Dip thy quill and write to me

My Other Projects

My SCA Life

My Other Life

travellers have passed this way...

FIRST PURCHASE MADE!

Check it out - we have a pair of horse brasses for the vardo! Now I really feel like we've started.

This one is my lady's. It's of Elizabeth the First.

This one is mine. It's a rooster with a trumpet, which is really cool, since the major charge of my arms is a rooster, and the trumpet is in keeping with my being a herald. But before we found these, we found this:

(Click on the photo for the full-size image)

HELLO, AND WELCOME

to the biggest, most ambitious project I've undertaken to date! What is this project, you ask? Why, nothing less than to design and build a Romany vardo!

What is a vardo?

In simplest terms, a vardo is the Romany, or Roma name for a living wagon or caravan. From a strictly functional standpoint, any modern RV or travel trailer could qualify; indeed, the modern travel trailer as we know it today was very likely strongly influenced by the Roma's caravans.

Why on earth…?

My reasons for wanting to do this are many, and may be summed up as follows, and not necessarily in this order:

• Although active in the Society for Creative Anachronism, at the age of 43 I find the allure of living under canvas to be not so much these days.
• The problem with a modern trailer, though, is that one is usually relegated to the farthest corners of events, since for some reason modern tents and earth-warts are acceptable at events but trailers aren't
• They look extremely cool and not at all modern.
• I have a hankering to make a pilgrimage at least once more to Pennsic, and what better way than a road trip across the continent, towing a vardo behind my car?

Based on preliminary discussions with other gentles who have built vardos, it's entirely possible my homebuilt vardo will weigh less than my current, modern trailer. It will certainly have less windage, as I intend to shamelessly plagiarize… er, borrow the idea of a lowering top from other vardo builders, such as Rachel the Goatwoman.

At the moment, the plan is to spruce up and sell my existing trailer. This will not be something I can slap together for a couple hundred dollars. It will likely run between $5,000 and $7,000 before all is said and done. So the first item of business is to raise the scratch to pay for it.

Graphic based on a design from Rachel the Goatwoman's photographs of her brother's vardo.
© 2007 William Underhill.