Imagine that you have crossed one thousand years of History, and that instead of beginning the third millennium you are just leaving the first…

You walk along a woodland path, past a swineherd's simple hut where pigs grunt contentedly as they rummage for roots and acorns. As you lose sight of this, you emerge into a clearing before twin white towers that guard a great hall. To your left is a large pond, where a man fishes and ducks squabble among the reeds. You cross the moat and enter within the walls, which are manned by spear-bearing guards keeping a relaxed but vigilant lookout for a nameless threat. To one side, laughing children are being taught to use a bow, while all around you adults are engaged in their everyday chores. You enter the longhall, and see colourful tapestries depicting scenes of hunting or war as well as the more gentle religious life. On the tables a feast is spread out. Brightly-painted shields are arranged by the walls, where coats of mail hang. Gleaming helmets rest on the mead benches, while their sword-wearing owners attend their Lord at the high table. This is a place that is full of life, but is always on the lookout for death. This is the land that the Vikings coveted and that the Normans conquered. This is the time when an Englishman's castle was his home. This is Wychurst, the village in the woods.

The aim of the project ties in with Regia Anglorum’s stated aim as a society; to recreate as authentically as practicable, the lives and times of the people who lived, worked and fought in these islands around a thousand years ago. The Wychurst project is a vehicle through which we can better achieve that aim.

In general, Regia Anglorum’s displays are, by necessity, performed in visitor attraction sites around Britain. These may be castles, stately homes, country parks, or simply on ground operated by the local authority. On all of these sites Regia is, to an extent, out of context, in as much there will be little or nothing surrounding the site that is particularly early mediaeval, and almost certainly not from our period of interest. Further, there will modern anachronisms, such as modern buildings, vehicles, streetlighting, portaloos and, hopefully, the public themselves. The battle display will always occur in a penned-up arena, on a patch of perfectly mowed lawn.

Naturally, we accept all of these limitations of our craft with good grace, and often enjoy the challenge of trying to give the spectator an impression of the period despite all of the modern distractions. Having said that, some of us have long dreamed of a special place where we can recreate our period in as authentic an environment as we can achieve. Hence the desire to build the Wychurst Project.

While it is our aim to open the site to the public at certain times on event days, we will also be re-enacting at non-public, or private times such as enjoying one another’s company in a banquet at the hall, or at private military training sessions, where we can pursue our craft without the distraction of having to provide explanations and entertainment for a naturally curious public.

One thing is for certain, the public events will not only be among the best we have ever done, but they will also be among the best historical recreations that can be seen anywhere in the world.

One aim of the public event is to produce a ‘show’, which involves all aspects of the period in a single display, rather than the present situation where we usually have a separate ‘civilian’ living history exhibit, and a separate military display. Also, at Wychurst events, it will be the public who are penned up for their safety as the scene unfolds around them.

The Wychurst show will begin with ten minutes of aspects of life being recreated by all personnel. This will include not only the crafts that can be seen at present on our displays, but also tasks of simple drudgery that are not usually represented at re-enactment events, such as baling hay, piling manure, or digging a hole with wooden implements. Through this scene will also move other members of community, such as the clergy, performing their own tasks, and the nobility, taking their ease or discussing weighty matters. After some time of observing general ‘life’ in early-mediaeval England, the scene will change as the alarm is raised that attackers are nearby. Peasant fighters will run to the armoury to collect spears and shields, cajoled by the professional soldiers, as the noble warriors emerge from the Longhall, struggling into their expensive wargear. The great gates will slam shut as the last of the villagers run in, clutching their children and what meagre possessions they have had time to grab. Archers will take their places on the ramparts and shoot at the oncoming attackers, as the spearmen line the walls, and the Lord and his hearth troop of noble warriors are prepared by the priest’s blessing to face the coming battle. They know that the determined Vikings will inevitably breach the gates…

The rest I‘ll leave to your imagination, but I’m sure you get the idea.

At private times we will have the opportunity for craft experimentation, more construction work (this site will probably never be finished) and also for instruction of our members in all aspects of life and culture in the period. This will affect, inform and improve our public recreations, even when we are not at Wychurst.

From the above it should be clear that the building of Wychurst is not the end in itself, as has been the case at other reconstruction sites, but only a beginning for us. While we are making the construction as authentic as we can, compromises are made at this stage due to the need to balance the sheer scale of the undertaking against our limited time, manpower and funds. Phase one of the project must be completed and ready for recreations within the next couple of years in order to be viable.

Phase two is the ongoing development of the site. It is our intention that during the process of phase two, more fully authentic work will be carried out on smaller scale buildings, and more experimental archaeology will take place.

More and more, Living History is being recognised as a valid means of researching the past, and Regia Anglorum is already the foremost society in reconstructing our chosen period - but we always aim to be better, to know more, and to interpret our information to the public in new and exciting ways. Wychurst is one of the ways in which we will achieve that.