CastleTrek Challenge raises £20,000 for charities CastleTrek have completed their mammoth 480 mile challenge from Windsor Castle to Edinburgh Castle in only 10 days and raised £20,000 for the Household Cavalry Foundation and the Royal British Legion in the process. See them cross the (rather wet) finishing line here. Find out more about their epic journey here. and once you’re rightly impressed, HELP THEM RAISE MORE by donating here. Thank you.
Castle Trek The Household Cavalry Museum support the Castle Trek challenge! We’re hugely excited to be supporting the Regiment’s Castle Trek team as they undertake a 446 mile walk from Windsor Castle to Edinburgh Castle over 10 days to raise funds for the Household Cavalry Foundation and the Royal British Legion. From 31 March we will be displaying kit, rations and planning information to help visitors understand what it takes to accomplish such a great achievement. From July we’ll be following their progress from start to finish with an on-site map and on-line social media posts. On 7 August this epic journey will end with the lads crossing the finishing line as part of the Edinburgh Tattoo. Tickets are available now at https://www.edintattoo.co.uk For further information please see their website http://castletrek.org.uk through which offers of help and support are also much appreciated. 29th July – Windsor to Bletchley (starting at Windsor Castle) 30th July – Bletchley to Coleshill 31st July – Coleshill to Derby 1st August – Derby to Doncaster 2nd August – Doncaster to York 3rd August – York to Catterick 4th August – Catterick to Sunderland 5th August – Sunderland to Otterburn 6th August – Otterburn to Kelso to Peebles 7th August – Peebles to Edinburgh (being at Edinburgh castle for the tattoo)
The Marquis of Granby On this day, July 31st, a great military tradition attached to our regiment was born… and the heritage of a great many pubs founded. The Battle of Warburg, July 31st 1760: Fighting in the Seven Years War rages on between an allied coalition of British and Hanoverian forces against a French army. Whilst leading the Blues in battle, the regiment’s beloved Colonel John Manners, Marquis of Granby, loses his hat and wig in a gallant charge and carries on until the battle is won. As the dust settles the hero is forced to salute his commanding officer bareheaded... Though unheard of at the time, this moment gave birth to a tradition that continues to this day: still now, non-commissioned officers and troopers of the Blues and Royals are the only soldiers in the British Army allowed to salute without headdress. John Manners, Marquis of Granby One of the many notable figures in the Household Cavalry’s history, John Manners, Marquis of Granby was a prominent figure, known not just in the regiment, but throughout the whole British Army. Born 2nd January 1721, eldest son of the 3rd Duke of Rutland, by the tender age of 20 he was serving as an MP for the borough of Grantham, and aged just 25 received a military commission as Colonel of a regiment raised by his father to fight the Jacobite uprising under Bonnie Prince Charlie. Whilst the regiment remained at Newcastle, Granby volunteered to accompany the Duke of Cumberland on the final stages of a campaign into Scotland and was present at the Battle of Culloden, 16th April 1746. When Manners’s regiment mutinied due to lack of payment, he paid them out of his own pocket before they were disbanded. He retained his rank and campaigned in Flanders in 1747, serving as an Intelligence Officer for Cumberland and gaining an even greater reputation as a soldier and a leader of men. By 1752, Manners was suggested for the position of Colonel of the Royal Horse Guards (the Blues) but it took a further 6 years of parliamentary advancement before he gained the Royal support required for such a position. On 18th March 1755 he was promoted to Major-General and finally appointed Colonel of the Blues on 27th May 1758. Granby was one of the first officers to not only recognise the importance of welfare and morale amongst troops, but to address the issue. The impact of his leadership changed the character of British soldiering and thus so improved, the properly led army proved unbeatable in war. As a sign of respect, nearly all portraits of Granby depict him mounting a horse, or helping the wounded. To this day, Granby is particularly remembered in the military for his custom of helping old soldiers from his regiment retire into sustainable work, ensuring they were able to support both themselves and their families. Subsequently, and perhaps more widely appreciated, he is believed to have more public houses in Britain named after him than any other person!
