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Thursday 28 April 2016

Warwick Castle trebuchet


In 2005 I visited a woodworking firm in Colerne near Bath to photograph the team building a trebuchet for Warwick Castle.  
It was only this weekend when we visited Stratford on Avon for the Shakespeare 400 weekend that  I managed to get to Warwick Castle to see it work.
Though I contacted the PR department the week before and explained why I was visiting I failed to get a good position to photograph it, I think the Smiler accident at Alton Towers and the fact that a stray spark burned down a historic boathouse last year makes them very cautious and they don't fire a burning cannonball now.


The trebuchet at Warwick Castle is one of the main attractions.   It weighs 22 tonnes and stands 19 meters high
On 21 August 2006, the trebuchet claimed the record as the most powerful siege engine of its type when it sent a projectile weighing 13 kilograms (29 lb) a distance of 249 metres (817 ft) at a speed of 260 kilometres per hour (160 mph), beating the previous record held by the trebuchet at Middelaldercentret in Denmark

 
My composite picture of the trebuchet firing. 

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