Medieval buildings from UK open air museums

 So this post is a little different, there are no pictures of miniatures or terrain in this post. What I have got is a number of photos I've taken of various medieval buildings at open air museums I have visited and as I have accumulated them as reference for terrain building I thought they might be of interest to others thinking of further builds.

15th century barn at Chiltern open air museum 

Iron age Roundhouse interior Chiltern open air museum 

Iron age roundhouse Celtic Harmony camp

Tudor outbuilding Weald and downland open air museum 



Man powered well

High street W&D various timber framed buildings 

Iron age roundhouses Buster open air museum 

Saxon longhouse Buster open air museum 

Iron age roundhouse Buster 

14th century flint cottage W&D 

Saxon longhouse W&D above,15th century Wealdon house below W&D

Period beehives 

High Street W&D various timber framed buildings 

Tudor barn W&D 

I hope this is of interest to some, I'm doing this partly because I was going through theseon my phone as I get ready to start on some dark age buildings.  Legacy blogger hasn't lasted long, so this has been painfully put together in the new format which seems to delight in deleting images left right and centre! I'm afraid there is still a  few lost titles in the post but if I were to try and delete them I would no doubt lose more images, I guess I will preserve but it's much less intuitive on the phone, which I understood was one of the reasons for the change? Next up? Probably cavalry, probably dark ages. 

All the best 

Iain 

Terrain 13 ancient trees restored!

Here we have the rusty trees from Terrain post 8 , restored to being pretty much functional.
They were made in the late 1980s/ early 1990s  ( which, I'm reliably informed  by Stew, was a long time ago)on hardboard bases that haven't warped too much, I made them for 40k but they're still usable for historical .
The slate came from the gardenof the  house I was living in as if you dig in almost any garden in London you will find broken slate from previous buildings or that has just fallen off roofs, together with bricks and bits of rusty metal, but no wargaming use for those!
The trees were made out of pipe cleaners( in those days lots of people smoked pipes and cigarettes ) twisted together and what I found (as detailed on the previous post) was that when they got damp the tiny wires rusted and I ended up with Mirkwood as the trees collapsed,so that they got replaced by plastic trees on recycled CDs and round MDF bases.  However inspired by Dave Stone of Wargamessculptur blog  in his terrain challenge I decided to refurbish them , so bound up with copper wire, they have become trees again! They once again got a coat of olive green/grey masonry paint,I haven't disguised the wires as I'm calling them vines! I've also brought the basing closer into my current finish and am happy enough with them.

Here they are with a 28mm monk for scale, they do have a bit more character than the plastic ones, but I will happily mix them all on the table together.  I haven't been painting much recently, I'm just prepping figures so that I can prime them before it becomes too cold,it'll probably be some Pictish cavalry of one kind or another up next.

All the best Iain 

War of 3 kingdoms (ECW) 7, 3 units of horse.

The recent games of For King and Parliament have pushed through some terrain (all those hedges) a pair of commanders and now some troops, 24 horse organised into 3 units of 8 for pike and shot but broken up into units of 6 in For King and Parliament, so 3 or 4 units.
They're (all bar one) Essex figures, cutting edge in 1986,which apparently was a long time ago, how did that happen?!
 I rather like them, possibly also because they were my most successful foray into Ebay,  £18 for an Essex army of 32 horse,a cannon and 60 plus infantry, I think the £10 postage must have put people off? Never to be repeated sadly!
 Either way it has made me indulgently disposed towards them and they can do little wrong in spite of their age, it also helps that they are easy to paint .
Unusually for me they were primed in an old army painter spray brown and then washed in Windsor and Newton  burnt umber diluted ink that I usually only use on terrain and then highlighted in the colour I wanted,it's a fast and dirty finish but,I cry ,it's good enough!
The only non Essex figure is a Foundry command figure waving his hat that I was given by my nephew as he has an aversion to duplicate figures, as I already have this figure I have no qualms about using them in different units!
All the standard bearers and 2 of the musicians have plastic arms,spare from the warlord cavalry sets. Two units with red sashes and one with blue,at the moment they all have Parliamentary flags from the pike and shot rule book blown up ,printed and touched up.

So I was prepping 2 units of cuirassiers and 2 units of dragoons, however, late Roman/Romano Brits are now being prepped and Pictish cavalry are on the painting tray, I would think it's more terrain next but who can be sure?! Legacy blogger still seems to be working on my phone, for how long who knows?

All the best Iain 

War of Three Kingdoms (ECW) 6 A pair of command stands

You need a  lot of command stands for pike and shot and you need a few for For King and Parliament.
Here are a couple of warlord games mounted commander's, Essex on the grey and Wallenstein, who I know is a thirty years war commander but I like the sculpt and he's close enough for me, plus in moments of megalomania I plan on expanding into the 30 year's war so he will be fine and it will be Essex who will be pretending to be Swedish or Spanish or French or some kind of German!
I rather like both these figures from warlord, it's the extremely dynamic ones I have trouble with ,their Fairfax and Gustavus Adolfus I  have real problems with as they just seem a bit silly!

A useful pair,next up ,pike and shot horse units or some trees,not sure which!

All the best Iain