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2020vision Merchants Connected ArchivesYear 4 have a Tudor experience at Speke Hall
A TUDOR EXPERIENCE AT SPEKE HALL
BY SEBASTIAN RODGER
In few places is the subject of Tudor history more interesting than at Speke Hall. The house has an eavesdrop to listen to everyone's secrets; a priesthole to hide in; a thunderbox toilet and a maze!
Speke Hall was built in 1530 by Sir William Norris the second and was owned by the family for many generations. It is a timber framed building coated with wattle, doub and tar. The Norris family held feasts and dances in the Great Hall. In the Great Hall there was a minstrels corner. The minstrels corner was a ledge were the musicians would sit and play their instruments such as a lute; harp and flute. It was incredibly high and the musicians must have been fearless! After a feast William Norris invited all the important guests to the parlour. The word parlour came from the French word parlez-vous. This meant the parlour was made for talking. In the parlour there were lovely roses, pine cones and vines carved into the ceiling.
There was an eavesdrop which was a small hole that allowed the servants to hear the conversations of people coming into the house. I volunteered to be a servant and listened through the eavesdrop. I was expecting to hear great secrets but instead just heard Sai and Joseph pretending to be priest hunters.
Max and George had to get dressed up like Tudors. In Tudor times the boys were more important than the girls. George was dressed as a girl and Max was the boy. George had to put a dress on with a hoop underneath. This was designed to ensure the ladies would not trip over. Max had to put trunks on which were supposed to stop at his knees but they were rather large and reached his ankles. In Tudor times the trunks would have been filled with onions and hay to make them stand out.
There was a spy hole where you could see if the priest hunters were coming to get the priest. I was the first to look through the hole. It was amazing to see the driveway from the west side of the house through a tiny hole. When the priest hunters came to get the priest. The priest would run into the second bedroom where there was a cupboard. The priest would pull it open and a ladder would come down. The priest would climb the ladder. They had to remember to pull the ladder up after them. A servant would shut the door to ensure they had covered their tracks. This was called a priest hole.
Finally to end the day we ran around the maze and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Mrs Rogers counted all the boys to ensure we had not left any boys in the maze.
ARCHIE RAWSON ALSO WROTE A GREAT REPORT...
Today was a sunny day. We went to Speke hall to learn about the Tudors , we went inside a real Tudor house owned by a rich family called the Norris's.
The Norris's were the 3rd most famous family in the country ,William[the father] had an idea. He saw that a type of tree, a Yew tree, could kill any mammal. If the mammal ate its leaves it would be poisoned, so he put 2 of that type of tree near his front door to keep animals away.
After learning about the house Peter, the Education guide, took us on a guided tour round the whole house, through the big garden and back to where the tour started. Then we had lunch[we got a head start because Mrs. Rogers class was being a bit of a slow coach!]
When we finished lunch Max and George had to put on copies of Tudor clothes Max=boy
George= unfortunately girl! We had a laugh, then some of us went to the gift shop. Then the new maze. We had a Great day!