No tears, all fun as Newent Celebrated!

What an amazing end to our reenactment season – Newent Celebrates! may have ended up a bit wet but the only tears were those of our competition-winning onion eaters!

Newent is a historic town in the heart of Gloucestershire and Newent Celebrates! is the new festival celebrating both the past and present of this vibrant community. We were over the moon to be invited to occupy the town and bring its English Civil War history to life. Check out just a tiny glimpse of what we got up to:

@english.civil.war

WHAT A WEEKEND! @Newent Celebrates! was everything we hoped for and more – such warm and generous support from the community as we occupied the town and brought history to life with a march through the streets, dramatic cameos, an encampment brimming with fascinating stories. and finally an assault on the barricades in the driving rain! From the pubs to the battlefield, we were welcomed with open arms! A hearty “huzzah!” to the organisers, and thanks to our friends in Newcastle’s Foote, The Royalist Baggage Trayne, Sir George Lisle’s Regiment, Lord Thomas Grey’s Regiment of Foote, Sir Thomas Glemham’s Regiment of Foote, Colonel John Hutchinson’s Regiment of Foote, the Scot’s Brigade and others for their full-throated and much-appreciated support, as well as all the townsfolk who threw themselves into donning costumes and taking part! We’ll post more about the crowning glory of our 2025 season soon, but in the meantime enjoy these little insights into what we got up to! All activities shown are undertaken safely by trained historical reenactors under close and careful supervision. #Reenactor #HistoricalReenactment #History #HistoryTok #Reenactment @The Sealed Knot

♬ original sound – Earl of Manchester’s Regiment

Sealed Knot events often take place far outside urban areas, so it was a real treat to be within the town, camping on the field next to Newent Community School. The annual Newent Onion Fayre could trace its roots right back to the 13th Century and used to attracts tens of thousands of local people. Started up again in 1996, the fayre was cancelled after the Covid pandemic but has now been revived as Newent Celebrates! and it was wondeful to be a part of it. We had the honour of marching into the town as our cannon, the newly restored Lady Ann, fired next to St Mary’s Church, within whose tower a cannon was stationed during the first Civil War in 1644.

One of the fayre’s traditions is an onion speed-eating contest and when we found out Newent Celebrates wanted to revive this we thought it was the ideal opportunity to settle the ‘Royalist vs Parliamentarian’ question once and for all! So our crack team of alium-munchers joined friends in the Royalist Baggage Trayne and Charles Gerard’s Regiment of Foote in front of a live audience to see who could finish their onion first. Check out who won on Tiktok…

@english.civil.war

Battle is joined! Who will win in the @Newent Celebrates! onion eating competition – Royalist or Parliamentarian?? #Newent #Gloucester #Gloucestershire #Reenactment #Onions

♬ original sound – Earl of Manchester’s Regiment

Occupying a town like this was a real thrill and a huge thank you goes out to the people of Newent, who welcomed us with open arms and told us how much they enjoyed having us there as part of the festivities, whether it was the onion-eating and tug-of-war competitions, seeing off the Royalist garrison that had been stealing food – specifically bags of onions – from the local populace, and drinking in the local hostelries. In dramatic moments our troops poured out of a ginnel into the street for a sword fight one moment, and interrogated a malignant deserter and poacher the next! We also got to enjoy sitting around the campfire under the stars on Friday and Saturday nights, which is always a highlight of any event:

@english.civil.war

How about a game of chance 🎲 Whether you were a worker at home or a soldier on campaign, everyone at points needed something to do to help pass the time. Fortunately, in moments of idleness they could turn to games and gambling. One of these games required an unusually looking dice called a Long Laurence. The Long Laurence was a long rectangular stick with four sides. Each side would have one of four different carvings engraved into it. One side was marked with crosses, another with two strokes, the third with a single stroke, and the fourth is either marked with a zigzag line or left blank. The usage of this dice is best described by Francis Willughby in his unpublished Book of Games. In this book he details a game of Put and Take that could be played using the Long Laurence. Players would take turns rolling the die. If the zigzag/blank side is rolled then nothing happens. If one stroke is rolled then the player takes a coin from the pot. If two strokes are rolled then they place two coins into the pot. And if the crosses are rolled (known as a ‘Scoope All’) then the player takes all of the coins from the pot. Although soldiers could use these games to pass the time, it also came with a great risk should battle be suddenly thrown onto them. In May 1643, the Royalist soldiers garrisoning Wakefield were allowed to partake in an evening of games and drinking. But, they had drunk so heavily and played so much that the soldiers were ill prepared for the Parliamentarian attack that came the following day, and they were decisively defeated. 📸: Michael Molcher #history #reenactment #gaming #17thcentury #newent

♬ Little Things – Adrián Berenguer

While we love big battles, these smaller events allow us to bring everyday 17th Century life alive as our members cooked, crafted, and even gambled on the Sunday, answering the public’s questions and explaining some of the history about the period.

@newent.celebrates

Rain isn’t gonna hold us down 🧅

♬ original sound – sonsalyrics

And then it was time for battle, with a barricade constructed on the field to protect our encampmant – but was it really enough to protect everyone from the Royalist threat? With a Royalist cannon positioned up on a hill overlooking the camp, and with the rain hammering down, more than 400 local people watched as the two sides did battle!

The action flowed back and forth, the Parliamentarians repulsing both frontal and sneak attacks – their women not only loading muskets for the soldiers to fire but even taking up arms themselves when their menfolk were killed, their bodies added to the barricade. However, after offering to surrender should their sword champion be defeated in single combat with a Royalist opponent, the Parliamentarian commander reneged on his promise! This meant that the Royalists offered “no quarter” – they would not take prisoners if they won! The Parliamentarians were eventually overrun and defeated to the sound of rapturous applause from the audience, who braved the elements to watch the spectacle.

Newent Celebrates was everything we hoped for and more – we want to give a massive thank you to all the people of Newent and the organisers of Newent Celebrates!. Hopefully we can return in the future! Thanks also go to those members of other regiments who themselves into the weekend and played such an important part in bringing it alive: The Royalist Baggage Trayne, The Marquess of Newcastle’s Regiment of Foote, Earl Rivers’ Regiment of Foote, Sir George Lisle’s Regiment, Lord Thomas Grey’s Regiment of Foote, Charles Gerard’s Regiment of Foote, Sir Thomas Glemham’s Regiment of Foote, Colonel John Hutchinson’s Regiment of Foote, and the Scot’s Brigade.

What an incredible weekend – and what a way to round off our 2025 reenactment season!