Battle of Alquèzar (May 1813) - set up

I am expecting a visit from a guest general on Saturday – not sure if we’ll have time to have a game, but I’ve set one up, just in case.

This is to be the mythical Battle of Alquèzar (Province of Huesca), which is very loosely based on a published Commands & Colors scenario (for entirely the wrong theatre of war) – a French force commanded by General D’Armagnac is opposed by the Spanish division of Pablo Morillo, with cavalry support.

General view of the field - Spanish Army on your right

French Army (D’Armagnac)

Brigade Thouvenot

4/28e Léger

Chasseurs des Montagnes

4e Vistule

Garde de Paris

Bn Grenadiers Provisoirs

Bn Dragons Provisoirs (à Pied)

Brigade Leberknödel (Duché de Stralsund-Rügen)

Grenadiers

2 bns Fusiliers

Jaeger Bn

2 Foot batteries

Cavalry:

Brigade D’Abry

13e Cuirassiers

4e & 20e Dragons

Brigade Kleinwinkel

1^st & 2^nd Stralsund-Rügen Ch/Légers

With all the recent concentration on my white-uniformed 1809 Spaniards, it's
nice to see the late-war boys get a run out - here's the 2nd Mallorca in the foreground

Spanish Army (Morillo)

Brigade O’Donovan

2. Jaen

Vols de la Victoria (Ligero)

Sevilla

2. Princesa

Bailen

Brigade Conde de Manzaneros

La Union

Leon

2. Mallorca

Legion Estremeña (Ligero)

2 Foot batteries

Cavalry:

Brigade Ducado de Fernan Nuñez

Coraceros Españoles

Granaderos a Caballo Fernando VII

Brigade Del Roque

Vols de España

Cazadores d’Olivenza

Husares de Estremadura

If my guest does not have time to fight(!), I'll play it as a solo effort - either way, there should be a report here in a few days.

  

Jedburgh Abbey - Family Day Out

Since Good Friday was bright and less cold than of late (not actually warm, note) we set off on a trip to visit Jedburgh Abbey, in the Scottish Borders, which is about an hour and a half from here by car.

Very pleasant day. It seems odd to say this, but the Abbey is rather larger than it was last time I visited, since some more of it has been excavated following the demolition of some old housing near the river. The Visitor Centre is simple, but the audio-guided tour is excellent - recommended - giving a good overview of the history and a useful explanation of life in the place.

Architectural style is hybrid - the lower parts of the building are Romanesque, but the upper parts, which were added only 50 years or so later, are of a more Gothic style - fashions were changing. The builders were Augustinian "Black" Canons - this order was noted for involvement in towns and communities, so their buildings were usually less secluded than those of some of their contemporaries. The Abbey has traditionally been a church for the townspeople of Jedburgh as well as a retreat for the Canons, so has always had an important role in the life and history of the town.

Since Carter Bar and the English border are just a few miles down the A68, Jedburgh has always been right in the firing line whenever there was war or skirmishing raids, and the Abbey has taken a few severe kickings over the years. It's remarkable, really, that so much of it survives.

In more recent centuries, it has gradually been requisitioned as a burial ground by the prominent families of the area - notably the Kerrs and Rutherfords - and this results in a rather confused picture of the original working plan of the building - altars and fireplaces being shifted and altered to accommodate tombs.

Anyway - if you are around the area, it is definitely worth a visit - but go early in the day, to leave enough time for afternoon tea in the splendid little Chocolate House in the town (which closes at 4pm - the mysteries of Borders commerce?).

Nearer home, the bird feeders in our garden continue to be frantically busy. In addition to the usual suspects, we have seen a welcome return by a very vigorous family of Siskins (who have been absent for some years), and we are also delighted to see a few Greenfinches, who have been badly hit by a fungus disease in recent times, but show signs of recovery, in this area at least.

It also goes without saying that I am deeply indebted to the Contesse for her splendid photography.

Hooptedoodle #198 - The Enchanted Forest and the New Bridge

Last week we went to see The Enchanted Forest, which is a light-and-music show staged during each October at Faskally Wood, a small forest park surrounding a lake, just outside Pitlochry, Perthshire. I have to say I like Pitlochry - as resort towns go, it has a lot of character, and there are excellent hotels and eating places.

