Horse and Musket Gaming: Intermission

I was hoping to get some playtesting in this week. Rouva Nundanket and the 13-year olds have gone to see her mother for the week. Unfortunately Real Life, in the form of that four-letter word beginning with W gets in the way. By the time I'm home and made dinner and eaten I don't have the motivation to get the toys out. Saturday may be different though so watch this space. Especially as the weather forecast is good and Other People will be going where I want to go and probably get in my way, so I might just stay in

In the meantime I'll carry out my threat to inflict some photos of Pendennis Castle on you. Apologies they're not the best quality, I took them with my phone, and I'm well, cra* at taking photos. All are external shots as the family were not keen on having a proper look, and I indulged my naive expectation that I could be spend quality time with the family.

For anyone not aware of this example of early artillery fortification, it was built as one of a string of coastal forts under Henry VIII's reign in the 1540s. It was built with thick walls and plenty of space to mount large guns, on a circular plan. Earlier medieval castles usually didn't have the space, or strong enough platforms to mount heavy guns. So Henry's forts were the latest thing in modern military architecture, right? Right?

Errr, no. Almost as soon as they'd been built they were out of fashion. All the smart princes in Italy were building fortifications with angular bastions which had no dead ground. Pendennis Castle was in pretty continuous occupation and use by the English, then later British, military right up to the 20th century, with many modifications and additions over the centuries. What guaranteed this was the castle's strategic location, which with its non-identical twin St Mawes Castle, controlled the narrow entrance to Carrick Roads one of the largest natural harbours in the world.

Historically, Falmouth was the first major landfall in England for Atlantic crossings and became a sort of news hub. I think it's where news of Trafalgar first arrived and news got to London before the ship bearing Nelson's body reached the capital. Carrick Roads is fed by several rivers, in beautiful wooded valleys, in a beautiful part of the country. The rivers are tidal quite a long way inland and are an object lesson in the limitations of landward transportation. Well worth exploring.

Original 16th C tower with gun ports (now glazed in)

Gun embrassures on the eastern curtain wall

Why it's here. View across to St Mawes Castle about 1 mile away. Sorry for the appalling quality, but I posted it for 'context'

Gate on the western side, built in 1700

Looking north from the edge of the western ditch

View looking south along the ditch to the original castle tower

The grassy bank on the left is actually part of the later additions to the castle, when it was surrounded by a bastioned enceinte or 'Vauban fort' to give it its more common name. Side note: you know you're in a narrow field of interest when even the 'common name' for something is unknown by most people.

Bastion flank on the north east corner of the site.

When we saw this my beautiful bride instantly said 'Svartholm!' Needless to say I was impressed, and this is one of the many reasons I love her. Svartholm is actually an island with a 'Vauban* Fort' off the southern coast of Finland, which kind of oddly is still usually known by its Swedish name (unlike 'Suomenlinna' its near contemporary off Helsinki). In an aside to the aside, the RN landed on Svartholm in the Crimean War and knocked the fort about a bit on their way to blockade St Petersburg.

* Pedants, like wot I was, would point out 'actually it's an Ehrensvärd Fort'.

WWII guns, south east corner of the site

Ack Ack gun position? Tip of the headland

Outwork on lower slopes of the headland. Not sure whether this is contempory to the main tower

Apex of a bastion. For some reason one of my favourite views of the fort.

This looks like the base of a modern gun position on the eastern side of the headland (i.e. facing the entrance to Carrick Roads)

Last but not least I took a couple of snaps of this funky lass at the Lost Gardens of Heligan. This is several miles 'up county' from Falmouth as my former outlaws would say.

Another of the reasons I love her (Mrs N, not the funky lass), she picked me up a copy of this for half the price on Am***n. The book I've read twice now in translation, and I'd highly recommend it. You could characterise it as Finland's All Quiet, but it's more than that.

and this for €3 (which I think I've seen before - very strong on atmosphere, and you feel like you've been in a forest bunker by the time it finishes).