Stalls! Ideas For a Medieval-looking Stall. REPRODUCTION STALL - DARK AGE TENT - MARKET UMBRELLA TENT - OTHER TENTS - BOOTHS REPRODUCTION STALL Not everyone has access to a medieval stall like the one above, which was built as a copy from a 15th century manuscript. DARK AGE TENT The basic construction of these is fairly simple and it comes apart for transport and storage fairly easily. The "roof" is actually the second side of the tent which is raised and propped up. The side is dropped at night to make an actual tent that you can store things in or sleep in. For extra stability, pieces can be added at the bottom of the sides. This photo was taken at History Alive, a QLHF event and it belongs to a fellow re-enactor. Although I took the photo, I don't have permission from the owner to use the image on this website. If it's your tent, please contact me for permission or removal of the picture. MARKET UMBRELLA TENT A great idea to making a tent to store all your stock. All you'd need is a table out the front to sell from. You would replentish your table throughout the day. Here is an abridged article on how to make one. The article was originally intended for re-enactors and included a great deal of information and thought process which doesn't really apply to a stallholder who is after the general look. It is taken from the Dragonwing website and used with permission. Click their logo to visit their website and the entire article. DRAGONWING MEDIEVAL TENTMAKERS September's Column: Adventures in Tent Design. How I Turned a Market Umbrella into a Medieval Arming Tent. "I've seen a lot of tents that use market umbrellas as a basic structure. In theory, it's one of the simplest tents to improvise ... just buy a market umbrella and contrive some sort of sidewall for it that attaches to the ends of the spokes (or is sewn to the border of the umbrella fabric) at the top and stakes into the ground at the bottom. At the site, insert the center pole of the umbrella into a "portable hole" (or have somebody hold the pole up), stake down the bottom of the sidewalls, and voila! Instant pavilion! The market umbrella frame, when disassembled, was compact enough. It even came with its own handy breakdown fitting. The market umbrella frame dictated that I make the walls out of a much lighter cloth, since I didn't think the frame was strong enough to carry the load of a heavier canvas. So for the sidewalls, I used a seven-ounce cotton twill. The other reason I designed the panels to be 36" at the base is that I wanted to shorten the spokes of the umbrella and therefore reduce the "lever arm" forces acting on the slider mechanism. These spokes weren't designed to have the downward forces of the sidewalls acting on them, but my gut feeling was that shortening these puppies a few inches would do the trick. It turned out that by shortening them five inches, the points would be about 33" inches apart ... enough to accomodate a 35" cloth and leave enough on the sides for a seam allowance. So that is the amount I shortened them. The sidewalls flare out about three feet on a side because I also wanted to eliminate the guy ropes to save weight and set-up time. I wasn't entirely willing to trust the fabric to take up the job of the ropes, though, because cotton stretches a lot. So I sewed a light but very strong Nylon webbing (MIL-T 5038 Type III, if that means anything to you) into each vertical seam to actually carry the load. Since the umbrella was an octagon, there would be eight panels in the sidewall. The cloth came 60" wide, so allowing for seams, the floor of the tent would be an octagon about 12' wide measured across the points, or 11' measured across the flat sides. The usable interior space would be less, since the walls slope. I thought seriously about sewing the top of the sides to the roof. If I were willing to sacrifice some portability, I would have done so, since it would have saved the weight of sixteen S-hooks. But it would have made a single unwieldy parcel of two somewhat more wieldy parcels, so I opted to have them detach. That also gives me the option of washing the sides in a conventional washing machine. The walls are currently hung from the eight umbrella spokes with eight S-hooks, but I've decided that this arrangement doesn't provide quite enough support on top, so I'll sew eight loops onto the inside of the valance, midway between the spokes, and use eight more S-hooks. The design goes up with a portable hole, which is itself a pretty heavy piece of hardware, but isn't necessary if I can enlist somebody's help to hold the umbrella up while I hang and stake out the sidewalls. From bags to stake-down, set-up time is about ten minutes. Break-down time is about seven minutes. The tent hasn't been in any extreme weather yet, although one of the places it was set up was quite breezy and it seemed to shrug off the wind without complaint." OTHER TENTS to be updated BOOTHS to be updated   SURFED IN? RETURN TO THE HOME PAGE   ALL TEXT & IMAGES REMAIN THE PROPERTY OF THE ORIGINAL COPYRIGHT HOLDERS INCLUDING THE ABBEY MUSEUM OF ART & ARCHAEOLOGY INC, MARK GREENMANTLE AND ROSALIE GILBERT NO PART OF THIS WEBSITE MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION