ROUND UP

ROUND UP

FROM RUINS TO ROSE BUSHES

Find out about the diff erence volunteers have been making, despite another challenging year.

Main image Education visit to Portchester Castle Far left Portchester Castle Left Thank-you letter sent to the team by a teacher Above Young students get hands-on with castle life

SCHOOL TRIPS IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF KINGS

Rachel Szabo, Kevin Carrig and Geoff Hallett, volunteers from the Portchester Castle education team, tell us about Discovery Visits.

At Portchester Castle we have been delighted by the number of schools that have decided to participate in our Discovery Visit ‘In the Footsteps of the Kings’. The facilitatorled workshop explores life at the castle during the reigns of two kings, one a warrior, Edward III, and the other an aesthetic pleasure seeker, Richard II; between them they depict the castle in both war and peace.

Going back to the castle In June and July, as the pandemic crisis eased, we were not sure who was the more excited at the resumption of visits, the pupils or us – for many of the children this was their fi rst-ever school trip out, while we were so pleased to be donning our costumes once again to journey into the past with them. The fi rst school to visit has been coming to the castle for several years, so it felt like welcoming back an old friend. Knowing that we usually end the session with a courtly dance, they had even prepared their own medieval dance to show us, which was a lovely surprise. Like all of the schools they were very fl exible and very helpful in aiding us to ensure that everyone adhered to the Covid restrictions. We had wondered how the Covid changes might affect the impact of the Discovery Visit as dressing up and contact with props could not occur, but every school has expressed their appreciation to us at the end of the session.

Letters of gratitude However, one aspect we have been keen to learn about is which specifi c parts the pupils have enjoyed and remembered the most. Therefore, it was great to receive some beautifully drawn and written thank-you cards from a Year 1 class at one school. Their responses, through these cards, have provided us with an insight into the impact different parts of the Discovery Visits have on the children. From their illustrations it is fair to say that our sections about attacking and defending the castle and about longbow archers were an obvious hit. The Black Prince even features in his own splendid picture, despite only being mentioned in passing. We are interested and delighted to see that they also recalled smaller pieces of information such as pigeons being a delicacy in a pie and that only spoons and knives were used as cutlery during this period. It is clear that no child was inhibited in their response, as one very much enjoyed playing on the grass after the visit. It was also enlightening to discover that the children chosen to be kings or guards appeared to be as thrilled as they might have been had they been in costume.

We really appreciate the time and effort that these pupils and their teacher put into creating these cards – we cannot be the only ones who have become volunteers because we want to share our love of the property and its history, and it is very rewarding to know when we have achieved this. We have our fi ngers crossed that in the autumn we will be able to continue to welcome schools to the castle and lead them on an exciting journey ‘In the Footsteps of the Kings’.►

Every school has expressed their appreciation to us at the end of the session

BE PART OF IT For more information about our education opportunities, please visit www.english-heritage.org.uk/ support-us/volunteer

WILDFLOWER WONDERS

Audience development manager Rachel Morrison on the nature projects at Marble Hill.

The creation and cultivation of the wildflower meadows has been an important part of

Marble Hill’s revival. Not only has it helped to restore the heritage site and the historic landscape of the Georgian era, but it is making a huge impact on the biodiversity of our site. The introduction of three bee hives, along with a huge amount of work by the fantastic dedicated garden volunteers at

Marble Hill, our head gardener Kate

Slack, and horticultural apprentice

Jack Morris, has created a huge varied habitat for butterflies and insects, which in turn attracts small mammals and birds. We’ve been able to celebrate this through a number of events – from meadow talks on Zoom and in-person to ‘meadow dipping’ on site. Thanks to the National Lottery Heritage

Fund grant for Marble Hill, this summer the volunteer team also went on transect training so we can monitor the increased amount of butterflies attracted to the new areas. Volunteers twice weekly count and record what they see and in what area. We look forward to seeing the statistics created by our volunteers of the major impact the new planting and rewilding of areas has had on Marble Hill.

Oxeye daisies at Marble Hill Volunteers outside the bookshop at Kenwood

ACHIEVEMENTS AND MILESTONES

Territory volunteer manager Karl Goodwin and volunteer manager Holly Walker tell us about the projects at Kenwood.

The return of many of our team of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers to site has really brought Kenwood back to life, and we have reached some new and important milestones this year. In June we reopened the dairy for the first time since Covid. This is a volunteer-run space, and only accessible for our visitors when volunteers are there to answer questions and share the stories of the building with them.

It was a functional dairy which provided milk, butter and cream to the house, but it also acted as a space for the aristocratic ladies to come and play at tending the dairy, which was a very fashionable hobby. This space does not require prebooking, which during Covid times has been a wonderful addition to our offer, providing an alternative for our walk-up visitors who were not always able to access the main house. Gardening volunteers Outside the house, our incredible team of gardening volunteers have made a huge difference. Some of the team have been coming to site throughout almost all of the pandemic, working hard come

rain or shine to care for the grounds and ensure they looked their best as we welcomed visitors back. Their hard work and dedication has been such a huge help to the site, and we want to say a big thank you to them for all their support. Bookshop and house volunteers The volunteer-run second-hand bookshop now opens four days a week and provides the public with Their hard the option to go on even more work and adventures after their visit. Thanks to the efforts of our volunteers, the dedication bookshop is very close to hitting has been the £4,000 mark raised through its sales. This achievement is even more such a impressive since it only reopened in huge help the middle of April. Finally, the return of house volunteers at Kenwood means that the upper floor has now been opened to the public. This allows visitors access to the Suffolk Collection, which contains royal and family portraits spanning from the 16th to the 19th centuries, including internationally important groups of paintings by Jacobean portraitist William Larkin. To have the upper floor open on a regular basis has not always been possible at Kenwood, and this achievement demonstrates the progress we are making to better visitor experience through the support of our volunteers.

BATTLE IN BLOOM

Operations manager James Witcombe gives us an overview of the work in the gardens at Battle Abbey.

The team of volunteer gardeners at Battle Abbey have been hard at work this summer, and thanks to them the grounds are looking especially beautiful. This season, the dedicated group have been busy with new planting and tending to the abbey’s historic rose bushes. They’ve also been getting on with lots of work that often goes unnoticed – weeding, raking up leaves, edging pathways – it all adds up to making the site look its best for our visitors. People often compliment us on how stunning the abbey is looking in full bloom, which is a real testament to the work of our volunteers. ■