DISPLAYS AND DEMONSTRATIONS
The majority of our displays are set up alongside our partner Thomas B. Timbrell: historian, professional blacksmith and cutler / knife-maker at Big Beynon's Blacksmithing.
Some displays can be individually run, others require us both to work together within a ''co-display'' (see below).
But booking Pario Gallico and Big Beynon's Blacksmithing together always brings a discount!
(Quotes or questions: contact us)
IRON AGE LIVING HISTORY
Iron Age
(Contact us about medieval and Tudor)
Co-display, but can be run individually.
Presenting Iron Age clothing and jewellery, talking about ancient hygiene, making cordage from nettles or bark, grinding flour, making cheese and butter, doing the ''historical'' washing up, making straw baskets, carding wool, chopping and working wood, fashioning bone items, knotting a net or weaving a belt ...
There is a wide variety of daily crafts and objects to be presented to the public, who can sometimes have a go too!
ANCIENT PAINTS & MINERAL PIGMENTS
Stone Age . Iron Age . Roman
(Tudor wall hangings: in development)
Individual display.
Presenting materials and techniques used from Stone Age cave paintings to Roman frescoes, we focus on Iron Age paints on objects and walls (an their archaeological evidence) to explain that everything was not simply mud-coloured before the Roman conquest!
We show how to make pigments from earths and minerals, how to create paintbrushes out of natural materials and how to make various types of paints used in ancient times.
These are then used to decorate wooden items, shields or ''walls'' in front of the public.
As part of our interractive talks, we also present ongoing research about ancient tattooing, body decoration traditions and Iron Age celtic art.
FOOD AND COOKING
Iron Age . Roman . Early Saxon . Medieval . Tudor
Individual or co-display.
You might have heard that throughout History people were eating bland gruel and porridge every day... Well, this only is a Hollywood myth! Food was varied and tasty, and we explain how and why.
Cooking in replica clay pots, metal pans and cauldrons over an open fire*, we use ingredients, recipes and techniques available at the time, from lighting a fire, to doing the washing up.
We talk about ingredients' seasonality, local or long distance trade, differences in social classes diets, etc.
Alternatively we can provide a ''cold'' display with a selection of pre-cooked historic dishes to focus on food variety and presentation.
*indoors cooking demonstrations without any heat/fire are possible: please, get in touch with us.
BRONZE / SILVER WIRE WORK
Iron Age . Roman . Saxon . Medieval . Tudor
Co-display with blacksmithing, individual display possible.
Bronze and silver wire rings, bracelets, hangers, pins and brooches. Copied on archaeological examples, we use replica tools to figure out how to re-create these little everyday items, with or without a fire, in front of the public.
CO-DISPLAYS
WITH THOMAS / BIG BEYNON'S BLACKSMITHING
Our co-displays are a great opportunity to talk about the gender separation of tasks through history...sometiems with big surprises! (female blacksmiths and male embroiderers in Tudor time for ex.) It also brings some cheeky banter to our displays, and history-based life stories and facts we can gossip about with visitors: a very fun and interractive way to learn about History!
A BLACKSMITH'S HOUSEHOLD
A historical blacksmithing display run by Thomas, as a journeyman blacksmith travlling around the land to perfect his carft and sell his wares ... accompanied by his good lady wife who is working as a forge-hand / assistant, pumping the belows, forging small items, cooking lunch, making leather sheaths or pins, rings and jewellery from bronze or silver.
As it would have been at the time!
A great display to bring the public to question the role and place of women in society and as artisans throughout History, to present a rare portrayal of a couple / family of craftspeople and the lifestyle of lower-class, travelling artisans... with a healthy dose of cheeky banter between the two characters!
IRON AGE LIVING HISTORY
A couple of artisans-traders travelling from village to hillfort present parts of their lifestyle & daily crafts:
- food: how they light a fire and cook over it (grinding flour, making cheese and butter, etc), make cordage from plants, chop and carve wood, etc..
- products of the hunt: what tools an techniques were used, which animals were hunted, how people made use of every part of the animal (cooking the meat, turning bone, antler or horn into useful objects, preparing skin and fur...)
- Clothing and hygiene: what Iron Age people wore and why, Iron Age jewellery and fashion, ancient hygiene, making soap, sewing, weaving...
This display can be tailored to your event by including more or less of our usual displays (blacksmithing for eg.). Contact us to discuss your own project!
MASTER CARVER
(MANNERS & ETIQUETTE AT FEASTS)
Shakespeare's time
DISPLAYS BY THOMAS - BIG BEYNON'S BLACKSMITHING
Owner, creator & demonstrator at Big Beynon's Blacksmithing, Thomas Timbrell specialises in making historical knives replicas for living historians, museums & collectors. He also travels around to demonstrates historical blacksmithing and knife-making (Iron Age to Tudor periods) with his reconstructed forges and extended his research to Iron Age hunting and associated crafts.
Thomas can be booked separately: contact him at bbblacksmithing@gmail.com or on his website
BLACKSMITHING
Iron Age to Tudor / 17th c.
Co-display, but can be individual
Using replica tools and a charcoal mobile forge, Thomas demonstrates
IRON AGE HUNTING
Iron Age
Individual or co-display
Hunting was not as widely used as
MASTER CARVER
(MANNERS & ETIQUETTE AT FEASTS)
Tudor & Jacobean (16th-17th century)
Co-display with Tudor spices / cooking.
Shakespeare's time