Year 3 Visit to Chillington & Boscobel
This year we have been fortunate again to receive support from the Country Trust. The trust wants to help every child to understand farming, the countryside, and how our food is produced through high quality learning experiences.
Their mission is to bring food, farming and the countryside alive for disadvantaged children, sharing knowledge, igniting curiosity and broadening horizons.
On 26th May, Year 3 will be visiting both Chillington Hall & Boscobel House with the support of the Country Trust & their leader Cathy Evans.
Chillington Hall has been the home of the Giffard family for over 800 years and is located on the Staffordshire / Shropshire border. The Hall & Estate, steeped in History offers it’s visitors a grand & imposing setting for historical tours.
Boscobel House and its Royal Oak tree became famous as hiding places of King Charles II after defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651. After Charles’s visit Boscobel remained a working farm, and today you can visit the lodge, farmyard, gardens and a descendant of The Royal Oak. White Ladies Priory, another of Charles’s hiding places, is a short walk away
VISIT REPORT:
On Thursday 27th May, the year 3 children had the fantastic opportunity to visit Chillington Hall and Boscobel house. When we arrived at Chillington Hall, we were greeted by two members of the Country Trust who gave us all a safety talk and provided us with much needed energy in the form of biscuits! We got the chance to ride on the back of trailer pulled by a giant tractor. On our journey down to the woods, we caught a glimpse of a mother swan protecting her cygnets, 3 fluffy alpacas and hundreds of sheep and lambs. Once we were in the woods, we split off into teams to build a den to hide from Oliver Cromwell. The dens ranged from tiny teepees to humungous tree houses and Cathy and Barbara’s team won the challenge! We then watched John (the farm manager) fell an ill tree and we even got to keep some of it as a souvenir!
After all of the excitement of the morning, it was hard to believe that we were only half way through our fun-filled day out! We got back on the coach to Boscobel house which was full of history and drama. We appreciated a guided tour of the house where King Charles 2nd was forced to hide and we got to see two of his hiding places. Some of us even got to squeeze into them! The experts were more than impressed with our background knowledge of the 17th Century and we blew them away with our obscure facts! After the tour, we tried on 17th Century costumes, including a really heavy suit of armour! The day concluded with a walk across a very mucky field to get a close up view of the famous ‘Royal Oak’ which was a descendant of the tree where the King hid.
As a parting gift, we bought a sapling which was another descendant of the Royal Oak and we plan to have an official tree planting ceremony.
We would like to give special thanks to Mrs Banks for organising the visit, Cathy and Barbara from the Country Trust for providing us with a wonderful day filled with interactive and enjoyable activities, John for providing much appreciated entertainment and last but most certainly not least, the Giffard family for being fantastic hosts and for providing our children with an invaluable educational experience.
