How did construction of the trebuchet at Warwick castle go?
The machine itself was built by English carpenters from my drawings, while we made the iron fittings here in Denmark. There are more than two tons of iron on it. All the parts were then sent to Warwick castle in England, where the two work crews met and put the thing together. The machine sits on a little island by the river Avon and it was not possible to get heavy lifting gear on the island, so the timbers had to be raised by hand using blocks and tackles and a simple A-frame as a crane, exactly as they would have done it in medieval times. It took a lot of manpower, but everything went very smoothly. The newly constructed trebuchet at Warwick Castle (Courtesy Peter Vemming) Were the test firings a success? When the machine’s frame was up we started rigging it–putting on the ropes for pulling down the arm and then attaching the sling bag. Then, it was time for the first trials, we pulled down the arm to see if everything worked well, ran in the treadmills (the large wooden wheels th
