Costume Days at Stately Homes

[echokilo]

Some years ago I visited Kentwell Hall in Suffolk when they had a tudor costumer day - all the guides plus lots of extras were in costume and acted out a banquet, the farming of the day, childrens games etc .... for the most part as if no visitors were there ..... can anyone tell me about other stately home type locations who may have period costume days like this .... preferably within easy reach of the Midlands (within an hour or 2)

[VHG]

English Heritage do a lot of events like this.

For this Midlands it is mainly at Kenilwroth Castle. I have had a look at their web site and it seems they have not added this years events yet.

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show /nav.884

Kenilworth have had days covering Roman, War of the Roses, Medieval, Jousting etc

Suggest you go back to English Heritage site and check when they update their site.

If you are an English Heritage member you can go into ALL EH propeties as many times as you like for free.

[VHG]

If you like seeing people in period costume then English Heritage do an event that you would love.

It is called Festival of History and this year it is on 25th and 26th July.

They bring together all the historical recreation groups for the weekend and there can be about 6,000 people all in period costume.

It covers people from "cave men" through Roman, English civil war, US civil war, Napolean, WW1 and WW2 and everything in between.

They divide the huge fields into "camps" where people live as they did in that period of history. You can go round the camps and see how people lived, slept, cooked.

There are lectures, fashion shows, book readings, and all sorts of things from history.

They also do mock battles from different periods from history, often featuring up to 500 people, and in the past WW1 and WW2 battles have featured tanks, spitfires, lancaster bombers etc.

There is so much to see you need both days and you still wont see it all.

Here is the English Heritage site that mentions it, just play the video to get a small idea of what it is like

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show /nav.20303

[VHG]

Here are some pictures of last years Festival of History

http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/Kelmarsh2 008/index.htm

[VHG]

Whle hunting round the web found this list of events covering historic recreation events

http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/LivingHis tory.htm

[VHG]

I would also check National Trust sites because they do things like that at their sites.

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/

[echokilo]

WOW!!! Fabulous answers .... thanks very much everyone x

[VHG]

>thanks very much everyone x

EVERYONE !

It was all one person....me

[echokilo]

SO Sorry VHG ... I see now it was all you - I thought I had seen a reply from someone else amongst yours .... so thank YOU very much ...... great answers .... I am looking again through all the websites you suggested right now :-)