Rescued by English Heritage after years of neglect, this Grade I listed barn ranks alongside the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey for its exceptional architectural and historic interest. It was dubbed by the late poet laureate and heritage campaigner Sir John Betjeman as the "Cathedral of Middlesex".
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
The Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA) is an artist-led charity which supports artists and promotes engagement with the visual arts through a range of inclusive activities: exhibitions, workshops and demonstrations.
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”.
This fine 17th century timber-framed octagonal market hall is a monument to Dunster's once-flourishing cloth trade.
The Romantic poet John Keats lived in this house and was inspired to write his most memorable poetry here.
The grade 1 listed building is open to the public as a museum and literary centre, where Keats's memory lives on through events, creative activities and special displays.
The mainly 14th century remains of an abbey of Premonstratensian canons. Among Suffolk’s most impressive monastic ruins, with some spectacular architectural features.
The remains of one of the first Augustinian priories in England, founded about 1100.
An impressive example of early Norman architecture, built in flint and reused Roman brick, the church displays massive circular pillars and round arches and an elaborate west front.
Later badly damaged by cannon fire during the Civil War siege of 1648.
Leighton House Museum is the former home of the Victorian artist Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896). The only purpose-built studio-house open to the public in the United Kingdom, it is one of the most remarkable buildings of the nineteenth century, containing a fascinatingcollection of paintings and sculpture by Leighton and his contemporaries.
Iona is a tiny island off the southwest coast of Mull in the Inner Hebrides. It is only 1.5 miles wide by 3 miles long, with a population of around 120 permanent residents. Despite this, Iona has a special place in the heart of many people the world over. It is the burial place of many of the ancient kings of Scotland including both Duncan and Macbeth on the 'Street of the Dead'.
Leonard and Virginia Woolf's 17th-century country retreat
Nestled in the heart of rural Sussex, Monk’s House is a tranquil 17th-century weatherboarded cottage inhabited by Leonard and the novelist Virginia Woolf from 1919 until Leonards death in 1969.
Get to know Leonard and Virginia Woolf and the wider Bloomsbury Group by visiting Monk's House. Full of their favourite things, the house appears as if they just stepped out for a walk.
The tranquil ruins of Wenlock Priory stand in a picturesque setting on the fringe of beautiful Much Wenlock. An Anglo-Saxon monastery was founded here in about 680 by King Merewalh of Mercia, whose abbess daughter Milburge was hailed as a saint. Her relics were miraculously re-discovered here in 1101, attracting both pilgrims and prosperity to the priory.
The priory of St Helen stands on a gravel island on the west side of the River Idle, in what was marshland in the Middle Ages.
It was established in 1185 by Roger fitzRalph of nearby Mattersey for the Gilbertine Order, the only monastic order to have originated in England.
The substantial ruins of a Cluniac monastery, with an unusually well-marked ground plan, an almost complete west range and a 15th century gatehouse.
The remains of a Cistercian abbey founded in 1148, set on the banks of the Ribble against a backdrop of dramatic hills. After its dissolution in 1536, the monks were briefly returned to the abbey during the Pilgrimage of Grace. They remained in possession until the insurrection's collapse and the execution of their abbot.
17th-century thatched Baptist meeting house
Discover Loughwood, one of the earliest surviving Baptist churches in the country. Founded in secret during a time of great persecution towards non-conformists, this beautiful chapel is set into the hillside and looks out over the rolling east Devon countryside with views of the Axe Valley.
A fine, late 15th-century stone town house, with an early Tudor façade and panelled interiors.
This fine late 15th century town house, once thought to have been the courtroom of Glastonbury Abbey, now houses both the Tourist Information Centre and the Glastonbury Lake Village Museum, which contains dramatic finds from one of Europe’s most famous archaeological sites.
A medieval manor house interior, with a rare and well preserved Norman undercroft and a 15th century roof, all encased in brick during the 17th and 18th centuries.
The manor house, or Old Hall, at Burton Agnes was built by Roger de Stuteville between 1170 and 1180. The hall, like the village, was named after one of his daughters.
The Ghost
The elaborately decorated ruins of a 14th century chancel and chapter house (viewable only from the outside), attached to the still operational cathedral-like minster church.
The simple tomb of Sir Winston Churchill can be found in the grounds of St Martin. He was buried here in 1965 after the last non-royal state funeral in Britain. He shares the cemetery with his wife, Clementine, his mother and other members of the Churchill family.
Impressive ruins of a Cistercian abbey, including its unusually unaltered 12th century church, beautiful vaulted and tile-floored chapter house, and recently re-opened crypt chapel.
Situated in a wooded Severn-side setting, not far from the Iron Bridge and Wenlock Priory.
Extensive ruins of an Augustinian abbey, later a Civil War stronghold, in a deeply rural setting.
Much of the church survives, unusually viewable from gallery level, along with the lavishly sculpted processional door and other cloister buildings.
History
Women's rights pioneer Mary Wollstonecraft (d. 1797) and her husband William Godwin (d. 1836), were buried here, along with their daughter, Mary Shelley (d. 1851), the author of Frankenstein, and the heart of her husband, Percy Shelley (d. 1822). Other graves include that of the inventor of the Bailey bridge, Sir Ronald Bailey (d. 1985).
If peace and tranquillity is what you seek from a family day out in Yorkshire, then Rievaulx Abbey is the perfect choice. Set in a remote valley in the North York Moors National Park, Rievaulx is one of the most complete, and atmospheric, of England’s abbey ruins. It’s no wonder it’s one of the most popular visitor attractions in the North.
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