Not-So Merry England: progress UD 20/11/24

[Silent Invader]

Thanks all, your comments are appreciated   

[NurgleHH]

I like your work, Steve. Very nice. Hope to see them live in october.

[Codsticker]

Wonderful set of rural buildings, fields and such. So many game possibilities there. I really like how you placed a few buildings on a large base; that really helps it looking like a village as opposed to a collection of buildings on a table.

[FierceKitty]

Maize???

[Silent Invader]

Thanks folks, much appreciated.

Regarding multiple buildings on a base, I can’t claim any originality, as that’s an approach that’s been very successfully used by many others (OSHIROmodelterrain is a regular example). Interestingly, the thatched cottages started as straight buildings, then I added them to garden bases, and now they’re becoming parts of village tiles.....  maybe one day they’ll have yet another incarnation 

Maize???

Posts like this from a stranger - an unknown quantity - can seem so unnecessarily combative. A meaningful sentence with a single question mark can amount to a genuine enquiry. A single word with multiple question marks can be the foregoing, or can be mockery, irritation or - the worst in my opinion - derision (with the subtext of ‘I know better [snort]’). Nonetheless, I shall throw caution aside and presume the post to be a genuine enquiry.

So yes, a small enclosure of some of that new-fangled corn (this being North Essex in mid 17thc).

[levied troop]

That looks magnificent, it gives a real sense of place. Now needs some dragoons hiding behind the hedges!

[Dr DeAth]

Most Excellent!  Particularly like the way it all 'gels' together seamlessly.

[Malamute]

Superb photos, it looks brilliant, the low angle shots in particular show off the terrain to its best effect. Stunning stuff

When you move onto Samurai can I have first dibs before Lord Snapcase

[Mindenbrush]

An excellent build and lots of interesting ideas to be copied  😉

I too wondered about the maize/corn but looked it up - brought to Europe by Columbus 👍

[EndTransmission]

That's a glorious looking table! Very inspirational

[Silent Invader]

Thanks all 

I too wondered about the maize/corn but looked it up - brought to Europe by Columbus 👍

I must admit that I’ve not read widely on the matter but in my research I did learn of Spanish frescos, dating from 1515/17, that include depictions of corn growing in Spain. I’ve also found references to Turkish* Corn being grown in gardens in England before 1612**.

*Turkish believed to mean foreign not from Turkey
**Gerards Herball published 1636 though the author died in 1612

So corn seems to have been grown (experimentally, at least) from the 16thC. Essex is synonymous with cereal crops, as the local climate is relatively dry, so Essex seems a likely place to have experimented. North Essex / South Suffolk were also wealthy from wool***, and though the boom times of the 15thC and 16thC had passed, the survival of so many fine period houses suggests that for some their wealth persevered.

***If a local combination of dry flat fields of cereals and luscious rolling pastures of grass seem to be at odds, it’s worth bearing in mind that a big proportion of the sheep were grazed on the coastal marshes, of which Essex had a lot (the landscape is also relatively flat in the south of the county, becoming a bit more rolling further north)

So, while I recognise that a small enclosure of corn wouldn’t work for a Medieval game, by 1640-1690 (the broad timeframe I’ve aimed for) it seems to be entirely reasonable (or alternatively, not entirely unreasonable) for such a crop to have been tested in wealthy Essex.

Incidentally, the height of the corn places the terrain piece as just before harvesting, which in Essex could I think be early September. In any event, the rest of the landscape is intended to represent September.

Any controversy could be avoided by me not using the piece but I have made a point of including a number of elements indicative of my early childhood in North Essex: the cornfields, the sheep pastures, the hedge-lined lanes (still dirt tracks even then) and white-washed timber-framed houses (which in Medieval times might well have all been pinkish, due to coloration from the clay subsoil). 

[Elk101]

I understood that 1600s were a major period for agricultural experimentation in Britain, partly due to an agricultural depression caused by price drops. Tobacco fields, woad, madder, were all grown in a number of areas by landowners trying to diversify. Vegetables, fruit and herb gardens were very popular amongst smallholders. I don't see why a small field of maize should be such an issue under such circumstances?

[Silent Invader]

I understood that 1600s were a major period for agricultural experimentation in Britain, partly due to an agricultural depression caused by price drops. Tobacco fields, woad, madder, were all grown in a number of areas by landowners trying to diversify. Vegetables, fruit and herb gardens were very popular amongst smallholders. I don't see why a small field of maize should be such an issue under such circumstances?

Excellent 

Thanks Steve 

[has.been]

A friend of mine, who does lots of research on 17th century, especially
the weird & wonderful, told me once that Rape seed (that vivid yellow
stuff in lots of UK fields) was grown in Tudor England.

[Ragnar]

That board is looking spectular