ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the construction of a waggon designed and intended to be used by ‘mariners or soldiers’ as depicted in the illustration in Hugh Platte’s The Jewell House of Art and Nature (1594). Like pageant vehicles at the mystery plays at York, Chester and Coventry, this waggon was intended to be drawn by men ‘in steade of horses’. The chapter examines the construction of Platte’s waggon and its potential relationship with pageant vehicles. Platte’s waggon made use of an early form of ‘turning train’ to enable the waggon to turn: there is no evidence of pageant vehicles making use of turning trains. There is evidence of both Platte’s waggon and pageant vehicles at Chester being taken apart for transport and storage.
