Quote:
Originally Posted by Triarii
Thankyou Fernando and Jim - and urbanspaceman.
Thanks to your prompts I've now re-found the pdf of the book by Kevin which covers Hounslow.
I think the summary of my interest is; - How reliant on imported blades was England (seems to be very - certainly of my ECW era collection, of those where the blade can be attributed, German blades make up 50% of my collection and the vast majority of those with identified makers names or nations).
- How much of that dependency was intended to be addressed by Hounslow or was actually addressed by Hounslow.
- Did Hounslow produce blades only (the London Cutlers Company seemed to spend its time hilting imported blades for example).
- Did Hounslow specialise in any way at all (discounting the so-called 'Hounslow Hangers' which I think are misnamed and noting that Hounslow blades can be found on rapiers, hangers, Irish hilts and other backswords).
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Hello Triarii, Until Keith produced his book on the Shotley Bridge Swordmakers I didnt really know much about the English involvement in sword making either there or in Hounslow...That was rather a shock to me since I was actually born in Shotley Bridge!!!... but I soon caught up with proceedings and supported by Jims incredible knowledge on all things swords and Keith whose work on the SB Swordmakers
is brilliant...I got quickly in step with proceedings although I have to say I found information hard to come by especially on Hounslow...and it is fair to say getting a grip on Hounslow is key to understanding Shotley Bridge...and without those two cornerstones Birmingham, London and Sheffield make no sense; thus they are foundations vital to understanding English Swords....
As Jim was saying books on the subject of Hounslow are few n' far between...so you need to hit all the buttons you can on anything about Hounslow on the web...and scoop up any details you find on museums and references you can..Use everything available at
Forum Library and if in doubt just ask...The PM system is good for that...You might want to develope a hit list of details you want to focuss upon but I suggest you just vacuum up all the information you can and once that is all catalogued then decide what is important ... and I bet by then your priorities will have changed...
Regards,
Peter Hudson.