Year 5 pupils from Grove Junior School had the opportunity to test out a school’s workshop at the newly opened Tithe Barn on Wednesday 19^th June.

In total 90 children and their teachers and adult helpers got a special welcome from a Victorian School ma’am!

Wielding her cane, she took the classes back in time over 500 years from when the barn was first built for storing tithes (10% of farmer’s produce). The architectual features of the Barn, including the giant door frames, tiny arrow slit windows and the triangular owl hole were pointed out.

Some of the children were able to dress up as medieval lords and ladies. They were surprised at how heavy the clothing was – but realised it helped to keep you warm in the days before central heating!

The rest of the class were transformed into Victorian school children after hearing how Hannah More got permission to establish a ‘Great School’ on the site in 1789. They were able to try out wooden Victorian toys, handle original artefacts such as the old school bell, and research evidence from archive documents including old school registers and photographs.

The children found that a pupil called Cinderella was at the school in the 1890s and they were going to use the records to find out more about her back at school. They recognised many of the surnames on the registers as still being Nailsea families today.

Quite a lot of the pupils’ parents and grandparents had been to school at the Tithe Barn when it was Hannah More Infants and later Grove Junior School Annexe.

Pupils wrote after the visit:

'I really enjoyed touching that old peg. The thought that someone 500 years ago had held that peg made it really interesting.'

'My favourite station was the educational table with the slate and old registers. The slate was quite hard to write on and made a horrible noise.'

'We all enjoyed dressing up in the clothes and also playing with the games.'

'I thought the roof structure was amazing.'

'I learnt a lot about the history of the Tithe Barn, how 10% of crops from every farm was stored, and about the owl hole. And how it was then turned in to a school when Hannah More visited.'