“On Friday 14th March, we visited Hampton court palace. Having learnt a lot about Tudor times, King Henry VIII and all his subjects, we were all enraptured to hear that we were visiting the palace he spent so much of his time in. After an hour’s drive, we were astounded by the size and grandeur of the palace itself. We had a brief visit to the learning centre where we received our wristbands. Then we were ready to go.

When we had walked under Queen Anne Boleyn’s gate and up a flight of stairs, we finally arrived at the Great Hall. It lived up to its name. Huge tapestries adorned the walls. At the very front were two chairs. Even though we thought the King and Queen dined there, we soon learnt that usually they ate in their private chambers; it would only be on special occasions when the royal family would eat with the court. Then we continued further into the castle. The closer you could get to the King’s chambers, the more important you would be. We saw his private chapel, as well as the place where councillors would talk together.

We also viewed King Henry’s Great Watching Chamber. On the ceiling were beautiful designs, some sections even included the crests of Henry’s many wives. After a quick break immersing ourselves in the maze in the Castle grounds, we proceeded to absorb more information in our first workshop of the day – jobs at the Tudor court. We learnt about many positions; from the ‘gong scourer or toilet cleaner and the turn-broach which was a lowly job in the kitchen, to the King’s royal trumpeter and the Queen’s ladies in waiting. There were definitely a wide range of jobs on offer at Hampton Court Palace!

Lunch came and went very quickly, and then we were on our feet again – heading to our final activity of the day, a workshop questioning all we know about Henry VIII. In this session, we were given questions about the well-known king, and then discussed them in our group. My team had a very interesting question: ‘was King Henry a fair king?’ Now, the obvious answer was no; however, the evidence we were given along with the question pointed to the exact other way. We explained and discoursed with the rest of the class. Eventually, the workshop was over – and so was our amazing day at Hampton Court.

Thank you so much to Mrs Haig, Miss Tucker and Miss Simpson for taking us.” Celia