When we made it to this place (called Avoncroft), bright sun was out; and my first observations were big pottery snails, owls, hedgehogs, chickens of various shapes and sizes, woodpeckers, and a frog with some sort of hat on in the shop there…

… then out the other side was a wooden beamed building with ‘The Co-Operative Society LTD’ on it; a lady in a 16th Century style dress, and a man in a wheelchair with a tiny little dog on his lap. The threshing barn had 3 men in very authentic 15th Century clothing doing some threshing in it…

…and we were told about Lammas: the beginning of the harvest, grain being taken to the church to be blessed, and I was shown a couple of different types of grain (oats and wheat) harvested via sickle, made into a sheave, and all of the sheaves made into a stook to dry; scythes had to be sharpened with wet stone while doing it; and the last bit was left in the middle of the field – and thought to contain the spirit of the corn, it got made into a ‘corn dolly’ ; and there was a man was walloping (how I termed threshing) a lump of corn with a flail and grain was coming off.

Out the other side – a notice on a tree was warning of a wasps nest, a windmill had a very 21st Century BMW parked by it – and signs warning of ‘extreme danger’; a barn had sacks of grain in it; the Perry Mill was a big rotating stone (pulled by horses), and a man was playing what appeared to be bagpipes by a tent. The Dyer’s Cottage was a tent several metres to the side, and what may’ve been a Portuguese water dog was rubbing his or herself all over the grass; the wood burner thing by the tent/cottage was very smelly; and whistles and crumhorns were explained to us (in a lot of detail) by a man in very 16th Century clothing (baggy trousers, baggy shirt, and what could be called a beret); there was the 21st century ‘wine and tapas’ on a lady’s t-shirt; the man’s wife started playing the hurdy-gurdy (which has strings made of sheeps gut) and several little girls in costumes were joining in the feasting.

6 small chimneys were off to one side; followed by very mucky nail making shops, and explanations of a scarf link, different types of nail, and chain makers tools – and a robotic voice was talking about nail making; and then there was what would probably be a house considered habitual in that era (with wooden beams, a model well, and wooden barrels outside). Inside, a lady was telling a bloke about ‘piss men’ – who went round buying and selling urine for people to soak their washing in it because it becomes incredibly white; and there was a massive pair of bellows; a herb garden outside had a well in it, medicinal herbs, and wasn’t far away from a couple of metal air raid shelters and a ‘pre fab’ – which contained a Singer sewing machine, a tiny TV set, a tiny pair of bellows, a child’s bedroom with toy planes and a model pig (among other things) on the bed.

Very very smoky smells continued to waft outside; the toll house was opposite the nailers cottage; the ‘bread and ale’ bit – to one side of the toll house – had what could probably be termed an allotment (with a big pumpkin and a washing line); the wooden hut/toilet had a 21st century 7→8 year old boy coming out and ranting to his parents a bit that there was no soap and there was sawdust everywhere, and then he started pushing a sibling around in a pram; what could nowadays be termed a pavilion was termed something I forgot by a sign; and then signs on a wall defined an ice house in the 18th century, it felt cold in there, and there was a big stone hole.

The cockpit (which looked like a storage area for stuff) had some 21st century things dangling around; barn like buildings were round the next corner – and inside, showed lots of the different types of bricks made; and outside again was what could be a greenhouse – made out of very 21st century old plastic water bottles, and the court cell block was basically a big concrete cupboard.

The National Telephone Kiosk Collection was next to the tearoom; 6 little kids were eating ‘Treasure Quest’ cardboard lunchboxes at 1 of the three tables, packet-ted cake bar things said ‘Sin’ on them, and a ‘Haribo push up’ ice cream was purchased by a parent for a small child; then back in the car (which thought it was 23°C) at 2.35pm, ‘Alpaca Experiences’ were advertised not far away, ‘Hunger Hill’ was the road approaching Henley In Arden, The Mud Club’ was something not far from Hampton On The Hill, Warwick racecourse looked busy, the cricket ground had something going on on it; then a bit further down the road was ‘The Royal Museum of the Queens Warwick Hussars’; and I forgot when we made it home.