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Meet the Neighbours - Coombe Abbey # 81

...d city of Coventry for safety while the citizens mounted a guard and fought off the plotters!  Some of them were captured and executed in London and this is why we now have Guy Fawkes Night (or Bonfire Night) in the UK on 5th November to celebrate the fact that they didn’t succeed! A painting of Coombe Abbey in 1797   Such a lot of history in one place. However, when the Craven family took over in 1622, things seemed to calm down and they spent many years developing the Abbey and adding new buildings, the West Wing being one in particular.  The famous landscape gardener, ‘Capability’ Brown, re-designed the surrounding gardens and land and other p...

Suits you sir! #23

...chap from Coventry who was an armourer.  This was still a trade back in the day and I believe he did his training in the Tower of London - there are still modern armourers today who work for the military or the Police and look after all the weapons. My dad asked him to make reproduction pieces of armour and helmets so he could swap them with the real thing.  The plan was that he would swap things over when my mum had gone out but as there were always banquet staff wandering around the house, that wasn’t possible.  However, we came up with a cunning plan!  As we were always coming home in the early hours from parties, it seemed a good idea for us to swap th...

Suits you Sir! #22

...chap from Coventry who was an armourer. This was still a trade back in the day and I believe he did his training in the Tower of London - there are still modern armourers today who work for the military or the Police and look after all the weapons. My dad asked him to make reproduction pieces of armour and helmets so he could swap them with the real thing. The plan was that he would swap things over when my mum had gone out but as there were always banquet staff wandering around the house, that wasn’t possible. However, we came up with a cunning plan! As we were always coming home in the early hours from parties, it seemed a good idea for us to swap the armour...

Suits You Sir! #23

...chap from Coventry who was an armourer.  This was still a trade back in the day and I believe he did his training in the Tower of London - there are still armourers today who work for the military or the Police and look after all the modern weapons. My dad asked him to make reproduction pieces of armour and helmets so he could swap them with the real thing.  The plan was that he would swap things over when my mum had gone out but as there were always banquet staff wandering around the house, that wasn’t possible.  However, we came up with a cunning plan!  As we were always coming home in the early hours from parties, it seemed a good idea for us to swap th...

Suits you sir! #24

...chap from Coventry who was an armourer.  This was still a trade back in the day and I believe he did his training in the Tower of London - there are still modern armourers today who work for the military or the Police and look after all the weapons. My dad asked him to make reproduction pieces of armour and helmets so he could swap them with the real thing.  The plan was that he would swap things over when my mum had gone out but as there were always banquet staff wandering around the house, that wasn’t possible.  However, we came up with a cunning plan!  As we were always coming home in the early hours from parties, it seemed a good idea for us to swap th...

VENTURES NEW #10

...bbey near Coventry and went along one night to see what it was all about.  It was a banquet serving four or five courses with mediaeval entertainment while you ate.  The whole thing was overseen by a King and his court.  Well they seemed so struck on this that they decided to have a go themselves.  In the seventies mediaeval banquets were becoming the ‘in thing’ so they started planning how they would do this.  It was decided that they would run them during the winter months and open the house to the public from Easter to the August Bank Holiday.   Around this time JCB, who had a factory in nearby Uttoxeter, heard that we were planning to run banquets...