Longship Workshops

Longship was founded in 1992 it has built a nationally known reputation as being one of the leading specialists in providing Saxon , Viking and 1066 living history days into schools and museums. Our workshops are designed to relate to key stage 2 of the History National Curriculum which states pupils should learn about the Viking and Anglo-Saxon struggle for the Kingdom of England to the time of Edward the Confessor, to include Viking raids and invasions, the Danelaw, Danegeld, Anglo-Saxon laws and justice, as well as art, culture, religion, and includes attitudes and experiences about the social, cultural, religious and ethnic diversity of the societies they came from all the way to 1066!
We achieve all this by allowing the children a unique opportunity to see, touch, handle, smell and wear our huge collection of period artefacts, both real and reproduction which cover all aspects of Saxon and Viking daily life, as well as the weapons and armor used in battle and warfare.
We engage the children through the use of hands on experience and role play and we aim to get as many of the children as possible to take an active part at sometime during the day, all of the children will spend 90% of the day with us

Time Table
(this can be altered to fit your normal school day)
Morning session:
The day begins with an introduction and a look at names and family life the clothes they wore marriage and children. The children then get to look, touch, try on and smell the huge range of superb and highly accurate artefacts we bring into your school, including farming equipment, trade items, spinning & weaving, leather, bone work and jewellery, not just the ordinary day to day things but some rare and sinister items as well, things that will surprise and amaze both children and teachers alike. It concludes with an interactive question and answer session where some of the children get to select artefacts to ask questions about and see demonstrations of how they work, this is followed by a coin making demonstration.
 If there is time either before or after lunch Erik with the help of some of the children may tell a pre Christian story of the creation of the world according to the Vikings...... Not for the faint hearted!
Please Note we are used to working in schools where the hall is used at dinner times which is why the artefacts are spilt into two collections one for the morning and one for the afternoon. This requires the morning's artefacts to be packed away and returned to our vehicle just before lunchtime, normally with the aid of some strong sensible willing slaves! (i.e children and nothing is too heavy for them to carry.)

After Lunch
The children will participate in a village meeting/court ("Motte" for Saxons and "Thing" for Vikings). During this we look at some of the different types of trial that were used including Trial by "Combat", Trial by "Ordeal" and Trial by "Worth", several children will take a leading part in the trials, and following any trial there must come the punishment and the children will witness punishment in action.

The End of The Day
The children will get the chance to see and handle axes, spears, shields, swords, helmets and armour including replicas of two of the most famous and iconic helmets of the period, the Jorvik helmet and the Sutton Hoo helmet from one of the largest private collections in the UK, this is all done in a strictly controlled environment. With multiple classes we teach the children about battle chants and we get each class with their teacher to come up with a chant of their own which they then get the chance to perform to the other classes at the very end of the day.
At various points throughout the day the children are given opportunities to ask questions about what they have seen and heard and we actively encourage them to do this. If there are any subjects you would like us to cover in more detail please feel free ask in advance of the day or when booking.