Building Roundway Down out of Really Useful Boxes and Masking Tape

For our refight of Roundway Down, I decided wanted to have a hill 12' long, covering the entire battlefield. Here are the stages involved in assembling it, for the big game on Saturday.

First, we arranged 36 spare (!) Really Useful Boxes on a table. I had thought I'd brought way too many, since they filled the car but in fact I only had just enough. The top of the hill, at the back, is two 9L boxes high, around 12".

Above, next we covered the boxes with 6mm MDF boards

Next (again above) we taped the edges of the boards together, to stop them slipping.

Next we covered the boards with rug gripper. This adds structural strength and stops the top cloths slipping during play.

Finally, we laid a black cloth over it, covering the sides, another layer of rug gripper with a terrain cloth over the top of that, and a light random scattering of trees.  Job done, ready for the troops to be set up in the morning!

Below is the real hill at Roundway Down, looking up towards the Parliamentarian position on the crest, as photographed on a recent research trip with Andrew Brentnall, on the anniversary of the battle, showing the slightly-parched July pasture, which is a pretty good match for our cloth.

I hope to see lots of you at Colours tomorrow! We are on the second floor, near the Bring and Buy.