Dartington Community Day 2014

WDS at Dartington Community Open Day

Dartington Community Day 2014West Devon Swords attended the Dartington Community Open Day on Tuesday 27 May. See the gallery…

Held at  the Dartington Hall Estate, this was a free event which opened the estate to a huge number of families in the half-term holiday.

Among the many activities, West Devon Swords ran Go Fence eight sessions with the plastic kit for  five to fifteen year olds. To round off the afternoon, we demonstrated some historical combat with longswords.

This third Dartington Community Day proved to be much more successful than ever, with the number of visitors almost overwhelming the car parks and buses from Totnes.  The Great Lawn was standing-room only with family picnics. The numbers pleasantly surprised the organisers at the Dartington Hall estate.

Family activities included live music from Matthew & Me and a roving jazz band, magicians, face painting, archery, Gamelan, tours of the garden, T’ai Chi, art and dance sessions, cheer-leading (lead by our own Vicki Pritchard) tractor and trailer rides and lots more.

Dartington Community DayThe plan was to run three  Go Fence! sessions across the afternoon; instead, demand continued throughout the afternoon so sessions ran back-to back, and more than eighty children got a taster of foil fencing.

To finish, Catling and Pritchard presented a short demonstration of some medieval fighting techniques. See the gallery… RC