Medieval Arrows

I'm incredibly proud to have been awarded the title of Master Arrowsmith by the Craft Guild of Traditional Fletchers and Bowyers today.

Pictured is my Masterpiece for assessment, of two wrought iron Type 15 broadheads (one finished, one off the anvil), a tanged wrought iron head, a socketed wrought iron bodkin and a set of six wrought iron and steel welded Type 16 heads.

A huge thank-you to my mentor Master Arrowsmith Hector Cole MBE for his encouragement and patience over the years, Master Bowyer Jeremy Spencer for his assessment, and to the Guild and it's members for their kind words and warm welcome!

Special thanks also to the brilliant folks who wrote some really lovely letters of commendation - especially Ian Thackray, Dr Michael Livingston, Tod, Jason Kingsley CBE, Dr Martin Papworth and Joshua Ralph.

These copper-brazed Holm Hill M3 head never get boring to make!

Copy of a 10th Century arrowhead from Coppergate, York.

The original is SF14076, and 148mm in total length with typical concave "dished" central section - essentially a fuller.

This copy is forged from wrought iron.

Lovely set of arrows and arrowheads for the brilliant Nick "Big Bow Brum" Birmingham, who is unquestionably responsible for getting so many of us hooked on medieval archery from his YouTube videos!

The heads are, from left to right (in date order):

London Type 2
Corfe Castle Type 6
Helmsley Castle Type 7a
London Type 8
Corfe Castle Type 9
Corfe Castle Type 11
Blenheim Park Type 14
Holm Hill Type 15
Dyserth Castle Type 16b
London Wall Type 16c
Holm Hill Type 21c
Holm Hill Type 21b

And three arrows:

1346 Crécy arrow, with swan feathers bound into a glue of beeswax, sheep fat and copper, a typical 14thC wide flat nock and a military barbed Type 16 of iron and steel

1437 Westminster Abbey reproduction arrow, with swan feathers bound into a glue of beeswax, sheep fat and vermillion, a tiny nock with tapered horn insert and the Westminster Abbey replica head, a Type 16/M3 hybrid of welded iron and steel

1545 Mary Rose replica arrow, with swan feathers bound into a glue of beeswax, sheep fat and copper, with tapered horn nock and copper-brazed M3 head

Nick is planning on displaying these arrows and using them for his historical talks as part of the superb Free Company of Aquitaine so if you catch them at one of their many events, go and check out the arrows and heads!

A set of arrows, photographed in date order

1346 - Crécy - Barrelled poplar shaft, wide flat nock and verdigris compound
1415 - 2x Agincourt - Tapered ash shaft, tapered horn inserts and iron oxide compound
1437 - Westminster Abbey - Barrelled poplar shaft, tapered horn insert and iron oxide compound, with iron and steel Type 16 barbed head
1545 - Mary Rose - Bobtailed poplar shaft, tapered horn insert and pale green/yellow compound of wax, fat and copper

Two big "Agincourt" arrows from the new catalogue on my website, ready for posting.

• 12mm ash shafts
• Swan feathers bound with silk
• Red glue made from wax, fat and oxides
• Hand forged iron Type 9 heads
• Horn inserts

The Lakenheath Arrows

It's always a huge privilege to be asked to make something by Matt Bunker, as his attention to detail and knowledge of the originals is second to none.

These arrows are fitted with wrought iron reproduction heads copied from the Anglo-Saxon burial finds at Lakenheath, in England. The originals are beautiful open-socketed arrowheads, with socket diameters of around 7-8mm.

The heads are glued to the shaft with birch tar, and the same glue is used to fix the swan feather fletchings. They are bound in fine dark thread, and the nocks are the standard wide, flat construction seen on all English arrows until the 1400s.

Typical UK forestry commission work on display in Portsmouth. I've counted at least 10 different yew trees all cut and left to rot instead of being put to good use!

This is a brilliant film by the Heritage Blades team, lead by Tom Timbrell.

I had the pleasure of getting to know Tom at the Chalke History Festival, sharing my forge with him for a few years, and I feel very lucky to count him as a friend. His attention to historical detail, his dedication to the craft of archaeological ironwork and his skill at forging and finishing museum quality blades is astonishing.

This film documents his project at the 2024 Chalke History Festival where he and his brilliant team built an iron age furnace, smelted and produced iron and proceeded to forge a beautiful blade.

- YouTube Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

I've got seven of these lovely M3/T16 hybrid arrowheads for sale, ready to go immediately, so no 6 month wait on these little ones! £20 per head and will be posted a few days after ordering. Get in quick!!

