Guided Tour

Guided Tour

What is it? 

A guided tour is the practice of an individual leading a group of people around a point of interest and giving them information about it, which can cover topics such as religious significance, cultural history and how it relates to other locations and events in history. 

What does it involve?

Attending a guided tour basically just involves paying attention! All the work is done for you in finding out the facts and presenting them in an interesting manner; the role of the participant just calls for a level of interest in your surroundings and an eagerness to learn!

Why do it and what are the benefits?

Tour guides can be extremely educational - physically interacting with the place while learning about its history will provide a different kind of academic experience to the classroom by giving the students something more tangible to focus on.

What equipment do we need?

You shouldn't need any equipment for a guided tour, but check beforehand to make sure; some tours involve their participants even further by getting them to write down their own thoughts, or make drawings - so you may need to ensure students have something to write on!

Who is it suitable for?

Guided Tours are suitable for pretty much anybody if you pick the right one - smaller children will find it harder to focus on more complex subjects and will need more visual aids, but if they are engaged correctly they will have a great time! Likewise, teenage students will get bored if the subject isn't engaging enough, so make sure to choose the tour appropriate for the age and interests of the group. 

Costs?

Around £20 or less per person, but it can vary greatly depending on the location of the tour - for example, a minibus tour around a park will cost more than a short walk around a country manor! Make sure to shop around to get an idea of the prices in your area. 

Issues/Things to think about? (unsuitable for age groups, medical conditions etc)

A guided tour should be suitable for all ages, but students with condtions such has ADHD may have trouble focusing for an extended period of time - make sure to be aware of the specific needs of your group. 

How do we include?

Many guided tours have disabled access for those with limited physical movement, but it would be wise to doublecheck beforehand. Those who are deaf and blind can also be included in guided tours but may need more specialist staff - again, you will need to check with the specific establishments. 

Doing it abroad?

There are points of public interest all around the world, so wherever you can find something well known chances are there will be a guided tour available! Foreign tours may be conducted in another language though, so make sure to confirm the specifications of the tour before booking it. 

Main website: 

This website gives a good overview of places where you can go for a tour guide, but you're best looking at the specific areas around you to find out details!

 

See the list below for venues and providers who deliver this activity:

Bolingbroke Castle

Venue Type: 
Castles
Overall Rating: 
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The remains of a 13th century hexagonal castle, birthplace in 1367 of the future King Henry IV, with adjacent earthworks.

Bolingbroke Castle was one of three castles built by Ranulf de Blundeville, Earl of Chester and Lincoln, in the 1220s after his return from the Crusades (the others being Beeston Castle, Cheshire, and Chartley, Staffordshire).

After Blundeville’s death, the castle remained in the ownership of the Earls of Lincoln and was later inherited through marriage by John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

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Ludgershall Castle and Cross

Venue Type: 
Castles
Overall Rating: 
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Situated just 10 miles away from prehistoric Stonehenge is a medieval fortress. Built in the late 11th century, today only ruins and earthworks remain.  

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Whalley Abbey Gatehouse

Venue Type: 
Religious Buildings
Overall Rating: 
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The 14th-century gatehouse of the nearby Cistercian abbey, the second wealthiest monastery in Lancashire, beside the River Calder. The first floor was probably a chapel.

Whalley Abbey, second richest of Lancashire’s monasteries, was founded in 1296, when the monks of Stanlaw moved there from their flood-prone site on the Cheshire shore of the River Mersey near Ellesmere Port.

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Prior's Hall Barn

Venue Type: 
Historic Buildings & Monuments
Overall Rating: 
0

Prior’s Hall Barn is one of the finest surviving medieval barns in the east of England. Its wood is tree-ring dated to the mid-15th century. It boasts a breathtaking aisled interior and crown post roof, the product of some 400 oaks.

In an age when timber was plentiful, and a great barn epitomised the prosperity of a landowner, the building provided scope for the craft of the carpenter on a scale otherwise found only in medieval great halls and church roofs.

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Wingfield Manor

Venue Type: 
Historic Buildings & Monuments
Overall Rating: 
0

The vast and immensely impressive ruins of a palatial medieval manor house arranged round a pair of courtyards, with a huge undercrofted Great Hall and a defensible High Tower 22 metres (72 feet) tall.

This monument to late medieval ‘conspicuous consumption’ was built in the 1440s for the wealthy Ralph, Lord Cromwell, Treasurer of England. Later the home of Bess of Hardwick’s husband, the Earl of Shrewsbury, who imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots here in 1569, 1584 and 1585.

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Hardknott Roman Fort

Venue Type: 
Historic Buildings & Monuments
Overall Rating: 
0

This remote and dramatically-sited fort was founded under Hadrian's rule in the 2nd century.

Well-marked remains include the headquarters building, commandant's house and bath house. The site of the parade ground survives beside the fort, and the road which Hardknott guarded can be traced for some distance as an earthwork.

The fort at Hardknott was established early in the second century AD: a fragmentary inscription, dating from the reign of the Emperor Hadrian (117–38), from the south gate records the garrison as the Fourth Cohort of Dalmatians, from the Balkans.

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Meare Fish House

Venue Type: 
Historic Buildings & Monuments
Overall Rating: 
0

The only surviving monastic fishery building in England, this housed the Abbot of Glastonbury's water bailiff and provided facilities for fish-salting and drying.

The Fish House was built for Glastonbury Abbey in the 1330s. It stands in a beautiful position by the site of a long-drained lake (the ‘mere’) on the Somerset Levels. The building’s design shows that it was not meant, as usually claimed, for processing or storing fish, but as a house.

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Long Crendon Courthouse

Medieval courthouse
Venue Type: 
Historic Buildings & Monuments
Overall Rating: 
0

The courthouse is a fine example of an early 15th-century timber-frame construction, set in an idyllic village. The ground floor (now tenanted) was the village poor house. You can visit an exhibition on the village in this property. Please note, there are very steep stairs.

The courthouse was the base for parish activities for four hundred years and was the venue for the annual manorial court which dealt with tithes and crimes such as selling bad fish, brewing without a licence, or overcharging customers.

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Roche Abbey

Venue Type: 
Religious Buildings
Overall Rating: 
0

Beautifully set in a valley landscaped by ‘Capability’ Brown in the 18th Century. Roche Abbey has one of the most complete ground plans of any English Cistercian monastery, laid out as excavated foundations. 

The soaring early Gothic transepts of this Cistercian monastery still survive to their original height and are ranked in importance with the finest early Gothic architecture in Britain. 

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Lindisfarne Island

Venue Type: 
Religious Buildings
Overall Rating: 
0

Lindisfarne is a delightful, unspoiled, historic island lies just off the extreme Northeast corner of England near Berwick-upon-Tweed. The small population of just over 160 persons is swelled by the influx of over 650,000 visitors from all over the world every year.

It is a holy and inspirational place which is famous for producing the Lindisfarne Gospels, the oldest and best-known version of the first four books of the New Testament.

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