essex castles

Hedingham Castle's Norman keep, 110 feet high, was built c.1140 by Aubrey de Vere and is still owned by one of his descendants, Jason Lindsay and his wife Demetra. There are four floors to explore, including a magnificent Banqueting Hall spanned by a remarkable 28 foot arch, one of the largest Norman arches in England. A good view of this splendid room can be obtained from the Minstrels' Gallery, built within the thickness of the 12 foot walls.
A visit to the castle and its beautiful is a must
Hedingham Castle may occupy the site of an earlier castle believed to have been built in the late 11th or early 12th century by Aubrey de Vere I, a Norman baron. Hedingham was one of the largest manors among those acquired by Aubrey I. The Domesday Book records that he held the manor of Hedingham by 1086, and he ordered that vineyards be planted^[1]. It became the head of the Vere barony.
Aubrey II or Aubrey III are candidates for initiating the construction of a major stone building at Hedingham, possibly to reflect the enhanced status of the family. In 1133 Aubrey de Vere II, son and heir of the first Aubrey, was created master chamberlain of England by Henry I. In 1141 his son, Aubrey de Vere III, was granted an earldom by Empress Matilda. By that time he had been Count of Guines for several years by right of his wife's claim to that continental territory. Earl Aubrey was forced to surrender his castles to King Stephen in 1143, as was his brother-in-law Geoffrey de Mandeville, first earl of Essex. He recovered the castles by the mid 1140s.
Matilda, wife of King Stephen, died at Castle Hedingham on May 3, 1152.^[2] The castle was besieged twice, in 1216 and 1217, during the dispute between King John, rebel barons, and the French prince. (In both cases the sieges were short and successful for those besieging the castle).
The great hall stood to the southwest and a chapel to the south of the stone keep within the inner bailey.^[3] A bridge connects the inner bailey to the outer bailey lying to the northeast.
The castle was held by the de Vere family until 1625. Among the more famous earls are Robert de Vere, 3rd Earl of Oxford; Robert de Vere, 9th Earl of Oxford; John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford; and Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. The castle and estate are now owned by the Lindsay family, who are descendants of the de Veres.

crescent cavalier

armies in plastic

american infantry for the first time. but what period?

ww1 hand grenades

I never ever saw these Crescent ww1 troops when I was a kid and I probably wouldn't have bought them anyway as I bought Western types but these are the rarest of Crescent production

Technology during World War I reflected a trend toward industrialism and the application of mass production methods to weapons and to the technology of warfare in general. This trend began fifty years prior to World War I during the U.S. Civil War, and continued through many smaller conflicts in which new weapons were tested.
August 1914 marked the end of a relatively peaceful century in Europe with unprecedented invention and new science. The 19th-century vision of a peaceful future fed by ever-increasing prosperity through technology was largely shattered by the war's and, after the technological escalation during World War II, it was apparent that whatever the gains in prosperity and comfort due to technology applied to civilian uses, these benefits would always be under the shadow of the horrors of technology applied to warfare.
The earlier years of the First World War can be characterized as a clash of 20th-century technology with 19th-century warfare in the form of ineffectual battles with huge numbers of casualties on both sides. It was not until the final year of the war that the major armies made effective steps in revolutionizing matters of command and control and tactics to adapt to the modern battlefield, and started to harness the myriad new technologies to effective military purposes. Tactical reorganizations (such as shifting the focus of command from the 100+ man company to the 10+ man squad) went hand-in-hand with armored cars, the first submachine guns, and automatic rifles that could be carried and used by one man.

crescent and lone star sepoys

my collection.REPLICANTS BOARDING PARTY

i used to buy directly from replicants but they changed the way they sell so now i dont buy, shame cos peter cole is a top geezer.

my collection.replicants marksman

what is this supposed to be. i picked this up for a quid at novegro but still don't know what period it is

alessandro puttanix

the last stand at gettysburg my collection

french plastic

The perfect conversion piece

info@wearethemarket.com

theres so little detail on this that with a change of head and some building up of the figure you can change it to anything you want. you'll need to make the legs longer just a little

my collection . maximillian armour

I was walking in vicenza in  1980 when i came across an old toy shop and bought a bunch of gthese old britains for pence.I photographed this with a hundred pound sony cybershot.
Maximilian armour is a modern term applied to the style of early 16th century German plate armour apparently first made for the Emperor Maximilian I. The armour is characterized by armets and close helmets with bellows visors, small fan-shaped narrow and parallel fluting often covering most of the harness (but never the greaves), etching, work taken from woodcuts and sharply waisted cuirasses and squared sabatons.

According to an alternative version the name is related with Maximilian II as the last Maximilian Armour was made especially for him in 1557 - 17 years after it passed out of use (according to Liliane Funcken & Fred Funcken[1] it passed out of use in 1540, but the last one was made for Maximilian II).

