Shotley Bridge swordmakers

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

Great stuff Keith.The point is we dont know..as no machine ever appeared but it may well have been a hammer and grinding wheel combination. They used big water powered and later steam powered hammers. Any luck with the hoard of blades you mentioned earlier..?

[urbanspaceman]

The chest of blades was given to a local museum.
People who work in museums consider all the exhibits and archived treasures as their own, and in the past I have had to threaten curators with legal action before they have allowed access to what actually belongs to the public; unless it is a loan of course.
Anyway, the chap who donated the blades told me to give him a call if I had any difficulty accessing the hoard, so I will have to do that this week, as my polite request of two weeks ago has been politely ignored.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

I wonder what blade marks they have ... Assuming they were on route to Shotley Bridge? I would guess passau wolf marks. Good luck with the search.

[urbanspaceman]

They had come from Shotley Bridge and were certainly for the Danbys who were staunch Catholics and had been for generations. They are one of England's oldest families dating back before the Normans to the time of Edward the Confessor. They are still an unbroken line today. It is the current head of the family that is helping me.
I'm also chasing up the Percys at Alnwick: not quite as old a family line but certainly higher profile today thanks to Mr Potter.

[Ibrahiim al Balooshi]

The Percy family is a most interesting group... I noted the excellent history of each member on https://www.alnwickcastle.com/explor...e-percy-family

[Hotspur]

There are Percies, and then there were Percy's
A better bookmark, fwiw.
http://www.percyfamilyhistory.com/?

I bring mention of that because of the default and adoption of the name. Thus Hugh Percy, of the American Revolution, wasn't really a Perci at all

[Hotspur]

Do not get me started. Some images are too large to attach here.

I have a pennon/banner buried somewhere.

The Percies were often on the "wrong" side, even during the retreat from Lexigton and Concord but aside from the gunpowder plot generation, true and valiant warriors at war.

Cheers

GC aka Hotspur

The MDL photos courtesy of the Michael D Long pages more than a decade ago.

Also a documents on crescents. Not really topical to the Shotley Bridge discussion but still interesting.

I don't know if this Tudor era page will load (resized it) May be too small to read well. Another now resized, perhaps it will load. Phew, what a workout.