Plated it, stapled it, riveted it.
Hi it's Tod from Tod's Workshop and Tod Cutler here and today I'm back in the Great Keep in
Dover Castle, so thank you English Heritage, thank you Dover for letting me do this.
But 14 years ago something amazing happened to this building and I had the enormous privilege
to be part of that. Now this building was 850 years old and a really good condition castle,
you know, no doubt about that, but it doesn't really give a tourist, a viewer,
a good idea of what the place might have been like when it was built and so the idea of the project
was to renovate some of the rooms, turn some of the rooms into how they may have looked when this
castle was built in 1180. So what was amazing about this project was how correct, authentic,
accurate people wanted things to be. They didn't want a Hollywood version, they didn't want a
an mdf and plastic version, they wanted a real version, and so what that meant was they came to
crafts people like myself and a whole raft of other crafts people as well to make real objects.
But why that's courageous is a real object, a real lantern or a knife or a sword, it's not meant for
public display and even more courageous than that, the display, well you're allowed to touch stuff.
People can sit in the throne. So absolute credit has to go to the organizations who drove it;
Dover Castle and English Heritage, but then the individuals that I dealt with as well.
I'm sure there are many others but Paul Patterson, Stephen Brindle, Rowena Willard Wright, Joe Gray,
they did an incredible job to make it right and to be courageous enough to deliver things that people
thought were frankly crazy like white leather doors. And here we are at the white leather doors
and this just sums up the courage that was involved in doing Dover, really was. So you
have beautiful, beautiful blacksmith work here on all of the panels and the hinges and the framing
and then you've got white calfskin leather in a tourist attraction,
in a castle, in salty air combined with metal work, I mean people probably thought I would
imagine, the word lunatic was used and yet they've survived and what a fabulous thing, look at them,
look at them they are just amazing. So let's find ourselves a different room and we're going
to look at some things I made and what better place for me to start than the armoury. So I
made them a whole load of shields here, both kite shields and flat topped ones,
swords, maille hauberk, lances, some repair equipment, a little sort of forging area at
the other end and the thing is you can touch it, you can touch it, you can feel it, you can look
at it you can wonder how heavy is a kite shield? I don't know, how heavy is a kite shield? Look
it's that heavy. You've got harnessing on the back you can see how it fits how it works
all of this was part of the driver behind the project to make it real and the thing is they
didn't want something that looked like a kite shield because that means nothing,
what they want is a real kite shield because that tells a real story and so everything within the
museum has been done like that, within the Great Keep and for me it's just a privilege to be part
of a an organization that drove that. So I'll show you a few other little bits and pieces. Well you
might not even notice the detail that's been put into it but it's there. Now what I love about
the whole concept behind the Great Keep was that you should be able to touch as much as possible,
not everything but a lot of the items within this place you can go up to them you can feel them
and these swords are part of that, so they're real swords you know because that's the idea,
they should be real, so they've been blunted very slightly so they can't cut you but nonetheless
the blades are functional blades, you can put your hands on the handle you can feel what they're like
you can understand about them and what we really wanted was that you'd be able to lift them as well
and feel the weight but actually that turned out to be a step too far because with a little bit of
effort you're able to wiggle them out of this rack which of course you know simply isn't going to do.
So day one whopping big industrial fixing straight through the middle of the blade
and that solves that problem, but there's so much about this armoury that I like but
what we'll do is I'm just going to show you one last thing before we leave because again it's
one of those things for me that just sums up what's right. This is just part of the display of
an armorer's repair workshop really just a little bit tucked away at the end but it's things like
this stump anvil that I really love. We could have just cheated and put a modern anvil in and 99.9
of people would never know, but that's not really what they used at the time,
so we've got a whopping big chunk of steel here in a log wedged in with wedges; perfect. I'm down in
the kitchens and I've put a whopping big light on here, usually it's pretty gloomy down here
but you can still see that there's detail on these things because as a viewer it matters, it
it tells another story and that just helps bring the thing alive. So we've made repairs and mend's,
we've made them look different, we've made them alive and that was a really important thing.
This whole idea of the objects within the museum, within the Great Tower having lived the life,
you can see it everywhere. So this malt shovel 10 years ago it was perfect, it was lovely and then
it got broken and some chunks got taken out and then some more chunks got taken out,
so I plated it, plated it, stapled it, riveted it, it's absolutely typical medieval mending,
that's exactly the sort of thing you'd see. We could have just thrown it away and and made a new
one, but actually why not mend it, give it more life, give it more story, so that's what we do.
I'm in the King's garderobe now with two more items that I've made, so a gold leaf saddle,
absolutely beautiful that's fine, but then we have a hauberk here. Now this castle has its own
little weird microclimates everywhere and this place makes this rust like crazy and that was
causing a problem in an unexpected way, because of course it rusts and we can clean it and we can wax
it, that's fine, but people come and touch it, we want them to touch it, but people come and touch
it, feel it and then they end up getting a bit of... people's acid from their fingers causes it
to rust the salt causes it to rust and they get dirt on them so then they look for something to
clean their hands and the nearest thing would you believe it, white tablecloth behind you. People
do it and so we've had to move to stainless steel to try and save that. We do it with reticence but
sometimes it's necessary. I'm standing at the foot of the king's bed here and this magnificent chest
has got the king's sword on it. now maker's marks were not particularly common at the time but
people would still sign their work so engraved on the blade is Gilbertus me fecit. Gilbert made me.
Now it's little details like that as a viewer who comes here you won't know, most people won't know
if things were marked or not marked, but it just helps with the whole image of everything and of
course like everything else you can touch it you can feel it, but because of that it needs
to be fixed down so on the back of the blade we've got brazed fittings and the whole thing is bolted
through onto the lid of the box, same with the scabbard here there's actually a core in it which
then is bolted through onto the box, so again you can touch the scabbard you can feel it but
you can't remove it. I'm going to sign off here and what an amazingly beautiful setting to have,
so this is behind the king's dining table and again it just shows really what the whole thinking
behind the project was, this could have just been a print it's not, it's an embroidery because it
needed to be right even if the visitors don't know it, because they can't actually touch this bit,
the cushions on on the king's chair here, again done by an organization can
call "Fine Cell" they're prisoners who do that embroidery and it is beautiful and it is right
and that is what this project is all about and I was thrilled to be a part of it but channel
4 did a great hour and a half documentary when the whole place opened, lots of interviews with
the people involved, go and check it out, put a link in the notes. But thank you very much,
thank you English Heritage thank you Dover and thank you for getting me involved because 13
years later I am still thrilled by every time I come in here anyway thank you very much.