Willow Class had a fantastic trip to Hever Castle on Wednesday 1st November, as part of out topic ‘Why do we remember the Tudors?’
We began our day with a tour round the castle and discussed the many uses of The Great Hall, discovering where musicians would sit to entertain guests while they ate. We hadn’t realised that during the early years of the castle the Great Hall was used as a bedroom as well as a place to eat!
We were very lucky to see the prayer book that was used by Anne Boleyn in which she had made her own notes. It was amazing to see something so personal to a monarch that was over 500 years old.
Once we had been on our tour of the castle, we took part in a workshop where we learnt about the different statuses within Tudor society. We found out about the clothes that were worn, as well as the fabrics that each group could afford. We then used these skills to work out which class would have eaten what meal (the children were in general horrified by the idea of eating swan!)
We had the opportunity to try our hand at some Tudor games, but enjoyed dressing up in the clothes that a noble man or royalty would have worn most of all. We were not quite so excited by the clothing of servants and peasants!
The best part of the day by far was the children having time to play in Tudor Towers. We were also fortunate that the weather was kind to us and we were able to fully explore the play area.
The children’s behaviour throughout the day was fantastic and our guides were impressed with the knowledge the children had acquired about the Tudors and the range of questions that they asked.
