white] and Ireland [gold harp on blue] in two severall Escotcheons in a Red Flagg, within a compartment.“ (see www.crwflags.com)

Thus by March 1649 the coat of arms of the Protectorate became two escutcheons, one bearing the Cross of St George, the other the Harp of Ireland.

Commonwealth silver Half-Crown of 1656. Obverse
The London which was launched in 1656. Her cannon would most likely pre-date that year but based upon the commonwealth arms would not pre-date 1649. Whilst Scotland was reunited with England by an Ordinance of 12 April 1654, coinage of 1656 still bears the twin escutcheons charged with the English Cross of St George and the Harp of Ireland. It is possible to discern the Harp within the right escutcheon on this cannon.

The Peter Gill Bronze Cannon

Possibly the only known example of a Cannon produced by Peter Gill and bearing his name – Royal Armouries 17th C

The Gill gun has been re-bored indicating re-use of an earlier weapon for the London.

Charles 1st Cypher

Left: The Crowned Tudor rose remaining on the upper part of the barrel. Compare this with a full Charles I cypher with a chained anchor enclosing a Tudor rose. This latter appears on R. Roth’s dawings of a Bronze demi-culverin drake from the Sovereign of the Seas which is inscribed “JOHN BROWNE MADE THIS PEECE ANO 1638”. Jean Boudriot publications/ Sovereign of the Seas: The Seventeenth-Century Warship By James Sephton, Amberley Publishing 2013).

The Dutch Composite Drake gun – an attempt at producing lighter but effective naval cannon
The composite Drake was designed to deliver a lighter cannon without reducing the weight of shot or force of charge that could be accommodated. The extant pieces were produced in Amsterdam and English Ordnance records confirm purchase by the English Navy occurred. As can be seen, however, the composition has inherent potential weakness and would be prone to error in manufacture. An aspirant innovation which failed to capture volume uptake.

Diagram of the composition of the Rotunda Drake, a 4 Lb 3 ¼ “ cannon. Approx. 4 ft 9 “ long

The Composite Drake from the Batavia now sectioned to show sectional construction. Here the main iron tube consists of banded staves indicative of an earlier design than the Fort Nelson example which has a longitudinal tube.

Donated by the Receiver of Wreck on 8th August 2014. Found on or near Goodwin Sands and reported by Mr Aaronovitch, who kindly waived his right to a salvage award.
Built up of copper alloy and iron, probably soldered using lead alloy.
The copper alloy covering is ornamented with bands of interlace at the main mouldings and cascabel, including button. It is provided with dolphins.According to the inscription behind the vent, it weighs 260 Amsterdam pounds.
Calibre 60-70 mm
Publisahed Jan 2020