The actual show is remarkable - it is run by a local community group, for the benefit of the community, but there is nothing at all amateurish about the production. I believe that the contract firm which installed the sound and lighting this year is Chinese - for the Scottish Highlands, this is quite a big deal. I recommend it without any hesitation at all - if you have a few days spare next October and you can get to Pitlochry (rather less than an hour's drive north of the city of Perth), it is well worth a visit.

Take your camera - these photos are my wife's, for which I offer my humble thanks - they make my own feeble efforts look ridiculous!

...and, since photos without sound are missing an important part of the experience, here's a YouTube clip from this year's show...

To get to Perth from here you have to cross the Forth Road Bridge, and I got my first glimpse of the new bridge which is going up alongside it - no, it is not to be the Fifth Bridge, it will be known as the Queensferry Crossing. The current bridge is developing some rust problems in the main cables - it is not at all dangerous yet - it has years of life left - and so it will continue in service to carry public transport vehicles when the new one opens.

The present bridge is a conventional suspension bridge - the new one is of a completely different construction. Here you see the new towers going up, to the West of the existing bridge - the expected opening date is 2016, I understand, which certainly astonishes me. I wish them good speed - the Edinburgh trams and the Scottish Parliament building were both wildly late and overbudget, so there is a bit of a credibility exercise involved here, as well.

Carlisle Castle

Just about a year after our last visit, we spent the weekend at the Crown, in Wetheral, Cumbria. Very pleasant – it was mostly misty and wet, so we didn’t do a lot of walking, but we had a good time, and – once again – I am pleased to record that I ate far too much.

Wetheral station

On Saturday morning we took the train into Carlisle – just one stop – the last hop of the Newcastle-Carlisle service – cheap and quick and easy. Carlisle is a significant, ancient Northern city in its own right – I saw some of it while walking through from West to East in pouring rain, three years ago, in search of Hadrian and his jobbing builders. Its cathedral is imposing, the castle has been an important garrison from Roman times (though its importance dropped off a bit in the last two centuries, since the Scots became less of a threat – discuss), it was the site of a siege during the ECW (more of this in a moment), and it is generally familiar as a big railway station on the West Coast line (the old London, Midland & Scottish route up through Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester to Scotland) and as a city with a big Post Office transmitting mast, somewhere alongside the M6 motorway.

I regret to say that I found the pedestrianised city centre to be clean and tidy, but dismal – uninspiring - I'm sure the weather didn't help. The range of shops is very poor – predictable for a provincial English town, maybe – there is no local character at all – it seems that the people of Carlisle spend their money on mobile phones, birthday cards, sweets, cheap shoes, body lotion and burgers, much like everyone else. Franchises and mediocrity – the place wasn’t even busy, for a Saturday. Astonishingly, I was unable to purchase any kind of town map or guide – drew a complete blank. The station bookshop had a visitor’s guide to New York, any amount of stuff about the Lake District, souvenirs of London (discuss) and nothing else. The manager told me that her head office refused to supply guide maps for Carlisle, and that she would be grateful if I would make a complaint. The man in the newsagents looked at me as if I had made him an indecent proposal, and shook his head. The girl in the book department in the sizeable WH Smith (which, strangely, seems to have a Post Office as part of  the upper floor) said that she’d never been asked for such a thing before, and wondered if anyone ever visited Carlisle. Hmmm.

Waterstone’s had a few books about local history, and a Nicolson’s street map, which simply gives a plan of the entire city and surrounding area, with no information. We gave up, and headed for the castle.

The castle is pretty good. It is not cheap to get in (it’s cheaper if you are a member of English Heritage), and I was a bit disappointed to learn that you must pay again to get access to the Cumbria Museum of Military Life, which belongs to the King’s Own Royal Border Regiment Museum Fund. The museum was small, but worth the extra admission charge.

View of the Captain's Tower and the gate out of the Inner Ward

View from the walls, across the Inner Ward to the massive keep

Nothing in the view to tempt the ECW garrison out, though a change
from stewed rat might appeal

The rest of the castle is dominated by a working barracks – the Outer Ward contains a number of Victorian buildings which until 1959 were the home of the Border Regt (which regiment became part of the King’s Own Royal Border Regt at that date, having been formed in 1881 from the amalgamation of the 34^th (Cumberland) and 55^th (Westmoreland) Regiments of Foot). The garrison buildings are currently the County HQ of the Duke of Lancaster’s Regt, whose main depot is at Preston, down the M6 a bit.