10mm socket diameter, forge-welded small barbs of steel onto iron sockets, copied from a head held in a private collection dating to the early 15th century.

Two of these heads I made with a slightly longer socket to match the Westminster Abbey arrowhead for to use at an upcoming shoot!

Little experiment to finish the day - copper brazed Holm Hill M3 heads, with iron sockets and steel barbs, brazed in a completely different way to my usual method.

Works well and it's incredibly quick (8 min per head!)

The three C's - Consistency, Consistency and Calipers!

Whole bunch of 3/8" Type 9s, and some 3/8" and 11/32" Type 10 and Type 7 arrowheads for various orders.

A selection of some of the many, MANY arrowheads I've made for various TV shows and films over the last 4 years or so!

Usually they're all made to the production team's designs.

There's nothing like an order of 10 fully functional, full size hay forks to make you forget what era you're living in!

Forging arrowheads at today, thanks to

A trio of Anglo-Saxon spearheads

Two of these (the biggest and smallest ones) are a recent commission for Matt Bunker, copied from 7th Century grave finds in Southampton, UK. The biggest one is almost 400mm long and 40mm wide.

The third spearhead is a copy of the 6th Century Prittlewell burial chamber finds.

All three are forged from wrought iron with steel cutting edges forge welded on.

-Saxon

Halfway through this commission for two Anglo-Saxon spearheads from the 7th Century, from a grave on the South coast of the UK.

Both are wrought iron with steel cutting edges forge welded on.

One of them.... is HUGE. Almost 400mm long and 40mm wide!

This is a bit exciting. Last year I had the enormous privilege to be asked to work on Gladiator II, and I was able to recruit the brilliant who absolutely saved the project by offering his workshop, tools and experience to get the monumental amount of work done in time. We also couldn't have got it done without the help of who was a real hero! The trailer has been uploaded to YouTube today, and a number of the things we made are in there which is very cool.

The people we met on the production team were incredible - traditional crafts being used in a completely unexpected place, and hopefully the film is every bit as good as the first one - but if it's not, I had nothing to do with it...

Another very fun order, with almost every type of head!

From left to right we've got:

Wegraeus Types A1, A2, C and B, and then MoL Types 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7a, 7b, 9, 10 and a cheeky little brazed M3 to finish them off!

Back at it after a week off! Various early to late medieval Irish and English heads, and a couple of big twisted German fire bolt heads for Gwen in France

The Prittlewell Burial Chamber

At long last, after an intense week at the we have finally finished building our reconstruction of the Anglo-Saxon Prittlewell burial.

With astonishing work from everybody involved including and talks by the amazing .langlands and we couldn't have had a better week!

We're already thinking of even bigger plans for next year, and it's also not over for the Prittlewell Burial Chamber, so watch this space!

It was a huge honour to give this talk on the Mary Rose and it's role in Experimental Archaeology alongside the wonderful Dr Alexzandra Hildred and Andrew Braund at

We chatted arrows, gunshields, conservation and archaeology, chucked some arrows up the hill and had some brilliant questions and feedback from the crowd in glorious sunshine!

So incredibly proud of the Chalke Heritage Crafts Group this year.

We've recreated the Anglo-Saxon Prittlewell burial chamber and many of its amazing grave goods, and everybody is working like an absolute trooper.

Come and check out what we've made so far, and we'll continue adding objects throughout the week, culminating in our talk with Alex Langlands on Sunday.

Currently filming a new documentary on Agincourt with the brilliant Mike Livingston and Mark Edgar filming for

We've been chatting bows, arrows and forging arrowheads.

Keep your eyes peeled!

The finished Mary Rose reproduction arrows for

These will be onstage with me during my talk alongside Dr Alexzandra Hildred and Andrew Braund on Experimental Archaeology, and then we'll be shooting them directly afterwards.

Each of the arrows is copied from an individual held in the museum archives that I've personally measured and examined.

They vary in profile:

Two are "bobtailed" - wide at the head, fast taper for a few inches and then a steady taper to the nock
One is "saddled" - smaller head, then increasing, reducing and increasing again before tapering to the nock
One is "barrelled" - widest in the middle
And two are "parallel" - around 10mm from head to fletchings, and then a taper down to the nock

All of the nocks are between 7.5mm and 8.6mm in diameter

All the arrows are fletched with swan primary feathers, bound with undyed silk into a glue made of beeswax, animal fat and verdigris.