Dawn Duellists Society

Dawn Duellists Society We run workshops and courses on various styles of historical sword fighting and European martial arts throughout the year.

The Dawn Duellists Society is a western martial arts group in Edinburgh dedicated to the study of armed and unarmed combat in a manner as close to the original masters of the Middle Ages, renaissance, through to the military treatises of the 19th century. If you are interested in learning to fence with us, please contact us or even better, come along - we are always keen to see new faces (although we do require you to be over 18).

15/04/2026

What a weekend! Thank you to everyone who competed and volunteered at the Herne's Cup Open! Congratulations to all our winners:

Open Longsword A:
Gold - Mark Wilkie - The Institute For Historical Arts
Silver - Nick Laing - The Institute For Historical Arts
Bronze - Ted Smith - Smart HEMA Clubs

Open Longsword B:
Gold - Harry Leng - Dawn Duellists Society
Silver - Ben Conway-Smith - Cambridge HEMA
Bronze - Rhys Howells - Academy of Steel

Women's + Longsword:
Gold - Kelsey Dame - London Historical Fencing Club
Silver - Carlie-Anne Millar - Basingstoke HEMA
Bronze - Raquel Pullicino - Smart HEMA Clubs

Open Sword & Buckler:
Gold - Patrick Rance - Smart HEMA Clubs
Silver - Mateusz Leksander - Ausardia HEMA Club
Bronze - Kristofer Stanson - Stockholm HEMA

Women's + Sword & Buckler:
Gold - Emilia Skirmuntt - The School of the Sword
Silver - Sara Pacitto - Ausardia HEMA Club
Bronze - Grace DeBanks - Ausardia HEMA Club

Open Sabre:
Gold - Kristofer Stanson - Stockholm HEMA
Silver - Mateusz Leksander - Ausardia HEMA Club
Bronze - Amir Sheikh-Warak - Ausardia HEMA Club

Women's + Rapier & Dagger:
Gold - Sophia Evans Garcia - The Renaissance Sword Club

Open Rapier & Dagger:
Gold - Patrick Rance - Smart HEMA Clubs
Silver - Robert Knowles - Smart HEMA Clubs
Bronze - Ted Smith - Smart HEMA Clubs

Photos from the event will be released in the next few weeks. Shout out again to our friends at Corvid Metalworks and Zoltan Armoury. See you all at the next big UK event - London HEMA Open

Herne's Cup will return in 2027!

04/03/2026

Monday Night Beginners
Starting next Monday (9th of March) we are going to begin running sessions on Monday evenings. Over March, these will be Freeplay, or one off classes focusing on a different weapon such as Messer or rapier.

From April, we plan to start running beginner sabre or longsword classes in six week blocks. Current DDS members will be welcome to attend these sessions, which will largely be ran with the padded swords and fencing masks that our current regular classes use.

Changes on Tuesdays and Thursdays
We want the regular sabre and longsword classes to move towards steel gear being the default. We will revise our loaner equipment to ensure people don't need to immediately buy a full set of steel gear to attend, but the expectation will be that you'll be working towards getting your own equipment rather than relying on club loaner equipment indefinitely.

New venue for Friday Freeplay
We have long been chafing at the seams in St Ninians Hall, but no longer! The new venue is twice the size, and will allow much greater leisure to explore other systems, run judged bouts, or simply spar without having one eye on the pair next to you. Fridays will be moving to the new venue on the 20th of March.

Both Mondays and Fridays new venue is the St Oswalds Centre on Montpelier Park in Morningside.
Monday nights will run from 1930 to 2130.
Fridays will run from 2000 to 2200. We may in time be able to push the start time forward a little.

The planned schedule is:
9th March: Monday Freeplay
16th March: Messer Class
20th March: First Friday in St Oswalds
23rd March: Rapier Class
30th March: Sword and Buckler Class
6th April: Beginners Longsword kicks off for six weeks

A wrap on the Burns Birthday Bash 2026!After a hard day of competition, we have:In Smallsword:🥇 Ben Hamilton 🥈 Harry Len...
28/01/2026

A wrap on the Burns Birthday Bash 2026!

After a hard day of competition, we have:

In Smallsword:

🥇 Ben Hamilton
🥈 Harry Leng
🥉 Toni Santoyo McLeod

In URG Sabre:
🥇 Ash Bell
🥈 Toni Santoyo McLeod
🥉 Euan Hamilton

In Open Sabre:
🥇 James MacGlip
🥈 Maeve McCormick
🥉 Ash Bell

Pistol Duelling:
🥇 Ben Hamilton
🥈 James MacGlip
🥉 Harry Leng

Poetry:
🥇 Jonathan Billot
🥈 Ben Hamilton
🥉 Alessandro Frozenar Inguscio

Overall Tetrathlon winner:
🥇 Ben Hamilton

Wow that's a lotta haggis, neeps and tatties, with wonderful (slightly more serious) prizes provided by .alliance.kiltmakers.

We're very grateful to everyone who came along and made it such a wonderful day, we hope to see you all next year!

Last call, link in bio, or on the website!
24/01/2026

Last call, link in bio, or on the website!

Beginners night!Another successful longsword beginners night in the books, thanks to everyone who came!
09/01/2026

Beginners night!

Another successful longsword beginners night in the books, thanks to everyone who came!

Come one, come all!The Burns Birthday Bash 2026 tickets are now live!
06/12/2025

Come one, come all!

The Burns Birthday Bash 2026 tickets are now live!

02/11/2025

We are a very serious club that does very serious things

Suite of swords!Another day, another event down, a great time had by all attendees, and as ever, bringing home some tin ...
19/10/2025

Suite of swords!

Another day, another event down, a great time had by all attendees, and as ever, bringing home some tin we've got:

Sabre 🥇and longsword 🥉

Sportsmanship award

The 🥇 winner of Lady Luck,

Stramash!That's the weekend wrapped, hosted by the incredible .swords, excellent both days, , as ever, winning the techn...
05/10/2025

Stramash!

That's the weekend wrapped, hosted by the incredible .swords, excellent both days, , as ever, winning the technical, and now she's fully flail-pilled.

I ran a wee class too, my first one at an event.

Gold! Always believe in your soul!🥇 Alyson Duffy🥈 Kat Ferguson A fantastic weekend at Edgebana, hosted by the
01/10/2025

Gold! Always believe in your soul!

🥇 Alyson Duffy
🥈 Kat Ferguson

A fantastic weekend at Edgebana, hosted by the

Back to our regular schedule, more detail on pinned.
04/09/2025

Back to our regular schedule, more detail on pinned.

That's our junior instructor classes done, in the last two weeks we've had Liam and Harry teaching sabre.Liam in Patton'...
27/08/2025

That's our junior instructor classes done, in the last two weeks we've had Liam and Harry teaching sabre.

Liam in Patton's thrusts in opposition, and Harry on elements of speed.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming soon!

Address

Edinburgh

Opening Hours

Monday 7:30pm - 9:30pm
Tuesday 7:30pm - 9pm
Thursday 7:30pm - 9:30pm
Friday 7:30pm - 9:30pm

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