A journey through time

The sight of a World War I Tommy sharing a mug of tea with a Medieval archer is an unusual one, but something you should prepare yourself for if you happen to be in the area of Cressing Temple Barns near Braintree this month.

- Nicky Adams

To know who we are we must look to the past, and there are few places better to do that this month than at Cressing Temple Barns near Braintree.

‘One of the best things about the International Living History Festival is that it brings together people who love to re-enact the most important periods of Britain’s past, all in one place,’ says Dave Allan who masterminds the annual get-together, which takes place at the atmospheric Cressing Temple Barns and is now in its fifth year.

‘We’re expecting the number of visitors to top 5,000 on the weekend of April 18 to 19 because this is a festival that is fascinating for everyone, young or old, and people travel from all over the world to take part and to visit. It’s not often that you get the chance to see, hear, touch and even smell history.’

Of course, Cressing Temple Barns makes the ideal venue for the history-obsessed re-enactors to take on the characters of Bronze Age settlers, Vikings, knights, soldiers and many other figures to jump off the pages of the history books and explain to their modern-day visitors what life was really like for the people who lived in Essex through the ages.

‘There is such a rich atmosphere at Cressing Temple,’ says Dave, who hails from Dorset himself but is an admirer of the relics of the past that dot the landscape of our county. Just five miles away, nearby Braintree has been inhabited for around 4,000 years and the town’s museum (quaintly housed in the old school on Manor Street in the town centre) is full of evidence left behind by the people who lived there in the Bronze and Iron Ages, as well as the Romans and the Saxons and those who have made it their home and place of work ever since.