The sun shone down on us today and the Year 6 were able to thoroughly make the most of the glorious weather during their Basingstoke Trail trip into town. All of the children were respectful, polite and showed great intrigue in our local area. Because of this, we feel they were able to gain lots from the trip and will hopefully be able to impart lots of this knowledge when they are next in town with you, further demonstrating what a fantastic day we all had. The children were genuinely surprised to notice and learn so many new facts about our town centre which they had never spotted before yet walked past numerous times!

Our Basingstoke trail included:

- Exploring the beautifully historic St Michaels Church, which has links to both WW2 and the Tudor period (previous topics that we have studied this year). We really benefitted from the knowledge of the volunteers at the church who were able to bring the history of the building to life.

- Learning about the tragic tale of Mrs Blunden who is said to have been buried alive (twice!) near the Holy Ghost Cemetery. We also visited Thomas Burberry’s grave which is located here too.

-  Noticing the informative blue plaques dotted around town referencing the importance of a number of locations relating to great historical figures such as Jane Austin, Thomas Burberry and the history of the Basingstoke market.

- Locating what used to be the residence of Thomas Burberry’s first retail shop (what used to be the British Heart Foundation at the top of town) which has now been converted into a new supermarket.

- Visiting the current exhibition at the Willis Museum and taking a look at the history of Basingstoke exhibition on the middle floor.

And these are to name just a few of the activities we took part in today. We also enjoyed spotting the fairly recent artistic additions to our town centre and were fascinated to see Kev Munday’s artwork up close and in real life – an artist who has inspired us with our artwork this half term. The general public were also in great spirits too and were really happy to see our children out and about enjoying their local area, as well as enjoying their commutes with the addition of 59 children on the bus. 

Take a look at our photos to see what a fantastic day we had.