The Royal Armouries

Good Friday, time for a family trip somewhere.

And what better place if you live in Leeds than the Royal Armouries ?

Ten years ago the Government made a brave decision to move the nations massive collection of old and ancient armourment from its far too overcrowded site in the Tower of London to a brand new home on the riverside in Leeds, a brave decision because on far too many occasions the only place considered for national collections of this type is London.

And the Royal Armouries is an important collection, a globally important collection of mainly medieval european armourments together with an incredible muslim, chinese and japanese collection of ancient armour and weapons.

Spread across five storeys in an award winning custom designed riverside building the static displays are complimented by the outdoor arena where on most weekends and holidays you can watch live displays of medieval jousting, hand combat and horse combat, not some staged hollywood stunt, real life jousting - its fun.

We've been to the Armouries several times in the ten years since it opened and yes its true that the very nature of the exhibits means that they tend not to change from year to year but there is so much stuff there that you find something new to catch your eye every time you go, you could easily spend all day in there if you were given to geek-ishness but today we had a great hour and a half looking mainly at the far east collection which is much, much older than the european stuff, full of atmosphere and some incredibly decorative weaponary - the armour in ancient times for instance consisiting of fine chain mail sewn into silk padded jackets and decorated with silk ribbons and tassles, its obvious why for instance Vivienne Westwood wanted her clothing emporium to be associated with the Amouries.

And I found out today why the european stuff in the museum mainly only dates back to the 1500's, it was because Henry 8th, when he was king, spent an inordinate amount of taxpayers money on new and exciting armour and weapons, so much so that the Tower of London, which is where the nations depository for weapons always has been, was quickly filled with Henry's stuff, so he ordered all of the old gear in there to be either thrown away or recycled into new armourments, wiping out the previous 200 years history, shame on you Henry, on the other hand he saved most of his own personal armour which is on display in a "Field of the Cloth of Gold" exhibition which details a very famous meeting of all the european kings and rulers in 1520.

We were told that nugget of information by one of the current day knights in shining armour as he was dressed in his armour by his two aides in readiness for one of the jousts - all over the museum there are guides in medieval dress ready to offer such snippets of info, which made for a rather bizarre lift journey from the fifth floordown to the ground floor as one of the knights in full armour got in the lift with us, being transported downstairs to his horse and competition. The lift kept going up and down the building instead of straight to the ground floor which left him complaining that he'd lose competition points if he was late for his joust, and he gave a medieval jester a right bollacking when he got in the lift after calling for it on the third floor and diverting us again, by the time we got to the ground floor we had the knight and his two assistants with us, a jester, and a rotund food retailer all in medieval costume, the kids in the lift had eyes on stalks .

And that was another thing about the Armouries, it was obviously quite full today with it being a bank holiday and all, but there were hundreds of kids in the place, and every kid had a wooden sword and every kid had a cardboard mask of the helmet which is synominous with the Armouries, its the one in the picture above and it was custom made for Henry VIII by a german manufacturer who wanted to ingratiate himself with the English king.

Children from toddlers to teenagers were all over the place in there, play fighting with their wooden swords and masks, there was a great atmosphere in the place, just like a huge playschool, perhaps not condusive to serious study of the exhibits but great fun on a holiday.

And the best bit of all, like all English museums, its free to get in.