About Backyard Tudors
Backyard Tudors, what's that all about then?
The Backyard Tudors are Ed, Hollie, and Offspring Pog, together with the idiot hounds Burt and Bran. At the end of 2024 two things happened: after 15 years at the chalk face Ed gave up full-time secondary teaching, and we moved to a lovely cottage in the middle of Nowhere, North Devon, with a stream running down the side of the house and garden, a nice big workshop, a profusion of ash, hawthorn, blackthorn, and willow growing in the hedge and along the bank of the stream, and an area of hardstanding at the bottom of the garden where, presumably, a shed once stood.
We thought about putting a new shed there, but we don't really need another shed. One evening when Hollie was out Ed sketched a design for a timber-framed cottage instead, and a crazy plan was born. We named the plan Backyard Tudors.
Over the coming months we intend to make that plan a reality, and to use the cottage to help us and others explore the world of the late medieval and Tudor commoner. Once the cottage has been built we plan to make and share videos of medieval and Tudor activities, and invite home-educated young people to join us for a variety of workshops and experiences. We also make things in the workshop, from wooden furniture to armour, leatherwork, knick-knacks of an historical nature, all of which are for sale. And as if that wasn't enough we also offer school workshops aimed at KS2/3, specialist history tuition for GCSE and A-Level students, and historical consultancy.
Ed is an historian with lots of letters after his name, who has been involved in living history since 1992, and has spent his adult life working first in museums and more recently in the classroom. He loves to make things, has written several non-fiction history books, and generally finds the 15th and 16th centuries much more interesting than the 21st.
Hollie is an artistic type, who has been involved in Tudor living history since 2018. She also loves making things, and divides her time between reining in some of Ed's crazier ideas and positively encouraging them. (She has more than a few crazy ideas of her own too!)
Pog is also an artist, and has been involved in living history since she was a toddler. As a young person she is much more familiar with current social media than the old fogeys. You might not see her as much in person, but she's right there behind the scenes explaining how to do stuff. She also LOVES to cook, so is looking forward to taking an active part in our historical food-related activities.
