A SKIRMISH between Roundheads and Royalists will be re-enacted this weekend by the Sealed Knot Society at Gawthorpe Hall, Padiham.

The Society is setting up a 'living history camp' at the historic hall off Burnley Road.

The event has been organised by Lancashire County Museum Service to complement an exhibition about Colonel Richard Shuttleworth, a Parliamentary colonel who led 500 men in an ambush against Royalist forces at Read Bridge in 1643. The skirmish secured Lancashire for Cromwell.

On both Saturday and Sunday at noon, about 80 of Sir Gilbert Hoghton's Regiment of the Sealed Knot Society will demonstrate the everyday life of the soldiers on the eve of hostilities.

At 2.45pm there will be a call to arms and the regiment will march out of the courtyard to the front of the hall.

At 3pm the regiment will re-enact the battle of Read Bridge with cannons, muskets, swords and hand-to-hand fighting.

Admission is 50p.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.