Arrowsmith Darren Bagley is celebrating the anniversary of a historic battle – with his set of replica medieval arrows.
Firefighter Darren, 48, station commander at Huddersfield Fire Station, wants to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt in authentic style.
History buff Darren, of Stocksmoor, bought a 100lb longbow from Steve Ralphs, the archer who fired the first shot in the 2000 film Gladiator.
And with the help of TV historian Mike Loades he has made half-a-dozen arrows to go with it.
Darren said: “I’ve always been interested in history and longbows for some reason so I decided to make some arrows to go with it.
“I e-mailed Mike for some advice to make sure the arrows were as accurate as possible.
“I was just fascinated by the history of them and the process that goes into making them.
“There are not many existing examples of arrows from the Medieval period so I had to go to Westminster Abbey to find one and have only seen another image of one at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth.”
The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory in the Hundred Years War. It took place on October 25, 1415, near modern-day Azincourt in northern France.
Darren followed the same design used by other arrow makers to create thousands of others in July as part of the biggest ever re-enactment of the battle in Azincourt in Pas-de-Calais.
He said: “I have to use ash or poplar wood and round them off with a special giant pencil sharpener.
“The front and back is tapered down but I have to do it in a special way with a taping machine I created myself.
“I use goose feathers for the flights, which were used at the time but are difficult to get hold of, and I get the arrowheads from a farrier I know who makes them out of iron.
“Arrows with three or four inch heads were used for long range to fire down on an opposing army while those with two-inch heads were used to pierce body armour in close combat.
“The people who first made them were very talented.”
Darren wants to continue his passion for making accurate Medieval replicas when he retires.
“I’m taking a furniture course and want to make items for the specialist market,” he said.
“I’m currently working on an Ambry cupboard and have some designs of chairs in mind that can be found in historical halls.
“Who knows? Maybe they’ll be used for TV or films.”
