950th Anniversary Celebrations for the Battle of Hastings

We've had such a fun family afternoon and the best thing about it was that it was pretty impromptu. We've obviously known that it would be the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings this weekend and that the reenactment was happening at Battle Abbey and battleground this weekend but we hadn't really planned to join in as we've been to the reenactment before and we knew that Battle town would just be crazy busy with tourists.

Then on Monday the girls school sent home a letter saying they they would approve leave for this afternoon if the children wanted to be part of the town festivities and of course they did. At 2.15pm this afternoon this was a parade of more than 600 local school children (including many from my kids school) led by a military band, activities in the library and crafts in the memorial hall. So we planned to spend the afternoon in Battle town and it is close enough for JJ to walk and meet us after he finished school.

Family visit to Battle Abbey, East Sussex (English Heritage)

This year, for the first time we have joint English Heritage so we are happily making the most of our membership by visiting some local sites. Although to be honest the card covered its cost when we went to Kent in May and visited Dover Castle, Deal Castle and Walmer Castle.

We are lucky enough to live just outside of the very pretty and historic town of Battle in East Sussex. So Battle Abbey, which is home to the famous battleground where the 1066 Battle of Hastings took place is something we see most weeks. Bar one visit for the battle reenactment (which was superb fun) we have only ever smiled at the outside in the lat three years we have lived here but now we have the membership we are making frequent visits. Sometimes even just for the tea and cake as the prices (I was super surprised to note) are very reasonable and less than many of the coffee shops in the town. There is also a nice children's play park across from the cafe and that means our kids can run off and have some fun rather than being bored with us oldies!

The Battle of Hastings (A year in photos - week 42)

At the anniversary of the 14th October 1066 we went to a reenactment of the Battle of Hastings at Battle Abbey. The event runs for a weekend every year and had been highly recommended to us by lots of local people.

As the rain was coming down hard and we had free tickets (nothing to do with my blog I might add) we decided to go to church, have lunch and go along in the afternoon to watch the main event.

There seemed to have been loads going on if you went for the whole day - food stands, authentic traders, kids activities, theatre performances, have-a-go archery, Falconry, a literary tent with loads of different authors and music shows.

We had a good couple of hours at the event, first we explored the old abbey ruins a bit and then settled down to watch the main reenactment, it was very interesting but the rain pelting down did put a dampener on it for us and we headed to Costa to warm up.

The old abbey -

Loads of traders with far too many interesting things that little people want to touch! lol

English Heritage had a nice big shop there and if you are into this sort of thing there is loads the kids can buy, small wooden bows and arrow at £5.99, helmets, shields and proper metal helmet at about £150 for those more serious.

This is Harold riding in to battle -

More of the English Saxon army marching in -

The first soldiers commence battle -

The Normans march up to the Saxons on Senlac Hill and attempt to break their shield line -

Some of the Saxons feel they have won and break the line and then shortly they are surrounded by the Norman knights on horseback -

Because of the rain we didn't quite manage the full hour for the battle, the kids got bored and once Harold had the arrow in his eye we headed off.

We had a good time and I would recommend a visit to this if you are local to East Sussex.  Pray for good weather, bring a picnic and make a day of it!

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