Latest developments
Another award for the Naseby Battlefield Project
NBP chairman Richard Putt collected the award in the ‘Work with Children and Young People’ class of the 2010 Northamptonshire Heritage Awards at a celebratory dinner at Kelmarsh Hall on 22 July.
The winning project was the creation of a series of audio downloads to allow battlefield visitors to become ‘ear-witnesses’ to the events of Saturday 14 June 1645, listening in to Fairfax and Cromwell discussing where to deploy the New Model Army, for example.
The ten tracks, entitled The Sound of Battle: Naseby 14 June 1645, are each individually crafted to be relevant to a specific battlefield location, and are now available on the Project’s website, www.naseby.com.
The tracks were scripted, cast and performed by students of Abbeyfield Performing Arts Specialist School, working with the professional sound engineers of The Lodge Recording Studios in Northampton and the historians of the Naseby Battlefield Project. The narrative sections were spoken by the famed actor, Robert Hardy who gave his services as a donation to the enterprise and worked with the students as a colleague to produce a product of originality and quality. The work as a whole was managed by educational consultant Sara Mair for The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council’s Renaissance East Midlands.
The Naseby Battlefield Project’s previous accolade was won in 2008 when it was declared a regional winner in the Nationwide Community and Heritage Awards.
Other News
Royal Horse Artillery at Naseby
On 23 July 2009 officers of the Royal Horse Artillery along with officers from other regiments rode across the Naseby battlefield in a Staff Ride led by General Cubitt. This was a serious exercise giving members of the staff the opportunity to consider an historic battle and hone their command skills. They held their regimental lunch close to the Royal Observer Corps lookout on Wadborough Hill.
Naseby has become a favoured venue for Forces staff rides and it was exciting to see cavalry in action once more on the battlefield of Naseby.
Mike Westaway, 1927-2009
We regret to announce that in November Michael Westaway died after a long battle with cancer.
Michael Westaway, later joined by Peter Burton, laid the foundation of the archaeological knowledge of the Battle of Naseby as a result of more than twenty years' patient metal detecting work. Each find location was carefully recorded long before battlefield investigators began to make rules; Mike understood full well that the pattern of finds would tell its own story. The work provided Glenn Foard with the from-the-ground evidence to put forward the locally-developed interpretation of the action of 14 June 1645 in the book Pryor Publications brought out in 1995, making Naseby the first British battlefield to be evaluated on the basis of archaeological findings.
Michael was a member of the Battlefields Trust and a founder trustee of the Naseby Battlefield Project. But to many of us he was far more than that. He was a wise, generous and humorous friend we will miss very much indeed. We are planning to dedicate a new viewpoint site to his memory and hope to open it during 2010.
Sealed Knot Training at Mill Hill
Over the weekend of the 17th and 18th of April the Royalist Army of the Sealed Knot camped at Mill Hill and carried out training exercises including pike and musket displays. Two weeks later it was the turn of the Sealed Knot’s Army of Parliament.
The Mill Hill site, in which the Sealed Knot has a financial investment, is now their regular annual spring training ground. Skirmishes are staged on Sunday afternoons for visiting Naseby Project V.I.P’s. For those wishing to see Civil War action we recommend a day at the English Heritage Festival of History. See our Events Diary for details.
Living History Centre Planning Application submitted
Northamptonshire County Council has generously provided a grant of £30,000 which enabled the NBP to commission Attract Marketing of Kenilworth to put together a planning application for the Proposed Living History Centre at Naseby.
The location of the Centre has changed from that envisaged earlier. It has now been proposed to site the building in the top NW corner of the lower of the two fields at Mill Hill (see the site plan). The position is far enough away from the A14 to reduce traffic noise, it also enables the use of the lower ground, close to the A14, as a reenactment area. An archaeological investigation of the new location was carried out and revealed nothing of significance.
An outline planning application was presented to Daventry D. C. in April of this year. A number of questions have been raised and our consultants are currently answering these.
Lord Naseby raises financial support
Lord Naseby, formerly Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons and a Patron of the NBP since its formation, has taken on an active fundraising role in the Project. Lord Naseby has recruited a significant number of benefactors to provide ongoing administrative funding for the Project. Annual donations, with Gift Aid, have been pledged for a period of at least three years to cover ongoing costs of staff, maintenance, publicity and the like. This is a vital contribution which will ensure that the NBP can continue its campaign to construct a permanent Visitor Centre at Naseby and further benefactors are being invited to join us. The Trustees would like to thank Lord Naseby for this generous support and look forward to his active involvement in the next phase of work at Naseby.
On May 23rd the Benefactors visited Naseby for the day where they were given a morning talk on the battle and the work of the NBP by John Kliene. After lunch John led a tour of the main interpretation sites including the two viewpoints. We expect that this will become a regular event to keep our benefactors fully informed on progress at Naseby.
