Pegasus Bridge

   The last post on D-Day battlefields is probably a tad late and should have come first - Pegasus bridge. This was one hell of a morning out it has to be said. Driving round the corner and seeing the replacement bridge is something I'll remember for the rest of my life and the stuff in the museum plus the real bridge are amazing.

The bridge itself in full glory - standing on it was really strange

A horsa glider

A photo of the new bridge from the point the middle glider landed - just shows how close they were

The first civilian house liberated on D-Day and a great stop for lunch. The owner spoiled my little boy rotten and just couldn't have been nicer

The replacement bridge and view from the direction we first saw it

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Juno Beach

   This post is about Juno beach, the Canadian landing beach. When we visited this one it was fairly late in the day and the wind was really getting up, so it was a flying visit to stop too much sand getting into our eyes. As we were leaving a bunch of surfers turned up, which like building sandcastles on Omaha made a surreal experience.

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Gold Beach

   Carrying on with some beaches, this is Gold beach - one of the two British landing beaches. This was a much less touristy beach but the upside down defences made brought what happened here home*.

*although I suspect the upside nature of them is more due to natural processes in 79 years.

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Omaha Beach

   With today marking 79 years since D-Day, I thought it would be a good time to put some posts up from my recent visit to Normandy. As with my other battlefield posts, I'm not going to go into depth on the battle or anything like that, as I just don't see the point when others have done such a better job than I would.

   This is Omaha beach - or bloody Omaha - the beach seen in Saving Private Ryan fame and was one of the two American beaches. We visited a beach from each major nation that took part and of all of them, this was the weirdest, being a mix of monument to what happened and really touristy sandy beach. Sitting on a beach building a sandcastle with my son, eating lollies, with WW2 tours going past and on a site where such a bloody battle happened is a surreal experience.

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Battle of Barnet

   I was on a site visit in Luton last week and had the brilliant idea to stop and have my lunch at the monument to the battle of Barnet on my way home. With a lot of my thoughts at the moment being War of the Roses related, this felt like the right choice to make and sitting on the bench in the shade with a sandwich and a view of the monument, didn't change that view.

   Weirdly, considering its on a triangle of grass with a bus stop at one end, surrounded by housing and two busy roads, it was really peaceful. I think a lot of the evidence points to the battle taking place at a slightly different site, but it doesn't take away from this place.

Right, back to painting - except my dry brushes are drying before they touch the figure.

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Battle Of Maldon

   A slight to the current painting projects;

Statue of Earl Byrthnoth

   A week ago - at the point of typing - we booked a Friday off work and decided to take our little boy to Colchester zoo while it was still fairly quiet and with the weather being good and us leaving the zoo to give him a car nap in the early afternoon, we were planning how to spend the rest of the afternoon when we saw a sign for Maldon and I mentioned that it was a battlefield I would quite like to visit. . .

The towards the causeway to Northey Island where the Vikings had landed.

The probably battlefield as the closest land to the causeway, although with how wet and marshy the whole are is I'm not sure I'd like to have a fight there.

   Like my other battlefield posts, I'm not going to try and describe the battle or explain the motivations as I'm just not qualified when there are so many better places to get that sort of information, but it's always weirdly moving to go to battlefields and see how the terrain affected the events. In this case, I can totally see why the English Earl Byrthnoth, let the Vikings off of the island instead of either trapping them in or taking the fight to them, the land around the causeway is horrible, even with the modern raised path, you are much better off letting them come to you. It's just a pity it didn't work.

   This is very much a battle I've had my eyes on recreating, so much so that I have a specific bit of scenery made for it by Last Valley, so keep your eyes open in the future*.

*Just torn whether to go 28mm or 15mm

   Also as a side note, the path to the battlefield is not at all pram friendly . . .

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Battle of Stoke Field

   The last battlefield post in this sequence, this time it's the battle of Stoke Field, the last battle of the Wars of the Roses, with Henry VII defeating the Yorkist pretender, Lambert Simnel, and securing the crown for the Tudor dynasty.

   This battlefield has been partly built on in subsequent years, so is nowhere as impressive as some of the other sites we visited, but is well worth a stop in if you are passing through. Here are the pictures:

The (limited) view of the battlefield - I think there was a better view from the other side, but it was just too hot by that point.

The Red Gutter, the site of the Yorkist rout

   I've got plans for a post on Hadrian's Wall, Vindolanda and the Roman Army museum planned next me painting done.

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Battle Of Towton

   The battle of Towton was one of two battlefields that we had no plans to visit at all, until we saw they were on the way to the next place we were going anyway. Towton, fought in the War of the Roses, has the reputation for being the bloodiest battle on British soil and it was the first battlefield I've been to in the UK that wasn't just a field but was a trail of events and places. The sheer size of the battlefield is basically the overwhelming feature of it, something I've only seen at Waterloo before.

   So, again, trying to avoid being a bad version of Wikipedia, here are my photos;

Looking towards the Lancastrian deployment lines from the Yorkist lines

The field the action moved to

The climax of the battle before the Lancastrian rout and subsequent massacre

    I came away from this battlefield brewing with ideas. I have a few boxes of Perry WotR infantry in my shopping list as I think a box will do the bulk of a single side for Lion Rampant, but I'm going to hold off buying until I have a few more projects moving on. Going out is dangerous.

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Battle Of Marston Moor

   Carrying on with the theme, the next battlefield we visited was Marston Moor. A lot of the battlefields on my list that I want to visit end up being a slightly blurred medieval but can't remember why the battle was fought in my head, but Marston Moor is a name where you know exactly what was going on. A big English Civil War battle with all the big names present.

   Again, I'm not going to try and compete with Wikipedia so here are some photos;

The Monument

Looking towards the Royalist Lines

Looking towards the Parliamentary lines

   Most battlefield visits leave me at least planning how I would refight the battle on the tabletop, for example after visiting Naseby I bought Pikeman's Lament and ordered my first box of ECW troops. After this battlefield I ended up ordering some Warlord Games Scots Covenanters which will feature in a later post - hopefully.

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Battle of Flodden

   I've not been doing a lot of painting recently but I have had my summer holiday and we did some brilliant things while away that I think are blog worthy, so I'm going to do a short series on where I went while I try to do some painting in this heat.

   First up is the Battlefield at Flodden. Like my battle of Naseby post, I'm not going to go into the history as Wikipedia will do a much better job, but suffice to say it was James IV vs an English army left behind while Henry VIII was off in France. Here are some photos;

 The battlefield monument

The battlefield from the English battle line

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Naseby

   My hobby output hasn't been up to a huge amount so far this summer, while I blame the heat and a lack of motivation, it also has to do with how busy our weekends have been recently. On the whole, I leave my wife to post about our weekends on her travel blog (thingswelearntin), but every now and again something comes along that feels appropriate to post on this little hobby blog and visiting the site of the Battle of Naseby felt like one of those times.

   I'm not going to go into detail on the battle as there is a wiki page for that, plus loads of other (better) sources, but it was a pivotal engagement in the English Civil war and was a site where both Oliver Cromwell and King Charles were present and it has got me thinking about a potential English Civil War project for later in the year*?

*My copy of Pikemans Lament has now turned up
 

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