A Visit to Azincourt

Last weekend I had the great pleasure to take my father (another history nut, and painter but NOT wargamer) to visit the battlefields of Waterloo and Agincourt. We had planned to visit them last year but unfortunately work and domestic commitments prevented that from happening.

This was a trip I was really looking forward to and our plans were set in motion earlier this year. We booked the Eurotunnel and found a fabulous little hotel on the Waterloo battlefield to stay in for two nights. Our journey started Friday morning with a 90 mile drive down to Folkestone and following a hearty breakfast at the rail terminal we boarded the shuttle with no issues.

Forty minutes later we were in France and heading off into the Pas de Calais on the wrong side of the road. (as every Englishman knows the left hand side of the road is the right side of the road)

Thank god for Satellite Navigation ! Because an hour later we found ourselves in the small village of Azincourt and outside the battlefield museum.

You'll note from the picture below the building has curved supports resembling giant longbows.

Its a great little museum dedicated to the 1415 battle. Albeit slightly biased to the French perspective in as much as they claimed the forces were much more equal than we were lead to believe and that it was a lucky English win !

The Museum contained a number of interesting exhibits (armour, weapons etc), a walkthrough story telling of events using mannequins and a large diorama. I could not place the figures but they looked like 15mm old lead style.

Following the museum visit we drove round the village a saw where the battle supposedly took place (no photos) - it really was just an empty field.

With Azincourt done we headed off to Waterloo (a journey of about 120 miles) north into Belgium.

Stop Press:

By chance I decided to fill my car with diesel in the UK - little did we know that France was gripped by an industrial strike and fuel was virtually non existent in the region. This also probably explained why the roads were so empty If you are driving to France in the coming days check fuel availability !.

Lots more to say in the next post