Local students were catapulted into a medieval world at McCarthy Catholic College this week to witness the firing of an ancient weapon, the Trebuchet.
McCarthy’s Experimental Archaeology Club have been busy constructing a replica of a medieval Trebuchet, a siege weapon used to hurl boulders at castle walls and terrorise its inhabitants.
The 25 students who were involved in the club spent an afternoon after school each week creating the weapon, including the paper-mache ‘heads’ to fire, whilst learning about medieval history and finally had the opportunity to test the weapon on Tuesday.
“They learn by re-creating and as you can imagine it is a lot more interesting than reading about it in a text book,” said Owen Laffin, Assistant Head of HSIE and co-ordinator of the Experimental Archaeology Club.
The co-ordinators have big plans for the club next year, there are even talks of a Trojan horse replica big enough to fit some students inside.
