Saturday.

Walked into town yesterday morning to do a little shopping , and stopped for a coffee. As you can see from the above snapshot of Saint Mary's Church, it was a fine, sunny morning. It was cold though, with the wind in the North. Still, that doesn't matter too much at this time of year, as long as it's bright and sunny.

The two (above and below) photographs are both of a short, sturdy (16 inch barrel) coaching carbine which I bought in December at Bonham's, and have been cleaning and putting into good, working order since then. It was built around 1780, by Robert Wogdon, who was born in 1734, apprenticed to Edward Newton in Grantham, Lincolnshire in 1748, and then worked in London as a gunmaker until his death in 1813, at the age of 79. It has a very thick barrel, as can be seen from the next photograph.  The odd  thing is that Robert Wogdon is best remembered for making very high quality, sophisticated pairs of duelling pistols.

In view of that it is all the more surprising that he was still prepared to make this sort of solid, workmanlike  tool.

                                                   Goodnight everyone.
                                                   _________________