Kevin Alviti is inspired by a day trip to Warwick Castle to carve a medieval-style toy

As we get older, memories of our childhood seem to fade a little bit, or they do for me, replaced by others or slipping until something jogs them. I often wonder what our children will remember of their childhood. Will it be the nice memories we try to cultivate, with joyful meals and days out, or the ones where I snapped and lost my temper? One thing I can remember vividly from myown childhood was castles. Lots and lots of castles. I was really into medieval history – well, more to the point I was really into sword fighting with my brother.
And by swords, I mean hazel sticks. We’d play for hours, pretending to be Robin Hood or some other outlaw, and every story we created would end in a sword fight to the death. Well, to the death or until one of us got hit on the hand by the other and went running of f to mum or dad.
The other day it was my nephew’s birthday, so we all went to Warwick Castle. I can still remember going when I was around eight or nine, that feeling of walking in – they’re incredible buildings. Going back now there are so many details I notice. It’s hard to go to a place like that as a craf tsman and not be inspired, but what was lovely was to see all the children completely awestruck by the scale of the castle, especially when we climbed the towers.
Being a tourist attraction there were lots of ‘souvenirs’ for sale, the coolest being a wooden toy sword. They cost more than I was willing to spend, and I managed to convince my boy, Alistair, that I’d make him a much better one when we got home. I honestly couldn’t wait to start making it, such a fun project to equip my knight. I had a sort through the woodpile and found a piece of ash to make the blade and a chunk of sycamore to make the guard. Sycamore is far easier to carve than ash, so I was taking the path of least resistance when I picked it up. I’m sure if I’d found some oak for the blade then this would have been perfect as well.
Things you will need
Materials
- One length of ash, 730 x 50 x 18mm
- Sycamore for guard 180 x 50 x 38mm
- Wood glue
- Leather glue or superglue
- Leather for the handle, 18mm strip approximately 450mm long
Tools
- Planer
- Tablesaw
- Bandsaw






































