Bringing the English Longbow back to England

With this year marking the 600 year anniversary of the famous battle of Agincourt it seemed like the perfect excuse to get over to England to take part in the activities and see the Longbow in its place of origin.

We have been building yew longbows and flatbows on the coast of Canada for nearly 10 years and we have been running our bow building workshops for ​5.  ​

Last year we were contacted by the good folks at the Longbow Shop in England,  Graham Higgs and Jason Powell about our business and the yew bows,  after several back and forths we were very excited to name them as our UK distributor and have our bows on display and for sale in England. It felt like a big step for a small town Canadian bowyer.

As the 600 year anniversary came closer we began to connect the dots between the Yew bow making workshops and the importance of the longbow within Englands History.  We hatched a plan to run two workshops in England and focus on building true self yew longbows on English soil, and after some research we learned that there is really nothing else quite like this going on there.

The Longbow shop just recently opened a new Archery Events centre within the same business district they currently operate from,  so we had the ideal location to run the workshops.  Next was packaging up 22 pacific yew staves and shipping them across the Atlantic,  and the last piece to be sorted was an extra suitcase on the airplane stuffed full of bow making tools.

We ran two workshops each consisting of 4 days and 7 eager participants.  Normally most of our workshops are 3 days long,  but I added an extra day as were adding true horn caps to our longbows.  

Day 1.
Started by meeting everyone and getting a good sense of the bow they were hoping to build.  We talked about the tools we would be using and the safety involved.  Once they all had their staves we started to draw out the bow profiles and then get to work with hatchets and spokeshaves to start removing some wood and getting the sticks to look like bows.

Day 2. 
A very busy day all around of roughing out the bows to oversized dimensions and trying to get a bit of bend starting.  We spent a good amount of time re measuring our dimension and making sure everything was feeling proportionate.  Also starting to clean the bows up with rasps and spokeshaves.  We also started to take a look at building the flemish twist string,  as we would need strings and shooting strings for all of the bows.

Day 3. 
This was the day that we focused on getting our horn caps fit and installed on the bows.  I brought the pieces of water buffalo horn from Canada and they were all predrilled with a tapered drill bit. This is always a bit of a finicky process to make sure that we get a good fit with lots of contact area before we glue.  After gluing the horns were cut down and string grooves cut into the horn.  Then onto the tiller stick to get them bending to our draw length and weight

Day 4.
Again was very busy,  we focused on getting all of the bows tillered out and shooting some arrows. We then decide which is the upper and lower limb based on the shape of the bend. Once happy that the bows are shooting nicely we set an arrow pass with powdered stone set in with glue. Then a few coats of oil.

The time at workshops always goes very quickly and this often gets discussed. It often feels like I just put my head down to draw a line on a bow and it's time for lunch. Before I knew it our time was up and we were done.

The workshops were a huge success and all the bows turned out lovely.  The feedback from the participants was very appreciative and enthusiastic as is often the case,  and it really felt like folks didn't want to leave at the end of our time.  I take this as a real compliment.

The question was raised several times about when I would be coming back to do this again.  Before the trip it felt like this might be something that we do every couple of years,  but after feeling the excitement and interest in making yew bows in England we have decided to re book for next year and run two more courses next October.  Once again hosted by the Longbow Shop.  Registration is already open and I have heard that it is filling up already.

---