This rare and atmospheric 17th-century house sits on the banks of the River Thames in Richmond. It is the creation of the tenacious Duchess of Lauderdale and her husband, the Duke, who together transformed Ham into one of the grandest Stuart houses in England.
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 [email protected].
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
Elegant Georgian town house with wonderful walled garden
Peckover House is a secret gem, an oasis hidden away in an urban environment. A classic Georgian merchant's town house, it was lived in by the Peckover family for 150 years.
Medieval hospital, Tudor ammunition store and church for the forces since the 1580s, the Royal Garrison Church has stood in Portsmouth for nearly 800 years.
Royal Garrison Church was constructed about 1212 as part of a hospital complex. Although the nave was badly damaged in a 1941 fire-bomb raid on Portsmouth, the chancel remains roofed and furnished.
Tucked away in a deep wooded valley, Berry Pomeroy Castle is the perfect romantic ruin with a colourful history of intrigue.
The charming ruins of a small monastery of Premonstratensian 'white canons', picturesquely set above a bend in the River Tees near Barnard Castle.
Remains include much of the 13th century church and a range of living quarters, with traces of their ingenious toilet drainage system.
The impressive ruins of Henry II's 12th century keep, on the site of a Roman fort guarding the approach to strategic Stainmore Pass over the Pennines.
Walk in the footsteps of previous generations along these ancient hill forts
The hill forts of Lambert's Castle and Coney's Castle are less than a mile apart so you can easily explore them both in a day. Each one has a different character, but both have a rich past.
The ruins of a medieval palace (together with later additions) used by the Bishops and senior clergy of Winchester as they travelled through their diocese. Winchester was the richest diocese in England, and its properties were grandiose and extravagantly appointed.
13th-century tithe barn, one of the largest and finest in the country
One of the largest and finest 13th-century tithe barns in the country, lying in the Worcestershire countryside.
If you're visiting Middle Littleton tithe barn make the most of your day by visiting nearby Croome Park, Lance 'Capability' Brown's first complete landscape garden or Hidcote Manor Garden, a celebrated 20th-century garden in the north Cotswolds.
15th-century moated manor house
No-one ever forgets their first sight of Oxburgh - a romantic, moated manor house.
Built by the Bedingfeld family in the 15th century, they have lived here ever since. Inside, the family's Catholic history is revealed, complete with a secret priest's hole which you can crawl inside.
Aydon Castle stands in a secluded woodland setting. Almost completely intact, it is one of the finest and most unaltered examples of a 13th century English manor house.
An Elizabethan Masterpiece
The family home of Bess of Hardwick, one of the richest and most remarkable women of Elizabethan England, stands beside Hardwick New Hall which she had built later in the 1590s.
Though the Old Hall is now roofless, visitors can still ascend four floors to view surviving decorative plasterwork, as well as the kitchen and service rooms with our audio tour.
A jewel of a museum in a lovely Georgian town
Set in a handsome, grade II listed townhouse on Swaffham’s Georgian Market Place, Swaffham Museum has elegant rooms housing rich collections and 21st century displays with lots for all the family to enjoy.
Find out how Swaffham man Howard Carter discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamen and see remarkable archaeological finds from the local Swaffham area too.
Formerly the Grange Museum of Community History, Brent Museum has a collection consisting of objects relating to the local Brent area and the communities who live there.
Substantial remains of a small 16th century gun tower protecting Old Grimsby harbour, vigorously defended during the Civil War.
The Block House formed part of a series of forts built on the islands during the reigns of Edward VI and Mary I, and followed the attempt to build a large artillery fort, known as Harry’s Walls, on St Mary’s.
The great 13th century circular shell-keep of Restormel still encloses the principal rooms of the castle in remarkably good condition. It stands on an earlier Norman mound surrounded by a deep dry ditch, atop a high spur beside the River Fowey. Twice visited by the Black Prince, it finally saw action during the Civil War in 1644. It commands fantastic views and is a favourite picnic spot.
The ruined hall and chamber of a fortified manor house of the powerful Percy family, dating mainly from the 14th and 15th centuries. Its undercroft is cut into a rocky outcrop.
A tall medieval octagonal tower, allegedly a lighthouse, built here in 1328 as penance for stealing church property from a wrecked ship. Affectionately known as the Pepperpot, it stands on one of the highest parts of the Isle of Wight. It is part of the Tennyson Heritage Coast, a series of linked cliff-top monuments. A later lighthouse can be seen nearby.
The remains of a large, wellbuilt Roman courtyard villa. The most important feature is a nearly complete mosaic tile floor, patterned in reds and browns. The remains are located in a peaceful rural landscape, within a loop of the River Evenlode, which flows gently past the site to the north and west.
Circular 14th-century dovecote
A lovely and rare 14th-century circular dovecote with metre-thick walls, hundreds of nesting holes and original rotating ladder, nestled in the heart of the Warwickshire countryside.
The ruined church of an Augustinian abbey, reduced in size after fire and plague.
Creake Abbey probably had its origins in 1206 when Sir Robert and Lady Alice de Nerford established the small chapel of St Mary of the Meadows at Lingerescroft, bordering the tiny River Burn.
Set on a headland high over the popular seaside town, Whitby Abbey is the perfect choice for a great value day trip in Yorkshire. It's easy to see how Bram Stoker was inspired by its gothic splendour when writing Dracula. This is one of the most atmospheric visitor attractions on the Yorkshire coast.
Standing within an attractive village setting, not far from the fantastic Lullingstone Roman Villa, is Eynsford Castle - a very early Norman 'enclosure castle' whose substantial stone walls present a rare survival of this striking and impressive style.
The Fisherman's hospital is situated on the Market Square in Great Yarmouth.
The Corporation of Great Yarmouth founded the hospital in 1702. It was set up as Almshouses for 'decayed' fishermen: providing housing for twenty fishermen and their wives aged sixty and over who could no longer provide for themselves.
Late Medieval merchant's house in Worcester city centre
Built in 1480, with early 17th and 18th century additions, this fine timber-framed house was rescued from demolition after the Second World War and has been carefully restored and refurbished.
An archway leads through to a delightful walled garden.
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