Kryal Castle man Australia’s only fulltime knight

PHILLIP Leitch is Australia’s only fulltime knight. And the Victorian is one of just a handful of people around the world making a living from the ancient and noble practice.

Lisa and Phillip Leitch with their daughter Mieka at Kryal Castle near Ballarat. Picture: Eugene Hyland

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PHILLIP Leitch is Australia’s only fulltime knight in shining armour and one of just a handful of people around the world making a living from this ancient and noble practice.

Each working day he pulls on his 35kg suit of armour, climbs aboard his trusty steed Valiant and becomes Sir Reynard, battling the forces of evil.

And he is most definitely a knight in shining armour — the custom-built suit requires hours of regular polishing to keep it gleaming.

Not only is he the resident knight at Kryal Castle, at Leigh Creek, near Ballarat, Leitch is also a world champion jouster and ex-Australian special forces soldier with experience in martial arts and historical sword fighting.

And, like a real-life knight of yesteryear, he lives with his fair lady (wife) Lisa and daughter Mieka, 14, in Kryal Castle, which has its own torture dungeon, wizard’s workroom and arena.

“For the first little while that we were here I had to pinch myself to realise what I was doing and where I was living wasn’t just a dream,” Leitch jokes.

Phillip Leitch. Picture: Andy Rogers

He jousts daily against fellow knights and shows off his “skills at arms” where riders, without armour, run an obstacle course stabbing targets, picking up rings and showing other weaponry prowess.

Most dangerous is the jousting, where two armoured knights charge at each other at speed
with lances.

During the shows at Kryal Castle the lances have balsa tips that break easily, but in national and international jousting competitions they charge at each other with metal-tipped lances.

“It’s dangerous if you don’t do it right,” he admits.

“Any time you’re in a situation where you can fall off a horse it can be dangerous as you don’t
know how you’re going to land. That’s when training comes into it, training the rider so they do what they need to do to be safe and are very aware of where their lance tip is.”

Most injuries are fairly minor with bruising, soreness and muscle tightness common, but there has been one recorded death, overseas, of a knight during jousting.

Leitch’s worst injury was a dislocated shoulder, sustained during a competition joust.

A childhood fascination of all things medieval, growing up around horses and an interest in martial arts and weaponry combined to create this most unusual pathway for the Tasmanian-born knight.

“I’ve been interested in medieval things since I was a kid — the stories of Robin Hood,
St George and the dragon and King Arthur were my favourites — and in grade 3, I made armour
out of cardboard,” he says.

“Mum always had horses so taught me to ride, but it wasn’t until later in life when I had done martial arts and weapons that I started looking at European martial arts weapons that knights used, and fighting in armour.

“Then I got the horse, the armour, got back into riding and had a go at combining them all.”

Phillip Leitch at Kryal Castle. Pictures: Andy Rogers

After teaching himself first in a back paddock, he got in touch with people already doing jousting and skill at arms and learned from them.

As well as his role at Kryal Castle, Leitch competes at the handful of jousting competitions in Australia, as well as competing in other competitions across the US, UK and Europe. He is the defending champion and back-to-back winner of Australia’s St Ives Medieval Faire, and in November took first place at Ohio’s Renaissance Festival.

Competing overseas brings a different set of challenges, riding different horses that he is unfamiliar with.

Leitch also spent three months in the US in 2011 as an assistant coach for History Channel reality TV show Full Metal Jousting.

Just a handful of other fulltime knights exist.

“Even in Europe, where it’s part of their culture and people get into their history, there’s not that many jobs going,” he says.

There are four or five other casual jousters that work at Kryal Castle, and about a dozen around Australia who compete in high-level tournaments.

Leitch says strong horsemanship is the foundation to being a good knight.

“There’s a lot of people that ride but are still not at the right confidence level and when they are put under pressure with armour and a horse getting really excited for a show, they might not be able to put it all together.

“Riding is by far the most important part of it.”

But at the end of the day, when the time to be a knight is over, Leitch is just a regular guy.

“I don’t like going around talking like I’m in the Middle Ages. After I joust I get back into my jeans and T-shirt and have a beer. I don’t really throw myself into the re-enactments.”

Phillip Leitch is this week’s Weekend liftout Country Legend

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