[Shamsi Modarai]

Greetings, m'lords!....

Good day to you all!

I am taking a trip to England this week, more specifically to York, Leeds, and Durham in order to check out the universities there. I applied to each of the universities a few months ago, and I recently heard back from all of them.......and each had offered me a place in their M.A. in Medieval Studies programmes! It has been my dream for some time to get a degree in Medieval Studies in the UK, so I was extremely excited to say the least. However, I was also worried because I had no idea how I was going to choose the right programme without visiting them in person. I am about to leave for an extended stay (6 months) in Iceland, so I had no idea how I was going to manage squeezing in a visit to England as well. Well, my mother is incredibly amazing and bought me plane tickets to the UK so that I could see each place in person and meet with the staff and students and be able to decide for myself. Its all very exciting!

What does this have to do with arms and armour, you might ask? Well, during my visit to Leeds I was hoping to stop by the Royal Armouries there. I have been to the Royal Armouries in the Tower of London, which was really fun to see, but I am not as familiar with the collections in the Royal Armouries in Leeds. Since I only have a limited time there, what are some of the "must-see" things there (if anything)? I am interested in many different time periods, but as you can tell by my choice of major, mostly medieval.

Has anyone seen their hunting and tournament exhibits? I assume that for someone who loves medieval weapons (and sharp pointy objects in general) these would be worth visiting? Anyone have any photo requests? If I end up going I'll be sure to take a few photos and post them here if anyone cares.

If you have any suggestions of specific things to see, I'd be happy to hear them. I've been to their website of course, but I just wanted to see if anyone who had been there before had some input.

Thanks in advance!


~ Shamsi

[Greyson Brown]

Congratulations! I personally didn't make it far enough north to see the armouries at Leeds, so I'm afraid I can't suggest any particular things to see, but others (Eric McHugh comes to mind) have been there and might be more help. As for picture requests. I'm always interested in anything from the first 3/4 of the 14th century, but also just anything sharp and pointy.

-Grey

[Chad Arnow]

[Hisham Gaballa]

I took a load of pictures there a year or so go, which I uploaded to my album.

http://www.myArmoury.com/albums/thumbnails.ph...amp;page=1

[Colin F.]

Firstly Shamsi, really well done on getting acceptences to Leeds, York and Durham!!!! I applied to Durham for my under graduate degree in European Studies (read: History) and German, but ended up going to Bradford instead. Which just happens to be right next to Leeds Either way, all three of uni's are really nice, I personally have friends at all 3 and can vouch that you will enjoy any of those cities no matter which you go to

The reason I mention that is because I spent most of my 4th year in the Leeds Armouries Library writing my dissertation on the development and evolution of British pattern cavalry sabres and swords from 1788 to 1908. I also trained there for a time with the European Historical Combat Guild before my studies took me a little further away (and more importantly without a car of funds to get to Leeds ) . There's nowt like training in a tilt yard!!!

Anyways, back to the reply...

Leeds Armouries is a very very good museum. It's free entry (woohoo!!!!) and the exhibits are nice and clearly set out. Some of the lighting can be a bit....er...poor in some though. You will love the Hunting and Tournament galleries, given your interests, as there is plenty around to look at. The Oriental gallery is my favourite, along with War. The Oriental gallery, despite the name, has loads of weapons from all over the world, and includes the War elephant armour, which is supremely impressive to say the least. War is excellent with some nice medieval swords, armour and various other bits on view, but there are plenty of late 18th and early 19th century stuff on show.

The Hall of Steel is rather impressive too, just stand at the bottom and look up. If you get it on a sunny day the glint of sunlight of the assembled swords, bayonets and pikes is jaw dropping.

If you do end up in Leeds uni, the Armouries has a public library attached to it, and I can vouch that Phil and Stuart who work there are very helpful (if over worked) and will always do their best to help you. Plenty of medieval stuff there. They even showed my a hand written manual/advisory book from the late 1780's written by a person wanting the British army to adopt the rifle over the musket...not unsuprisingly, all his 'example targets' for training are french soldiers hehe. Only one of its kind too...if I get a chance I would love to study it further.

Any more questions just answer in this thread, I'll be more than happy to help out. In fact, depending on when you are going I could even be of use as a tour guide if you wish.

regards,

Colin

[Shamsi Modarai]

Thanks everyone who has replied so far, I appreciate the input.

Greyson ~ I'll keep my eyes out, but as Chad says, I was mistaken to think I could post photos publicly. Sorry about that! I checked the website more carefully and found that you are allowed to take photos, but (sadly) you aren't allowed to post photos on the internet. I suppose though, if someone really wants some I could privately email them? Or would that be a no-no as well?

Ah well, you'll just have to rely on my my brilliant descriptive writing abilities instead of a visual account!


