Over 1,000 years ago Cumbria was home to Vikings and today – thanks to one ambitious project – it still is.
Moorforge Viking Settlement, based in Gilcrux, near Cockermouth, is bringing ancient history back to life through its historically accurate life-sized Viking village and team of reenactors.
Owned by blacksmith David Watson, 63, the education and heritage centre hosts everything from school trips to Viking skills courses, reenactment events and folk music jam sessions.
It’s a mostly self-funded project that has been slowly growing into a community asset for the past 12 years and is now quickly gaining in popularity as the site continues to expand.
More recent developments at the site include the creation of a new Viking longhouse as well as the hosting of regular events that are open to the wider public.
This weekend, Moorforge is set to hold its second annual ancient crafts festival on Saturday 4, Sunday 5 and Monday 6 May – which will feature over 20 stalls, a food vendor and an evening folk jam session.
Stall holders attending will largely be in Viking-age dress and will be doing demonstrations and selling a variety of products, mostly made using traditional techniques such as woodturning and tablet weaving.
Craftsperson and reenactor Ash Harrison, 40, of Kendal, who is organising the event, said: “Events like this craft festival help keep ancient technologies alive and are great chance for the community to step back in time and find out about local history.
“There will be something for everyone, we’ve got everything from textiles, to metal, glass and woodwork, jewellery makers, basket weavers and more.
“We’ve also got a lady coming from a heritage group that does storytelling with puppets for children, and there’s animals on site including chickens, sheep and a few emus, so there’s plenty for families to enjoy.
“Saturday will also be the debut of our new longhouse, which has just got its roof on now and is double the size of the other longhouse we have, so we are expecting a good amount of people on site.
“We’re hoping to set in stone this Beltane bank holiday weekend as our annual craft festival so everyone knows this time of year is when it will go ahead and hopefully that will attract more and more people as the years go on.”
On top of event plans and the addition of the new longhouse – owner David is also planning to add Viking hut-inspired glamping pods to the site, an animal barn and an early Christian chapel.
He said: “We’re still in early days but we’re slowly building it up. We have obtained some external funding for the longhouse, but anything we do that raises money is going back into developing the site at the moment.
“There’s various other authentic paths and fences I want to create to enclose the site and make it even more so a step back in time and we want to fully hide all the modern stuff as it were.
“But I’m getting the ball rolling this year more with next year in mind, because as we get more buildings and structures in place and the site becomes more developed and everything gets tidied and sorted, we’re rolling towards doing more and more things.”
Moorforge first came to exist after David met an Icelandic archaeologist through his involvement with youth work around 20 years ago.
He said: “It all started when I went self-employed and I went to see a chap called Martin Clark who has a company called Grampus Heritage which is a non-profit that manages and promotes European projects on heritage and archaeology.
“I went asking about setting up grants but what he was doing was European youth exchanges through the Erasmus training youth support project, so I ended up working with him on that.
“As a blacksmith by trade I worked with him and his students doing projects and through these projects around 12 years ago I met an archaeologist from Iceland.
“She was doing a reconstruction of an iron smelt and she asked if I wanted to go out and help with it, so I did that and while I was there she asked if I wanted to be a partner.
“What came out of that eventually is I ended up with a small Viking period forge on my land as part of the Erasmus project.
“We had young people from Europe and all over up to build the forge, but after it was built, I then thought, what am I going to do with a Viking age forge?”
David said the combination of his new Viking forge and his interest in local history ended up leading him to build the site’s first longhouse.
He added: “I’d always had an interest in local history and working on the forge had got us even more interested. I found out about Viking settlements on the Solway plain area and thought a forge alone is no use, so I built the longhouse.
“Everyone talks about the Romans in West Cumbria, but there’s very little mention of the Vikings, so I thought it would be good to cater towards that.
“So as the site grew in interest we kept building and we’re now here and I think people really do enjoy the site.
“It’s a break from the modern world, life is full of stresses and I think a lot of people find it to be a release and a chance to chill and live like they did 1,000 years ago”.
Moorforge’s craft fair will take place on Saturday 4, Sunday 5 and Monday 6 May this year from 10am until 5pm.
Tickets cost £5 on the gate and those under 16 go free.
The Folk Cumbria music night will take place on Saturday night from 7pm until midnight. Tickets are available on Moorforge’s Facebook page.
Parking is available on site and dogs are welcome on a lead. Pet owners are warned that other animals will also be present on site.
