History Visits
Teaching (Crafts and Pastimes)
With myself as host, in full period costume, I will work with you to help you learn a historic technique or skill. Audience participation is greatly encouraged.
You will get to use replica and reproduction period tools and equipment; access to historical references, sources, and images; and you can take your project home - finished or not!
A session lasts approximately 45-60 minutes and costs £45 plus 45 pence per mile travel fee. Contact me here to book.
Choose from the following topics:
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Viking Cord as Decoration (make replica Viking cord, using just your fingers, or a 'twining bone')
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Historic Flax - Anglo-Saxon to Medieval (from how it grows, through how it was processed, to producing flax fiber for spinning) needs a 3m square floor space
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Useful Anglo-Saxon Cordage (make a replica Anglo-Saxon cord that had a particular use)
Two women braiding, fresco in the 'Haus zur Kunkel' Constance, Germany, before 1306 (Rosgartenmuseum Konstanz).
Cords / Cordage
The 10th century Hedeby Harbour 'apron-dress' fragment, showing wear from a belt across the middle and placement of the decorative cord over the dart.
The braid is made in wool of 6 elements colored red and yellow alternately and measures just 2mm wide. The dress was dyed blue, so this would have been a striking contrast. The Vikings did love their 'bling'!
My table set up for 'Viking Cord as Decoration'.
My 'third hand method' of controlling your elements (using your teeth!)
Inset: process of making the 9-strand braid that was found binding a collection of small iron objects in an 8th century burial in Orsett, Essex.
Below: cord made by the lovely ladies of at Fincham Women's Institute, Kings Lynn, August 2026.
'Lucets' or 'Twining Bones' from 10th century Scandinavia.