Colin ~ Ooooh, British cavalry swords! (Sorry, I just finished watching the entire Sharpe tv series, so I'm a bit obsessed with Napoleonic Era right now. Love the line in Sharpe's Waterloo where he tells the cowardly Lord Rosendale not to cut his poor horse's ears off! ) That is absolutely hilarious about using "Frogs" as target practice......

I'm so envious! I'd love to be able to participate in a Combat Guild like the one they have there. There is nothing close to that around where I live here in the States. The only things we have around are fantasy foam fighting, stage combat, fencing, and SCA.....none of which really "do it" for me. I'd love to have "the real thing" so to speak!

Admittedly, my main periods of interest (in terms of my actual research and studies) are Migration-Era, Anglo-Saxon, and Viking eras, which I'm sure are probably waaay earlier than most of the items in the Armouries. Nevertheless, my personal interests are very broad and range from the Neolithic period to the Present. I just love arms and armour in general, so I'm VERY excited to have an opporunity to visit the Royal Armouries in Leeds!

Do you know if they would still have falconry displays at this time of year? I swoon for such things!


I appreciate your willingness to be a tour guide, that's very kind of you. Are you currently in the Leeds area right now? I'm going to be at the Armouries (along with my mum) just for one morning later on this week. I'd rather not give out details about my personal whereabouts on a public forum, though I suppose I could send you a private message with the date and time I'm planning to be there.

[Hisham Gaballa]

I have checked it out and you are quite right:
http://www.royalarmouries.org/extsite/view.jsp?sectionId=1182

In that case I have broken their rules by uploading many of my photos to the albums section of this website.

[Colin F.]

Firstly, I'll have to write an apology, I mis read and thought you meant you were coming next week Sorry!!! Although I am only about 40 minutes away, my teacher training course runs full time and doesn't finish til the end of this week!! Apologies.

In anycase, I may be of more use with a little more info...

Falconry - There might be some on, I'm not sure as the displays change daily so you will have to see what they have running on the day. There should be some displays of some form of swordsmanship at somepoint during the day.

Anyways, I am sure you will really enjoy your visit and if you do come to Leeds for university, you could join the ECHG and KDF who both train at Leeds. In York I believe there are a few people studying some form of HEMA and in Durham, if i remember rightly, there is someone who visited the ECHG one time who was VERY handy with a rapier, although his name has escaped me at the moment.

In anycase, if you google British Federation of Historical Swordsmanship I'm sure you can find some of the 'real deal' whilst you are over here.

Colin

[Shamsi Modarai]

No worries, Colin. Thank you for the offer. (Though I suppose you should probably disregard the pm I just sent you!)

As much as I like the Armouries, I am leaning more towards York as the place where I will end up for my studies. I will gladly check out the historical combat options for each place.

Thank you so much for the info!

[Colin F.]

[Shamsi Modarai]

Yes, very true. Things are so much closer together in the UK than over here, plus the public transport is much more readily available.

I am getting even more excited about this trip now!

[Steve Grisetti]

Congratulations, Shamsi. Please let us know how your trip works out, and which place you finally choose!

[David Evans]

Shamsi, welcome to this slightly damp country. I hope you do manage to find your way round. I'm not sure of your dates but If I'm not too far out you can pm me. I live down the road from Leeds, in Sheffield, and could always pop up to Leeds for another dribble round the RA.

York is a cracking little city so enjoy yourself there :-)

[Sam Barris]

Many congratulations, Shamsi, on both your academic success and your impending voyage! May the winds blow fair for you.

I have yet to travel to the British Isles (soon, my preciousss...), so there is absolutely no advice or other practical value in this post whatsoever, but I had to congratulate you.

[Shamsi Modarai]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone!

I will definitely keep you all updated on how things go. I am flying out later this evening and will be in London by tomorrow morning! I will then take a train up to York, where I'll be staying for the duration of the trip.

I'll be taking my laptop with me, so being the internet-addict that I am, I'll probably still be checking this site while I'm away. I'm not going to the Armouries until Thursday, so if anyone else has suggestions, feel free to contribute to the thread.

David ~ Thanks for the welcome. I've been to your "slightly damp country" once before, and found it quite charming, despite the cold rain. Though last time I ended up having to skip Yorkshire in order to have time for Scotland.....this time I'll be able to see what I missed. I'm excited to finally see Eboracum....Eoferwic.....Jorvik.......York....whatever they are calling it these days.

So you live in Sheffield, eh? Mmm.....that's Sean Bean country.

Sam ~ Thanks for the congrats. Don't worry, I always tell people that they *will* get to travel to the places of their heart's desire some day! There is still hope....

[Dan Dickinson]

I'm assuming you already have been there since you mentioned going to the Tower, but just in case you didn't and have time
while you're in London again, you must stop by the British Museum. For someone interested in your period the Sutton Hoo finds are not to be missed.
Either way enjoy England, I hope to get back there again someday. This January though it's off to Ireland.