The armour itself was designed to imitate the pleated clothing that was considered fashionable in Europe at the time. This was a trend that was developing in 15th century Europe of creating armour that not only provided the maximum amount of protection, but was also visually pleasing. It combined the rounded Italian style of rounded armour production with the German fluted style.

lone star and crescent indians

He was 31 years old, and a Sepoy in the 6th battalion in the 13th frontier force, in the indian armywhen the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.
On 9 April 1945 near Fusignano, Italy, at the start of the Allied spring 1945 offensive Haidar's battalion was tasked with a difficult assault crossing of the Senio River. Only Sepoy Ali Haidar and the two other men of his section managed to get across under heavy machine-gun fire.
Then, while the other two covered him, the sepoy attacked the nearest strong point and, in spite of being wounded, put it out of action. In attacking a second strong-point he was again severely wounded but managed to crawl closer, throw a grenade and charge the post; two of the enemy were wounded, the remaining two surrendered. The rest of the company were than able to cross the river and establish a bridgehead

mokarex

in my opinion the best plastic firm ever

legion through the ages by upnaway

dieppe

The Dieppe Raid, also known as The Battle of Dieppe, Operation Rutter or later on Operation Jubilee, during the Second World War, was an Allied attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe on the northern coast of France on 19 August 1942. The assault began at 5:00 AM and by 10:50 AM the Allied commanders had been forced to call a retreat. Over 6,000 infantrymen, predominantly Canadian, were supported by large Royal Navy and Royal Air Force contingents. The objective was to seize and hold a major port for a short period, both to prove it was possible and to gather intelligence from prisoners and captured materials while assessing the German responses. The Allies also wanted to destroy coastal defences, port structures and all strategic buildings.
No major objectives of the raid were accomplished. A total of 3,623 of the 6,086 men (almost 60%) who made it ashore were either killed, wounded, or captured. The air force failed to lure the Luftwaffe into open battle, losing 96 aircraft (at least 32 to Flak or accidents) compared to 48 lost by the Luftwaffe, while the Royal Navy lost 33 landing craft and one destroyer. The events at Dieppe later influenced preparations for the North African (Operation Torch) and Normandy Landings (Operation Overlord).

I bought this piece when I was about 8 for sixpence, its a nice Crescent model.

Mouinties

this is an example of the Italian plastic industries idea of the mounties

BMC Volunteer regiment

mounties

Danish plastic Grenadiers from Mertens Germany

yrees

my dad bought me one of these and they were amazing, a really great series in plastic

sharpsburg

these were my first ever conversions, i used a core figure of the great bmc series then cut the thing up to all i had left was the bayonet and a bit of the head. i used pattex filler.Below is Generale Mead's idea of the battle

First World war artillery at Verdun

Its hard to tjhink that those who did Historex did these or isn't that true

The Battle of Verdun  was one of the major battles during the First World War on the Western Front. It was fought between the German and French armies, from 21 February to 14 December 1916, on hilly terrain north of the city of Verdun-sur-Meuse, in north-eastern France. As pointed out in 1996 by French historian Alain Denizot Verdun in his doctoral thesis "Verdun, 1914-1918", the Battle of Verdun ended as a French tactical victory. However, it can also be considered a costly strategic stalemate. The German High Command failed to achieve its two objectives: 1) to capture the city of Verdun and 2) to inflict a much higher casualty count on its French adversary. jon smith modelbrau
By the end of the battle the French Second Army had rolled back the German forces around Verdun, but not quite to their initial lines of February 1916.

Verdun resulted in 307,700 battlefield deaths (143,000 163,000 French and German combatants) plus at least half a million wounded, an average of 30,000 deaths for each of the ten months of the battle. It was the longest and one of the most devastating battles in the First World War and the history of warfare. Verdun was primarily an artillery battle: a total of about 40 million artillery shells were exchanged, leaving behind millions of overlapping shell craters that are still partly visible. In both France and Germany, Verdun has come to represent the horrors of war, like the Battle of the Somme in the British consciousness. The renowned British military historian Major General Julian Thompson has referred to Verdun as "France's Stalingrad".

The Battle of Verdun format popularized General Robert Nivelle 's: "They shall not pass", a simplification of the actual French text: "Vous ne laisserez pas les passer, mes camarades" ("you shall not let them pass, my comrades"), on record in Nivelle's Order of the day of 23 June 1916. (in: Alain Denizot, 1996, "Verdun 1914-1918", N.E.L., Paris, ISBN 2-7233-0514-7).
shell shock

At the beginning of the battle, on 16 April 1916, General Philippe Pétain had also issued a chefs stirring the same Order of the day, but it was optimistic: Courage! On les aura ("Courage! We will get them "). General Nivelle's admonition, on the other hand, betrayed concern for the difficulties he was facing at the time. Nivelle's appointment to the command of the French Second Army at Verdun, in May 1916, had been followed by short lived yet significant manifestations of indiscipline in five of his infantry regiments (: Guy Pedroncini, 1989, pp. 150-153). This unprecedented disquiet would eventually reappear, but in greatly amplified and widespread form, with the French army mutinies that followed the unsuccessful Nivelle offensive of April 1917

REPLICANTS BOARDING PARTY

THIS IS A REPLICANTS ROYAL NAVY BOARDING PARTY SOLDIER, I PAINTED THIS IN BASIC POLYMER PAINT I FOUND IN A LOCAL ART SHOP, THE PHOTO WAS SHOT WITH A CYBERSHOT SONY. ANYONE IS WELCOME TO USE ANY OF MY PHOTOS BY THE WAY, I KNOW THAT THERE ARE SOME PUSSIES OUT THERE WHO SCREAM BLUE MURDER IF YTOU USE ONE OF THEIR PHOTOS BUT I'M NOT ONE OF THEM.

Boer war

can you name them all?