5W Trip to Donington-le Heath Manor House
By Gracie Pearson

Last Friday (18.11.11) was awesome.  My class (5W) and I went to Donington-le Heath Manor house.  We went to learn more about the richer Tudors for our school trip- my best one yet!

First we all went upstairs to meet Mary in the Great Hall.  She was usually a dairy maid but on Friday she had to be a cleaning maid because Lord and Lady Digby were arriving that afternoon.  Then we heard keys rattling-Mary warned us that when we heard keys rattling it would be Mistress Stilkes.  She took me and the rest of St. Andrews to the kitchen to make pomanders.  She told us what all the herbs were called and then we got to make our own.  I used dried rose petals, marigold and lavender.  After that we all got to chop up some herbs and grind sugar and egg shells.

Then we went back upstairs where Mary told us how to lay a Tudor table.  We laid the plates, the cups, spoons, salt pot, the beeswax candle and the gussle and pistle pots.  Guess what?  The women used the gussle pot to do their business in at the table and the womens urine would be used to wash white clothing and table cloths!  The men did their business in the pistle pot and when it was full the servant would shout a warning, wait a few seconds and then chuck it out of the window.  Bad luck if you didnt hear!

After that Saint Andrews and my group went upstairs where we found a dressing-up box and we all dressed up in Tudor clothes.  I dressed up as a maid but I did not like my dress at all!

We did that until it was time to go back downstairs and do some quill writing.  We had to write a menu of what we thought rich Tudors would have eaten.  I thought that they would have eaten: cheese, bread and some varieties of meat and would have drunk beer and wine.  It was really hard to get the hang of writing with a quill because you had to keep dipping it in the ink.  The quills were made out of goose feathers and they would have to be put in a Tudor oven which would kill all the flies and some of the bacteria to make them clean.  They also used goose feathers to make feather dusters.

Finally we went back to the Great Hall to do some Tudor dancing.  We learnt the peacock dance.  We had to do four steps forward, one step back, and one step to the side and turn around and do it twice.  It was really hard.  Next we did the masked ball dance.  We had to walk around our dance partner (without turning round) and then do it all diagonally-it was nearly impossible!

So that was our school trip-sounds awesome doesnt it?  Well it was!