Res Historicae

History and storytelling workshops and events, plus historic inspired and traditional crafts.

30/04/2026

At the weekend I had the pleasure of delivering my most ambitious project yet to Frodi the Moneyer

Frodi had contacted me asking for a copy of the Trossingen Chair, a 6th Century find from a remarkable Alemanni grave containing wonderfully preserved wooden items thanks to waterlogged soil. Other than making a version that can be flat packed and having a solid seat, I have tried to stay true to the original. More on that below.

The process began with getting information on the timbers involved and trying to find dimensions. There is one article in German I could find, which gave the total height and seat height. From there it was using a ruler to work out the size of the components against those known measurements and drawing up a plan.

In total there are 61 separate pieces in this version. All the turned components and the front seat support are maple, as on the original. Several have incised decoration. The legs are easily the longest and largest I've turned. All the joinery was cut before turning to ensure everything was square when fitting together.

The horizontal bars around the seat are ash, with the upper layer having a curved maple facing. The originals are pinned with hazel dowels, which sadly I couldn't source, but I used oak instead for a lovely contrast. The original find may have had an organic seat, pinned in place by being held between these laminate parts. For Frodi's chair the seat pieces are oak, tenoned to be supported in mortises at the front and back.

For a final detail based on the original, there are some very faint runes on the footboard at the front. I added Frodi's name and my mark for a personal touch inspired by the find.

It was a tremendously fun project and came out exactly as I wanted it, solid and yet easy enough to pack down. Hopefully Frodi will have many happy events using it!

02/03/2026

Work has begun on my most challenging commission to date, courtesy of Frodi the Moneyer

I'm just going to start off posting pieces of it as it comes together, and we'll see if anyone can guess what it is.

It's going to be a fun test of my woodturning ability, but I'm pleased to say the skew chisel is becoming easier and easier to use.

29/01/2026

This rather delightful item is a clog almanac. It's a wonderfully simple kind of folk calendar used to keep track of important saints' days and feasts during the year. They saw most of their use from the 15th-18th centuries.

Each notch is used to represent a day, and the symbols represent the different feasts or important events. For example in the first image, the large symbol towards the left is the feast of Luke the Evangelist. The axe shows Martinmas, when livestock would be slaughtered, and the cross shape is St. Andrew's Day, with the familiar cross for his martyrdom. This particular example is in the Faith Museum in Bishop Auckland.

Usually the deeper notches would represent Sundays, so these calendars were only useful for one year, and you'd need to make a new one for each. But this Christmas past I made one for my parents, showing family birthdays with a symbol for each person, as well as marking some key dates in the year for reference.

They're a fun thing to make and can be used to hold reminders of any dates important to you. If you'd like one for yourself please let me know!

19/01/2026

I've been far too quiet on here over the festive period, but that's because I've been in the midst of hecticly making things. We've just had our first reenactment event of the year and these items were all delivered to their new owners.

We have two tables, one beech, and one oak. The second is based on an example from Hytta in Sweden, though was scaled up a bit.

Also there are some pieces for a Carolingian impression. A wax tablet with sinew cord based on a find from Dorestad, with a stylus to match. A spoon with ring and dot decoration found in St Denis at the residence of Charles the Bald, and a tiny little walnut box from Roswinkel in the Netherlands. All fun to make and always great to see the happy faces of new owners!

13/12/2025

I'd been looking to upgrade my carving station from just a stump, so spent a couple of hours on a fun project with lots of fun hand tool use.

Starting with my old sycamore stump, I used this beast of a crosscut saw to make some relief cuts as it didn't want to split the whole section off easily. This saw was a £10 find at a wood festival, and works a treat.

Next was the froe, to establish the main working line, followed by an axe to remove the majority of the waste, with an adze to roughly level the top after.

The legs were split from some of the last of the ash gave me a little while ago. They're only rough shaped to stay solid, with the ends rounded with a draw knife on the shave horse.

The final stage was drilling some holes through the body so I can stick pegs in to use with wedges for work holding. I'd love to say I did it all with the spoon auger, but a modern power drill did the bulk of the work with the spoon auger reaching deeper than the modern bits to clear through and stop any water filling the holes.

And of course I had to test it, rough a couple of butter spreaders out of cherry for final carving. These will be Christmas presents for my partner's family. Onto much more carving at a comfortable working height!

27/11/2025

Today I've been working on finishing some previously roughed out pieces. A chestnut ladle and an ash cooking spoon.

I wouldn't normally recommend carving a spoon out of fairly seasoned ash, but that grain is irresistible, and a well made and sharp tool still cuts just fine.

17/11/2025

While I love making things and sharing fun facts here, these are the best days of work. St John's is a lovely school and year 5 were fantastic. After I tested them with riddles they came back at me with riddles of their own, and their questions were superb. Well done to them and their teachers for being such great students!

All my school workshops are through Portals To The Past

13/11/2025

Another fun and exposing piece from the Faith Museum in Bishop Auckland.

The left hand column here contains wedding vows to be used during a marriage ceremony in late medieval England. The husband is at the top, and the wife below. You may see a length difference in them.

The husband says:
"I, N (name), take ye N, in to my weddid wyfe to have and to holde for this day forward. for better, for wers, for richer, for porer, in sekenesse and in hele, til deth us departe...."

But the wife has an added bit we don't seen anymore before the final vow. After the usual "in sickness and in health" we see this:
"to be boney and buxum in bedde and at borde" - to be bonny and buxom... It unfortunately tells us something about the expectations of women in comparison that men didn't have to make any such promises!

It's always one of the saddest parts about teaching history to school children that I have to explain women's roles at different periods, but I'll always encourage every student I speak to be themselves and to do their best in life!

08/11/2025

Currently on the workbench are a pair of simple serving trenchers in sycamore maple. These are being made entirely with hand tools, though I'll show you the difference of power carving in a different post.

After marking out the shape, first thing is to hollow the bowl. This starts with an adze, a delightful tool to use for rapidly removing material. It's not so precise around the edges, though.

This is followed by a gouge, used like a chisel for better refinement. I established the edges first with a more aggressive, sharply swept gouge before moving to a shallower, flatter one to smooth the lines.

Final shaping on the inside is done with a crook knife. This will smooth the meeting of the walls and the bottom. No sandpaper will be used at all for these, tool lines and marks on show as medieval woodworkers would have.

Keep your eye out for the next part, shaping the outside of the trenchers, and the finished products which will be available!

04/11/2025

This beautiful and fairly simple looking pin was found in the burial of Archbishop Wulfstan, a towering church figure from late Anglo-Saxon England. I was blown away by seeing this having translated some of his works while I was a student.

During his career Wulfstan was Bishop of Worcester, Bishop of London and eventually Archbishop of York. Hi wrote many homilies, as well as being a key part of writing law codes for Æthelræd II and Knut, as well as a driving figure in the attempt to increase the legitimacy of the English church.

His most famous work was the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, the Sermon of the the Wolf to the English. It's a fire and brimstone masterclass of Old English, berating the English for their lack of morality and faithlessness, for which God has sent the vikings as punishment. I remember at university the idea coming up of him being the Ian Paisley of his day...

I think this pin seems perfect for him. Fairly simple and plain, but with enough understated decoration to match a man who probably knew his own importance through a lens of zealous faith. It's currently in the Faith Museum, part of the in Bishop Auckland. I'll be sharing some more wonderful items from there in the upcoming weeks!

Address

Bishop Auckland

Website

https://www.portalstothepast.co.uk/

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