A huge fortification begun during the Napoleonic Wars and completed in the 1860s, designed to protect Dover from French invasion. Only the moat can be visited. Part of the White Cliffs Countryside Project.
History
History
History tells stories about people, places and things to help explain to young people of any age why the world is as it is as they grow up and begin to question it.
Schools will choose different periods and settings and topics to cove during different Key Stages, but all of them are pretty well guaranteed to be rooted in actual places that can be visited, explored and enjoyed.
It has been a curious fact that for many years primary classes have studied the Roman, Anglo-Saxon and medieval periods, while secondary school syllabuses have been more engaged in post-medieval periods. For a while secondary courses involved a great deal of ‘topic work’. While this discipline still exists, the recent examination syllabuses have returned to an emphasis on historical periods and links.
But all periods and topics provide fantastic opportunities for school visits. We are so lucky that so many general and specialist museums and visitor centres exist in the UK. The problem is not a shortage of possibilities but how one sifts through the available opportunities to make choices.
The Historical Association website carries information about course, conferences, study tours, and the Association has published ‘The Historian’ magazine for many years. Handsam is also happy to help, please contact us on 03332 070737 or email info@schooltripsadvisor.org.uk.
Most venues will have teaching materials and activities geared to students’ different ages and aptitudes whether at primary or secondary level. All of them will set out to develop students’ ability to understand, analyse and evaluate key features and characteristics of historical periods and events studied.
Some venues will be easy to identify because they fit neatly with the period and topic being studied but others may offer new possibilities, not least to the teachers themselves. Teachers need and deserve their own stimulation.
Over the next four years there will be an upsurge in visits to the First World War battlefields. Because of this there will be an increase in companies offering visits and requirement for battlefield guides, especially in northern France and Belgium. There are bound to be discrepancies in guides’ knowledge and experience. Close research into the credentials of the company you are contracting with, and the company’s guarantees about guides, will ensure that your group will not be disappointed.
Main organisations:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Inclusion: NASEN
Thought of visiting?
Roman Vindolanda and Roman Army Museum at Hadrian’s Wall
Viriconium, Wroxeter, Shropshire
The Jorvik Viking Centre, York
Offa’s Dyke Trail and Chirk Castle
The National Trust for Scotland
Clan Donald Visitor Centre, Isle of Skye
Bosworth Battlefield Visitor Centre
Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin
Exeter Cathedral Education Centre
The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
The Mary Rose Museum, Portsmouth
East Anglia Railway Museum, Colchester
The National Tramway Museum, Matlock
Venues for this Curriculum
Pallant House Gallery is home to one of the best collections of Modern British art in the UK, with works by Henry Moore, Walter Sickert, Ben Nicholson, Eduardo Paolozzi and Peter Blake.
Founded in 1852, Brookwood, or the London Necropolis, had its own railway connection to London. Once the world's largest cemetery, it contains some 240,000 graves, among them those of Saxon king Edward the Martyr (d. 978), American-born painter John Singer Sargent (d. 1925) and novelist Dame Rebecca West (d.1983).
The Museum of Eton Life tells the story of the foundation of the College in 1440 and provides a glimpse into the world of the Eton schoolboy past and present.
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).
Situated just 10 miles away from prehistoric Stonehenge is a medieval fortress. Built in the late 11th century, today only ruins and earthworks remain.
The foundations of a small medieval church on Bredenstone Hill, traditionally the site of King John's submission to the Papal Legate in 1213.
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.
The tall shaft of a 15th century cross, on the site of an annual fair held from the 1100s until the 1950s.
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.
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.
The West Glamorgan Archive Service is a joint service for the Councils of the City and County of Swansea and Neath Port Talbot County Borough.
We collect documents, maps, photographs, film and sound recordings relating to all aspects of the history of West Glamorgan.
Curious to find out more about your family history? Your house? Your town or village? Your industrial history?
In the Six Wells Bottom National Trust Valley, near Stourhead and King Alfred's Tower, stands the impressive Grade I listed St Peter's Pump.
Built in 1474, the pump originally stood near St Peter's Church at the west corner of Peter Street, Bristol and was used by residents as a main water supply.
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.
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 impressive full-height 15th-century tower and other remains of a remote abbey of Premonstratensian 'white canons'.
Shap Abbey is in a remote valley that was once home to a community of Premonstratensian canons. Living a contemplative monastic life, these canons also served as priests in nearby parishes.
Much-restored Tudor house, park and garden with notable topiary
The culmination of a lifetime of dreams: salvaged objects and exotic pieces come together in a Jacobean meets Edwardian style. Beautiful, homely, warm and welcoming. We can't put it better than a visitor in the 1920s did: A house to dream of, a garden to dream in.
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 remains of an ancient Iron Age village in a wonderfully scenic location. On the hill above stands a Bronze Age burial mound with entrance passage and inner chamber.
There is evidence of extensive and permanent settlement on the Isles of Scilly from around 2500 BC. At that time the sea level was lower and much of Scilly formed a single landmass.
Last remaining galleried inn in London
Dating from the 17th century this public house, leased to a private company, is London's last remaining galleried inn.
Did you know?
Medieval courthouse
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.
This unique museum is situated in Nay, between Lourdes and Pau, in the heart of the Bearn.
It gives an insight into the history of beret manufacturing, from the earliest times to the present day.
One of the UK's first stone-built churches, St. Peter’s, built on land given by King Ecgfrith to St. Benedict Biscop in 673 AD, is the earlier of the twin site (along with St Paul's Monastery, Jarrow.) to come to life.
The Medieval Merchant's House is tucked away within walking distance from the busy city centre. Escape from city life and take in the history of Southampton’s “old town”.
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