If you are someone who is looking at an event then you might like to know that:

• We are professional in our approach and can provide risk assessments, full public liability insurance to £5million and publicity material.
• We are available for any public or private event, across this country or others. Our Gladiators make a particularly good display for indoor corporate events.
• We always provide the living history camp and a selection arena presentations.
• We have a number of different Arena presentations, we don't just perform the same thing twice a day.
• We are capable of providing talks on different subjects and work well in Museums
• We typically would not require additional accommodation at an event (i.e. a hall or marquee) so there are no hidden extra costs.

Also bear in mind, that we represent both the Roman _and_ British cultures from a military and civilian standpoint. This can be particularly useful in the light of the educational requirements of keystage 2:invaders and settlers. You won't have to book both a Roman and an Iron Age group.

We are often booked over a year in advance, so contact us early

If you are a prospective member and haven't read our introduction to re-enactment and are new to it all then it might be worth doing that here.

Living History
Living history (or LHE - Living History Exhibit) is the re-enactment term coined to cover a presentation of some aspects of the life of the period. It's the opposite to "show and tell", where re-enactors simply lay out a stall of objects and talk about them. A LHE also infers a certain level of authentic camping .

Within the Vicus our aim is to try and produce a small part of an early Vicus settlement with temporary structures that are used to both house the occupants and to sell, or provide, some sort of service to the fort occupants. We're going for that ethnic 'shanty" town look with as much of our encampment under awnings as possible.











The group will always come with it's compliment of tents, workshelters and awnings.



 

The Military Camp (at Jersey 2008)

Things to see in the Vicus

We have also been doing some bronze casting. Unfortunately, we do need some modern protective equipment so we have to wear safety goggles, gloves and use modern crucibles.

However, it's pretty straightforward and we're already producing small items (this toggle still has the sprue on it !)













Steve and Fiona sometimes come along and produce all manner of roman items. Although they don't have a website, their contact information is on our suppliers list - Highly recommended !!!














The highly talented Penny is our painter and has her own little studio as well as sleeping in the tent at night. Quite a little boudoir really












Chris makes up a basket



 

The soul destroying job of making the small tesserae: Ash in a small mosaic workshop;

Sally Pointer, national celebrity and expert on all aspects of roman make up and hair dressing works her magic upon Penny (who hardly needs it).
We recommend a visit to Sally's website












Lowri makes oatcakes.




 

We now have an extensive cook tent for both display and feeding ourselves.

For 2008, we've increased the size of the tent added awnings and now have a working tavern "Galea Hectoris".


















Sunshine catches up with some much needed kip after a hard day, well, sleeping.


















Amazing textiles and tablet weaving by Dave and Ingrid !


















Other Activities







The society also undertakes the odd project, like helping to erect the new (and far more substantial) palisade around the iron age settlement at the Museum of Welsh Life, using only a minimum of modern tools.
 

The end result speaks for itself and should do a far better job of deterring predators and the other tribes.













Military Endeavours
We are the only group in this country to stage competitive combat between  Britons and Romans with blunted metal weapons (some other groups use wooden weapons or a bit of 'staged' pushing and shoving though). We enhance this further through our range of woodland combat weekends (see Events for details).

Some in the group don't possess an LHE activity are purely there as military folk.

We will not try to kid you that our fighting is "real". We are hardly fighting to the "death" or to maim each other.
At the end of the day we are 21st century people who have jobs and families.
That said, we do operate a competitive combat system which is about as close as you will get.

You can read more about fighting Britons here
You can read more about our Roman Military units here

At an event, we pride ourselves on being able to perform a number of different arena presentations. These include:

• Missile Weapons - demonstrating the effectiveness and range of slings, bows, javelins and pila
• Combat Weapons - actual hand to hand combat between Romans and Britons including "Hollywood hero"
• Get Dressed for Battle - see the differences between Romans and Britons are armed and armoured
• Fashion Show - the clothes worn by British, Roman and Romano British civilians
• Kiddie Drill - see the little dears use child sized weapons and shields.
• Battle Walkthrough - the audience becomes the Britons.
• sharp weapon display - showing the cutting power of sharp hand weapons.
• We can also perform gladiatorial displays.

Dean as "Conan", one of his many "Hollywood Hero" guises.

Here is Alex,  our female legionary.

While women would not have been present within a Legion, we are 21st century people portraying Romans and things are little less misogynistic nowadays.

To be fair, most legionarys in Roman re-enactment groups are too old, too fat or too short anyway ...
 

Stewart and Martin square up.
In real life, the chances of this sort of "single combat" happening are very rare. No Roman leader in his right mind would consider it as a battlefield option.

It is important to note that your average roman soldier has probably spent more time practising for both strength (against the posts) and skill (against his comrades) and has far more battlefield experience than his British counterpart.
This would be in addition to the more effective protective equipment he is using.

My money is still on Stewart though 8-))










Penny practising archery against some "real" targets..















British Warrior versus Roman Auxillia.

More information on British Warriors











We also perform "Kiddie Drill" with our own sets of smaller shields and spears, so that the younger generation can get a feel for what it might have been like. Here Madoc gets run down by a "wedge"














Gladiators
For 2006, the group has re- equipped some of it's members as first century gladiators.
We are able to field a number of "pairs" that represent all of the classic classes available. We also have a children's gladiator school, with weapons and shields, together with practice posts and wooden swords.

Click here for more information and pictures on our Gladiators.















A social life



One of the main reasons many of us re-enact is to spend time with like minded individuals; people that share our enthusiasms for history, crafts and the combat.














Each event usually involves a campfire with socialising.















For membership information and event information, please contact Ash