Official photo courtesy of Visit Cumbria

Beyond that, the older Inner Ward holds the tatty but pretty complete remains of what has obviously been a working castle for many centuries – this has never been anyone’s stately home, neither did it benefit from any major Victorian makeover. The old keep is remarkable – not only is it still standing, but I found myself wondering how it could ever be demolished.

Oh yes – the ECW. Carlisle was a Royalist stronghold from the beginning of the Civil wars, but was largely ignored until the King’s influence in the North was diminished by Marston Moor, after which date there was a formal siege at Carlisle from 1644 until the following year, when it surrendered. The claim that it was the longest siege of the Wars only stands up, I think, if you include the passive period from 1642 to 1644, but the actual siege was notable for the sufferings of the garrison. One Isaac Tullie, who was the teenage son of a local merchant, wrote a diary of the siege, and this very morning I have ordered a used copy from Amazon. I have to confess that my track record of reading such eyewitness accounts from the ECW is not great – I find the style of written expression of the day rather fatiguing – I have a growing collection of partly-read booklets…

Very pleasant - view of the River Eden at Wetheral, from the railway bridge

On the way home we stopped at Rothbury - I noted that we were too early for a talk on Waterloo by Capt Cavalie Mercer of the RHA, in the guise of Northumberland lawyer, historian and battlefield guide, Dr John Sadler. For those who didn't know, Rothbury is on the River Coquet, and very nice too.

Sky Blue Pink with a Finny-Haddy Border

With better luck, this would have been a post about my trip on Saturday to the Durham Light Infantry Museum (that’s right, madam – in Durham), but I didn’t make it. After dithering over the weather forecast for an hour longer than I should have, I left home around 10am – Durham is about two and a half hours drive from here, and the museum is open 10:30 until 4pm.

The A1 in Northumberland, on a relatively dry day...

Alas, before I got to the border the rain was torrential, and it remained so – could hardly see through the spray, and I had the demister blowing so loud I couldn’t hear Wes Montgomery on the stereo. Not good. Near Stannington, not far north of Newcastle, there were some fairly routine roadworks, which required two lanes of the dual carriageway to merge into one, to be joined shortly afterwards by a busy slip road coming in from the left. Much too demanding for your average British motorist, I fear – no-one will give way; merging of traffic lanes is a simple process, screwed up by heroes (mostly in white 4WD BMWs, on Saturday) who insist on driving up the closed outside lane and forcing their way in at the bottleneck, thus gaining some 200 feet of priority in the queue, but stopping the whole thing dead. By the time I reached Washington services my Durham ETA had slipped by some 50 minutes, and the rain was coming on heavier again, after a brief lull. At best I could expect to get about an hour at the museum before it closed, and I was growing anxious about delays on the return trip. I had coffee and a piece of industrial chocolate cake at Washington, cast an expert eye at the lowering sky, and then headed for home, muttering. The weather and the traffic were both better than expected on the way back, in fact, and I survived to attempt the trip again in a week or two.

So – no news of Durham, and I wouldn’t recommend the chocolate cake.

Right – subject 2.

Painted miniature of an officer in the 1802 uniform

I am preparing to paint up another regiment for my 1809 Spanish army – this will be two battalions of the Regimiento de la Corona, and I intend to paint them in the 1802 regulation uniform, which involves jackets in what Godoy specified as deep sky blue – a shade which seems to be interpreted in a wide variety of ways. I have seen actual sky blue, and the Peter Bunde plates show it as a sort of royal blue. Hmmm.

Peter Bunde plate - not helped by the current state of my scanner

Any opinions on this? I was going to try for a sort of medium blue, not too psychedelic – my preferred options at present are a choice of two old Citadel colours which I have to hand - Ultramarine Blue, and Enchanted Blue – I have no idea what these are called now. I have the Cronin and Summerfield book, the Histoires et Collections volume on Ocaña and all the Bueno books for the period – inconclusive – in any case my colour vision is probably a bit dodgy anyway, but the problem with plates in books is that the reproduction is uncertain, and we don’t really know what the author intended.

So – Spanish soldiers, 1802 uniform – “deep-sky” jackets with black facings, edged red, red turnbacks, brass buttons – what do you reckon? What shade of blue? All clues welcome.