As a finale to a busy Bank Holiday weekend, we decided to go to Belvoir Castle, where we had heard there was a mediaeval jousting contest happening.
Belvoir
Castle is in Leicestershire in the East Midlands. It was first built in
Norman times. Successive buildings were spoilt by two Civil Wars and a
fire, the latter in 1816, so the present castle is relatively new. Its
name is pronounced "Beaver", as the Anglo Saxons could not master the French
pronunciation. Various families owned it, the Duke of Rutland's ancestors
taking it over in the 16th century when they were still Earls. The earldom
became a dukedom in the 18th century.
The
jousting contest is staged here twice a year by a local jousting club from
Nottingham, who perform all over the country, but who regard Belvoir Castle as
their home turf. These people re-enact mediaeval jousting for pleasure, in their
own time, and mainly at their own expense. They spend long hours training
themselves and their horses, and they do sometimes genuinely injure themselves
and their horses by what they do. On the day we went, it had been raining
really hard, and it was debatable whether they would go ahead, as the horses
might slip on the wet grass.