Reports

TERRY HARVEY-CHADWICK “Moorforge Viking Settlement” 29th October

We were lucky this week to hear from Terry Harvey-Chadwick as he took us through the evolution of the Moorforge Viking Settlement at Gilcrux.
It began when a man called David Watson inherited the land in 2004 and made a family home there. He was a blacksmith and was fascinated by Vikings after getting involved with various re-enactment groups around the country. In 2012 he visited Iceland, saw various Viking buildings and was particularly interested in a Viking forge he saw there. He asked the Icelander to visit his home having come up with the idea of replicating it on his land back in Cumbria. With his help David built his …complete with stone walls and wooden larch roof.
The forge opened to the public in 2014 which was when Terry got involved. They built a (shortened) Longhouse and had ambitions to create even more buildings and asked the Grampus heritage group to get involved. They did and took everyone involved to Denmark to give them help in the building of their Bell Tower.
The group have since thrived and albeit with a dip in activities due to Covid they now have visiting school groups, University groups, fire-walking, Viking cookery presentations and Viking story telling sessions. They built a new (longer) Long House in 2022 and you can sign up to their really popular Viking Experience weekends.
Grampus have since found and excavated a real Viking settlement 8 miles from Moorforge and it looks as if the area will be delighting locals and tourists with its Viking atmosphere for years to come.
It was a great talk and Terry’s enthusiasm for the project really shone through.