Tower of London and Churchill War Rooms Trip
On Monday 19th May, the two Year 12 history classes went on a day trip to London, to support our current A-Level learning. Our first destination of the day was the Tower of London, which links closely to the learning we have covered in our medieval history lessons with Dr Barmby.
Written by Ella Dunnett and Teagan Haw, Y12
Whilst there, we had the opportunity to explore the ground in smaller groups. This included trekking up the multitude of towers, visiting St John’s Chapel, exploring the museums inside the tower and some of us even managed to see the Crown Jewels!
The White Tower in particular was exceedingly relevant to our learning, as it was built following the Norman Conquest of England by King William I. This gave us a clearer understanding of how William I established dominance as King following the Battle of Hastings in 1066, which is a focal point to our module in history.
After the visit, we had some free time to get lunch and explore the surrounding area, before heading back to the coach. But, that wasn’t the end of our trip, and we were off to see Churchill’s war rooms.
Due to arriving about early, we had an opportunity to walk to Buckingham Palace, and we enjoyed a scenic route through the park to the palace. We then got to soak in the sight and channel our inner tourists, taking lots of photos, before heading back to the war rooms.
For context, the war rooms are where Churchill and other advisors spent their time determining the course of the Second World War. We were provided with audio guides and left to freely roam around the rooms until our meeting time, about an hour and a half later. This visit was especially relevant to Mr Green’s unit we have been studying, and we made sure to spend plenty of time in the museum which had plenty of references to the content we had covered throughout the year, where Churchill has been featuring heavily. On top of this, we got to see examples of the reinforced structure, meeting rooms (where actual military strategic decisions would have been made), and more mundane aspects such as the bedrooms and kitchen.
Once our time was up, we made our way back to the coach. And, whilst at first the exhaustion was sinking in, after a service station stop everyone seemed to feel revitalised and the rest of the journey back was rather high energy: with lots of chatter and games. We eventually got back to school in the evening, and our history trip was officially over.
A big thank you to Mr Green for organising this trip for us, and to Dr Barmby and Mrs Bainbridge for accompanying us!