^Cannon^
There are many steps involved in shooting a cannon. First, you take a bag of gunpowder and shove it in through the front of the cannon. Then, you take the block part of the worm (a long metal pole with a corkscrew on one end and a block on the other end), and shove the bag of gunpowder into the cannon as far as you can. You should then put the cannon ball into the cannon and press it back with the worm. Someone would then put more gunpowder in the little hole ontop of the cannon. He would then stick the fuse in and turn to cover his ears. The cannon then blows and the ball is forced out by the explosion. After the shot had been fired, someone would put the [corkscrew] side of the worm into the cannon, turn it, and then pull it out to bring out the remains of the bag of gunpowder. The other man would then take the sponge, (a long metal pole with a sponge at the end), dip it in water, and then shove it into the cannon to cool it off. A cannon crew could do all of this in about 30 seconds. They would just repeat this process to shoot another cannon ball. The cannons were put on wooden platforms, like the one in the pictures above and below.
These platforms were put there because when the cannon would blow, it would be pushed backwards. As you can see, the platform slopes downward, toward the hole in the wall, so that the cannon would roll back to the wall, where it was to be fired again.
When the cannon was not in use, the cannon would be pulled back and a strong, wooden door was shut over the hole. We tried moving the doors and they are actually a lot heavier than they look. Here is a picture of the doors...
^The door over the cannon holes^
^Reanactors firing a cannon^
