Josh Baker-Cox

An old school plastic bag with a cardboard info card stapled to the top. The contents are the Norman Warband starter.set from Victrix ltd (in 28mm, no less!).

It's been eight years since I last painted a miniature, so I'm honestly pretty excited to get back into a hobby that will provide a much welcome break from being in front of a screen!

Think I might make the arch pillager himself, Robert de Bellême, the leader of this little warband.

An image of a part of the millennium mosaic, located next to St Thomas's and the bridge. It details Monmouth's history over at least two thousand years, with a bit of history written underneath a relevant image. For example here you can see some great seals, Henry V, and the grim reaper, below which is a brief note about the Black Death.

A better image of what was my personal favourite tile on the mosaic, depicting a battle in 1233 between Richard the Marshall and Baldwin de Guisnes. It's done in the style of medieval manuscript art.

An ominously threatening campaign to recycle your rubbish. 'Recycle, or the fish get it'

A view of The Robin Hood pub, with its lovely stonework surrounding the door.

Unfortunately some of the town, including the lovely looking pub The Robin Hood, were still closed after last year's horrendous flooding. As such I sadly had to skip getting a double vodka to aid my recovery after contending with the great keep's staircase.

The Monnow Bridge, creatively named due to it spanning the River Monnow. It's got a quite slender all things considered gatehouse. To the left of the image is the church of St Thomas the Martyr.

A view of the bridge's gatehouse head on, St Thomas's is just behind me to the right.

Info about said bridge: the important (medieval) bit is it's construction between 1272 and 1300 to control the river crossing and deter any potential Welsh raiders.

An extract from the patent roll of 27 August 1297, detailing the murage for the town, for example on every quarter of corn for sale, one obol (a halfpenny) was to be taxed.

We also popped into Monmouth for a wander, and who doesn't love a good fortified bridge??

A view of the ceiling from the ground floor of the tower, showing off the lovely modern wooden staircase that is a joy to walk up before you hit the abominably thin spiral one, the door to which is behind the railings on the right.

From the first floor of the keep, an arched window sits inside an alcove.

The floor above, showing off more arched windows, and the wonderfully sturdy bricks of the building.

The view from the top, looking back towards the visitors center a little way down the path past the trees on the right. The buildings on the left, between the castle and the foothills, are the modern remains of Flanesford Priory.

I very much have a love-hate relationship with the keep. I love it, because it's a keep. I hate it, because getting to the top of it via the winding staircase consistently makes me regret my desire to see the view.

A view of the great keep from the courtyard. To my left is a building containing a staircase up to the walls and the gatehouse.

Another view of the solarium from the gatehouse, with a very scenic (and exceedingly mossy) wall

A view of the courtyard from the wall. The keep is just on the left hand side of the photo, opposite me (and left of the solarium) is the hall.

Rear view of, you guessed it, the solarium. There is also a badge of a spooky little ghost person on the railing.

There's just something about the place. It's not the biggest, it isn't the most imposing (though I certainly wouldn't want to try and storm the place), but it never fails to impress.

A view of Goodrich from the path to the castle's gate. The keep is in the middle, poking up from behind a collapsed wall, and two towers are either side.

A view of the river Wye and the surrounding countryside, taken from the barbican.

A view of the castle from the barbican. To the left of the gatehouse is the chapel, and left of that the wall runs to one of the towers.

The solarium. A single column runs up from the floor below, before ending as a divide between two arches.

I hadn't had the chance to share these, but I went to one of my favourite castles on Sunday: Goodrich! And the weather was remarkably lovely given this year's track record so far.

The knight has now done a self insert, and is perched on a rock with his sword and shield, next to some water with a fish in it. He is now joined on his left/behind by an odd little demon with a face for a bum that the game added as part of the tutorial, and I gave this odd fellow a lute.

But wait, there's more! Now the knight is in the manuscript himself, and has been joined by... whatever the hell the guy with a face on his derriere is (I gave him a lute).

Unfortunately I am very much enjoying this, so will probably end up buying it, which is a terrible predicament to be in.

A knight, armoured as if from the 13th century, sits alone in an (as of yet rather bare and undecorated) Scriptorium, quill in one hand, knife in the other, ready to accept a new order!

A little green Yoda-looking fellow, with bright yellow hair, sits on a bench reading a book next to a cat that seems to have a naked flame emanating from its head.

Exciting news for anyone into manuscripts: Scriptorium (from the makers of the very fun game Inkulinati) has a demo on Steam!

Congrats Rebecca! I hope the cider proved a worthy celebratory drink aha

Here it is: the end of 2025! I hope everyone who sees this post has both a tolerable end to this year, and a generally acceptable start to the next one.

