The Historical Living Company (previously The Historical Combat Company) are a North East based volunteer group, from around Ashington and Newbiggin, providing history lessons enjoyed by both children and adults.
On Saturday the group walked for about three hours from Cresswell, capturing the attention of people passing by and stopping for photos as they made their way to Newbiggin to put on an educational show about Vikings to the public.
Member of The Historical Living Company, Michelle Jones, said: “It's about one getting the groups together and introducing us to the local community because the people know that we do the pirates at the lifeboat event, but they don't know what other things we're doing. So we put on a little bit of something for the local community to try and get us out there and recruit because the more people we can get involved, the bigger and better shows we could put on for the public.”
The band of history enthusiasts work closely with local councils, museums, and event organisers, and are made up of performers, combat artists and skilled historic craftspeople who put on fun displays specialising in interactive living history and historic combat from eras including gladiators of the Roman period, Vikings, early medieval and pirates.
The group trains for their performances in Ashington once a month and attend shows across the North East in costume and in character so that people can talk to them and learn more about the history. As they are volunteers, they are community focused and have for the past two years helped with the Newbiggin lifeboat days by putting on a pirate show and rode along the sea front to collect money for the RNLI.
They hope to continue interacting with the community and pique the interest of others to grow their group.
1. Viking walk
The group captured attention from other walkers. Photo: The Historical Living Company
3. Viking walk
They journeyed to Newbiggin from Cresswell. Photo: The Historical Living Company