The Household Battalion: Passchendaele An excerpt from the Household Cavalry Regiment Battlefield Tour of the Salient: the Household Battalion. By mid 1917 The Russian army had disintegrated in Revolution and gone home, the French battered by unreasonable calls on their courage and endurance had mutinied and effectively removed themselves from the fight, or at least from any thoughts of further attacks for the time being and the Americans, although now in the war, had not yet arrived in any numbers. The weight of the 1917 offensives fell, disproportionately, on the shoulders of the British Expeditionary Force and Imperial troops. Passchendaele, the 3rd Battle of Ypres began on 31st July 1917 with the initial aim, rapidly proved to be impossible, of breaking through the German lines and heading in strength towards the channel coast. It is depressing but needs to be said at this stage, that 3rd Battle of Ypres, although neither as long nor as bloody as the Somme in 1916, killed and wounded more British soldiers per mile of territory gained: 8,200 as opposed to 5,000 on the Somme. The Household Battalion was not involved in the early part of the battle as they were still recovering from their mauling at Arras. On 12th October they went back into action at Poelcappelle against a few pillboxes and blockhouse marked on the maps as Requette farm where fighting had been going on since 9th October. The battle, if it can be called such, was a shambles and men were lost by drowning in mud and flooded shell holes. The farm was taken by part of a company, held briefly and lost again as the remnants of the Battalion fell back under its last three remaining officers all of whom had started the day in the Support companies. The Battalion was utterly exhausted and not a single NCO above the rank of Corporal remained unwounded. The Battalion was relieved that night by their own reserve under the command of the CO, the Adjutant and the Battalion Corporal Major. The reckoning was the loss of over 400 casualties for a temporary advance of 600 yards of shell shattered swamp. The Battalion went back into rest at Arras where it received its final draft of 400 reinforcements from Windsor. Read more about the Household Cavalry Regimental Associations’ Battlefield Tour to Ypres here.
Household Cavalry Regimental Associations Battlefield Tour 2017 Ypres Salient, 1914 and 1917 Under the brilliant guidance of our very own Curator, Pete Storer, the Household Cavalry Regimental Associations spent three packed days in Ypres Salient learning about not only the lost lives of the brave, but little known, Household Battalion, but about all those who fought valiantly in the Salient one hundred years ago. Since being razed to the ground during the Great War, the beautiful town of Ypres has risen from the ashes and been rebuilt stone by stone. Since 1928, at the Menin Gate at 20:00hrs every evening, the Last Post, traditional final salute to the fallen, has been played by buglers in honour of the memory of the soldiers of the former British Empire and its allies, who died in the Ypres Salient during the First World War. Through seeing this ceremony, the area’s lovingly maintained cemeteries and painstakingly preserved trenches, as well as an incredible number of names recognising unknown graves, the full impact of the Great War truly hits home. On behalf of the Household Cavalry Museum, the Regimental Associations and the entire Regiment, we thank the people of Belgium for their moving nightly vigil over the Menin Gate, their guardianship of these cemeteries and their work in striving towards being a beacon of hope for all our futures. We highly recommend a visit to Ypres Salient. So to help you on your way, here is our itinerary and and recommended places for you to visit on your next trip: The Menin Gate (Last Post, at 20:00hrs nightly) Tyne Cot cemetery Passchendaele Museum, Zonnebeke Chateau and trenches Langemarcke-Poelcappelle and German Cemetery Household Cavalry Memorial, Zandvoorde Canadian Memorial on Hill 62 Hooge Crater Cemetery and the Menin Road Zillebeke Church and the “Aristocrat’s Graveyard” Hill 60 preserved trenches, bunkers and “The Caterpillar” crater Ypres town extension cemetery Walking the ramparts at Ypres to the Ramparts cemetery. More information on military engineer and fortifications architect Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban, Seigneur de Vauban and later Marquis de Vauban (1633-1707) can be found here. St Georges Church, Ypres