A screenshot of a search input in the British Library's interim Explore Archives and Manuscripts catalogue.

An interim version of the Explore Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue is now available through the BL website: searcharchives.bl.uk

It contains all the catalogue data from the eve of the 2023 cyberattack, and features embedded links to all currently available digitised content within the records.

Thank you so much Leonie! A tad nervous about it but the excitement is definitely outweighing it which is nice haha.

Final Session Number: 1123 Session Timeslot: Wednesday, 8 July 2026: 11:15 AM-12:45 PM Paper Title: Rebellandum et resistendum: Evolving Attitudes to the Rebellions of Guy of Brionne and William of Arques in Norman Histories

A few days late to the party but I am excited to say I've been accepted for #IMC2026 as part of the fantastic Loyalty in the Medieval World network. I'll be giving a talk on cool rebellion related stuff to see if attitudes towards them changed with time, and I'm moderating a session too (spooky)!

We built a database of 290,000 English medieval soldiers – here’s what it reveals We created the database in order to challenge assumptions about the lack of professionalism of everyday soldiers.

A blast from my past - the Medieval Soldier database takes nearly 300,000 military service records from 1369-1453 and makes them available as a searchable database.

An invaluable resource for understanding medieval warfare, society and the English medieval state. Learn more in the link. 🗃️

Medieval 3 Total War has been announced. "Return to roots" and "rebirth of historical total war" have been excited and concerned in equal measure and I am going to nerd out about it way too much lol.

An unpainted cookie of Robin Hood in profile, complete with feathered cap.

An absolutely gloriously painted (if I say so myself) cookie. Obviously I had to make his shirt green, but I had eight colours to use and by god I was going to use as many as I could. Went with yellow hair, the underside of his hat is brown, the top a dark navy and the (literal) feather in his cap, is some sort of mauve, or a lilac.

So I would like to preface this by saying that I have not painted anything in 7 years. And I have only ever been of modest skill (no Golden Demon awards let me put it that way). But doing this Robin Hood cookie, as silly as it sounds, has made me want to crack on with my SAGA vikings at long last.

That first one is amazing. I mean they're all amazing, it's a beautiful site, but that first picture is just something else.

But Worcester was also (I believe) the only bridge between Gloucester and Bridgnorth. There were small ferry crossings, but those wouldn't be ideal for the purpose of quickly marching an army to link up with Ralph de Guader who was Earl of East Anglia. Typical when I've got other stuff to ponder lol

For some reason I've been thinking about where Roger de Breteuil tried to cross the Severn lately. He was stopped by, among others, Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester and the Worcestershire fyrd. Worcester had a castle, so surely Roger didn't intend to bulldoze his way through/past a fortified city?

British Camp was always the highlight of the yearly walk along the Malverns my school used to do. Partially because I could sit down, mainly because it's an amazing site with equally amazing views. And the small cafe right by it selling ice cream helped as well...

Stunning pictures.

When your computer freezes on the day Crusader Kings 3's new dlc releases and this evening while trying Europa Universalis V on release day your monitor breaks and won't turn back on but you can't prove these weren't just coincidences.

Oh no.

Sharties.

I just got an email from Oxford Scholarly Editions Online that they're retiring the option to get individual subscriptions and that is, to be impressively diplomatic on my part, less than helpful. I would even go so far as to describe it as "frustrating".

Back on the trains today, this time to Norwich for a visualising Canterbury castle trip to look at the remodelled keep. Here's the latest blog on our project from Katie McGown #medievalsky castlestudiestrust.org/blog/

Bibliography of British and Irish History October 2025 update  - On History What’s new in BBIH?   The October 2025 update to the Bibliography of British and Irish History adds over 5,000 new publications. The new update includes books, journal articles, book chapters and…

The Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) has recently been updated with 5000+ new references. Discover further details about this update in this On History blog blog.history.ac.uk/2025/10/bibl... @brepols.net

Not medieval I'm afraid, but things are getting wonderfully autumnal at Croome Court.

That said the first image is not just a church on the grounds of the Court, but also the parish church of Croome D'Abitot. Who was the first Norman sheriff of Worcester? Urse d'Abetot.

Tell you what, this bloody cold thing that's been going around sucks. Not enjoyable, I would give it a 6/10.

Next you'll be saying it even came with pens!

MLGB is back!! Delighted that Medieval Libraries of Great Britain @bodleian.ox.ac.uk is now back online. We are also working had on plans for the next phase of the resource, enhancing & adding data & functionality. HUGE thanks to my colleagues for their hard & clever work mlgb.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Just goes to show how everyone should go through contracts with a fine toothed comb. Maybe we could make some sort of contract précising ai...? (I joke!)