In 2005 I met Paul Dawson of the Yorkshire Based French Artillerie a Pied group whom expressed an interest in having an Artillerie Train to pull his groups guns, especially the 12 pounder. He believed that at that time there was no-one in the United Kingdom with such a train. With his help I researched the subject and, not knowing much about the problems involved initially built a simple steel framed copy of a Gribeauval Limber of 1791. Using borrowed wheels we trained 2 of our horses, Uther a black and a bay mare Seren at Demelza's yard in Lancashire. Appearance wise they are not especially well matched, but worked together very well. We used various contraptions to simulate the weight of a Napoleonic 12lb cannon, but it was not until May 2006 that we first had an opportunity to pull a gun at a show in Liverpool. The photo shows Demelza riding as the driver with a wheeler pair. For this first event we made up a simple stable dress uniform. On all of our displays we generally try to keep uniforms simple, mainly because it is our horses which we show off, not the riders.

Following this initial outing I asked Robert Hurford, a skilled wheelwright from Somerset, to make us a pair of more accurate wheels. These were fitted to the same enhanced limber, and used at Detling in August of the same year. Demelza made a much better uniform for the driver and I had fun making a Shako, a new leatherwork adventure for me.

Currently I am building a more accurate wooden limber with oak and ash cut from my own woods in the Brecon Beacons. See the Craftwork page for progress. I also intend to make a Limoniere for it, an interesting attachment of shafts to use a single wheeler for mountain work. Should be a fun learning curve.