The Final Gallery - Royal Armouries, Leeds.

 

The final round of photographs taken on my recent visit to the Royal Armouries museum in Leeds.

This time it covers Islamic and Western European armours, as well as some more modern weapons.

The big opener is the Armoured Elephant, impressive, intimidating, imagine being on foot with one of these approaching...

In the Islamic cabinets, there was this set of armour which was impressive, with the full helmet.
The huge Executioners sword at the side there, the blade nicked from use. I actually turned and lifted the Mrs up, when she asked what I was doing, I wanted to see how heavy the blade was, being 2Kg heavier then her!

Like in the Samurai cases, there were armour suits and mounted warrior exhibits.

The central stairwell is ranked by row upon row of pikes, swords, muskets, breastplates as you look upwards.

Then we were in the European exhibits, most of which were provided from the national collection from the King's archives.

Edward, the Black Prince's surcoat, the Mrs having watched A Knight's Tale again (for god knows how many times already) happily told me about something she recognised more then just in passing.

There is a large historical gun cabinet, with this filigreed hunting musket on display which was owned by the daughter of Catherine the Great of Russia.

The Royal Armouries has a long tradition of providing armours and armour replica's for Television and Movie productions in the UK, and there was this interesting Vampire Killing Kit in the TV show section.

Finally, in more of a wargaming vibe, there was this rather large display of the battle of Waterloo, featuring the battle around La Haye Sainte, a wargamers dream if only we could field that many miniatures in one game...some day eh?

This is the last of the posts about the Royal Armouries, and we'll be back to wargaming posts soon once I can get back to painting.


Until next time, have nice day...