Teachers Notes

Leighton Hall lies in the heart of the Arnside and Silverdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty'. As you approach the house from the front you will notice, on a day of good weather, the Lakeland mountains in the background. The earliest records of a house and grounds at Leighton date from 1246, when a fortified manor was built here. The family history has involved; hiding Catholic priests during the period of religious turmoil following the Reformation, the Civil War, and the Jacobite Rising of 1715. Following the failure of the Jacobite Rising, Leighton Hall was sacked and burned and the owner had the property confiscated. The rebirth of the property began with the wealthy George Towneley. He married the daughter of the owner and invested in the rebuilding of the house, replanting the woods and laying out the park (1763). The property was later (1822) bought by Richard Gillow, the grandson of Robert Gillow, who had founded the famous Gillow & co. furniture makers of Lancaster. The house was refaced in the gothic style (in other words-made to look like it was medieval) which was superimposed on the existing Georgian house. The property passed through marriage to the Reynolds family - and their descendants the Gillow Reynolds are the current owners.

The 'Woodland Walk'

The 18th century pond at Leighton hall

The 'woodland walk' begins at the left of the house, down some steps. Here the lawn extends along the full length of the walled garden. The long narrow lawn was used for archery in the past, but is now a place for visitors to stroll. On the left of the lawn there are some interesting features. Firstly there is the sundial-with the initials of George and Anne Middleton and dated 1647. It is the only relic of the pre-Jacobite Leighton Hall. Close by is the pond which was built in the mid 18th century. Originally it was the water supply for the house, but is now merely ornamental. The pond marks the beginning of the shrubbery, which used to be part of the gardens but is now part of the woodland walk. The walk takes you from the shrubbery area into the deeper woods. Here visitors can see a variety of habitats such as limestone pavements and an old orchard and can look under log slices to examine the mini-beasts that live there. There is a chance to watch birds, unobserved from the bird hide, and to examine the sand trap to discover which animals have walked across it recently. Diversions can be made, given time, to go into the parkland area to look for deer and examine the badgers' sett. Of particular interest is the spectacular view from the far end of the woods-looking north over pasture land towards Silverdale and Leighton Moss bird reserve, with the Lake District mountains in the background. Also on the walk is the remains of the family's private burial ground. As the family have historically been Catholic, burial was always a problem from the Reformation times (when Catholic burials were banned) until the mid 19th century. The family buried their dead in the woodland in an area that is still bordered by the Yew trees they planted - and marked by a stone cross. From here, visitors enter the walled garden with its caterpillar maze and pleasant flower beds.

Educational Approaches

Part of the woodland walk at Leighton Hall

The woodland walk at Leighton Hall can be used for a wide range of educational activities. You can choose to lead these yourself or to have them led by the experienced guides employed at the hall. There are suggestions for 5 different themes for the visit contained in these notes. Any worksheets and instructions that accompany these suggested activities are available to be downloaded from the website - along with the booking form. The woodland walk could be used for work across a wide range of curriculum areas such as history, science, maths, literacy, geography, art and environmental studies. However we have concentrated on 5 themes :

• an earthwalk
• science and nature
• geography
• literacy
• woodland walk.

Preparation

Your pre-visit preparation will depend on the objectives of your visit, if you choose to use the guided activities and which theme you choose. However your plans should include:

• download any of the relevant worksheets and resources you need for the activity from our site.
• Give the pupils practice in necessary skills - such as reading identification charts or following directions.
• Provide enough historical background to make the visit meaningful. Pupils ought to understand the changes in the garden/woodland area and that the place is a mixture of a human made and natural environment.
• Ensure pupil's appropriate behaviour, reminding them that the needs of the environment, owners and other visitors need to be respected. In particular - take care not to drop litter.
• Please ensure that pupils do not eat the plants, berries, seeds in the woodland and that they wash their hands after the visit.

Remember that your pupils are always under your control and responsibility even if you choose to have guide-run activities.

Theme 1 - The Earthwalk

This is a guided tour into the woodland walk area, with a series of fun educational activities for the children. The guide will decide (following consultation made with you when you book) on the activities and will provide all the resources and equipment needed.

Children receiving instruction on the earthwalk at Leighton Hall

Learning Objectives

Pupils should learn:

• An appreciation of the way in which all different parts of nature are connected.
• To be able to use their senses to observe things in more detail.
• Something about the various habitats they will find on the earthwalk

Follow up work could include you creating similar activities to the ones on the earthwalk, at school and comparing the outcomes. You could look at other examples of food chains and webs. You could make drawings of the various creatures found or the environments. You could also use the experience to generate some descriptive or creative writing

Timing : The earthwalk package takes approximately 1 ¼ to 1 ½ hours

Composing poems on an Earthwalk at Leighton

Theme 2 - Science and Nature

There are numerous activities that could be organised around the theme of science and nature. You are able to organise your own activities, with the agreement of the guide. However below are some of the suggested activities - which can be guide led or teacher led.

The pond is available for pond dipping. For safety reasons, we request that you, the teacher, or another adult would do the actual dipping rather than any of the children. If you choose to have the guide leading this activity, they are also available to do the actual dipping. Based on a typical class visit of 30 children , children should be divided into groups of approximately 5. Each group will be provided with an observation tray, spoons, magnifying glass and identification chart. The trays will be placed on tables making access easier for the group. If you want the children to keep a record of what they have seen you could devise some simple recording sheets and bring them with you. You could do a comparison habitat study by doing a mini-beast hunt under the sawn off log sections later in the walk. For this activity you will need to be at post H on the woodland walk. Here you will find some log sections. You should allocate one per group. Get one person from the group carefully to lift up one edge of the log section whilst the rest of the group use the identification charts to spot and record the creatures they find there. Again you could devise some recording sheets if you wish your children to keep a record of the things they have seen. Similar recording activities can be done at the bird hide and the sand tray.

If time permits, you could combine some of these habitat observations with a field sketch done at the viewpoint. It has several different habitats in view - and some good work could be done on thinking of the types of creatures that might live in each different habitat. There is an outline field sketch with annotations and further activities available for downloading on the website. There is an area of long grass in the old orchard part of the woodland walk which you could use to do a habitat study of. This could also make a comparison with the pond or log habitats.

It is quite possible for the guide to run some other activities on food chains and webs etc. that will support the work on habitats. You must arrange these in advance when you book, however, so that time can be made and the resources collected.

Learning objectives These activities all fit in with aspects of the science national curriculum - for example the KS1 units on:

• · growing plants (1B)
• · plants and animals in the local environment (2B)
• · helping plants grow well (3B)
• · habitats (4B)
• · life cycles (5B)
• · interdependence and adaptation (6A)

A guide conducting the pond dipping at Leighton

They also can be used as part of citizenship or environmental education. Pupils will be developing their research skills and powers of observation as well as increasing their scientific knowledge.

Timing : The overall time available for this theme is approximately 1 ½ hours.
To walk the route takes about 30 minutes.
Pond dipping takes approx.. 30 - 40 minutes.
The mini-beast hunt takes approx.. 15 - 20 minutes.
The field sketch takes approx.. 10 - 15 minutes.
Times at the sand tray and bird hide are flexible.

Follow up work at school could involve further research on a particular plant, animal or habitat. Work could also be developed around scientific questioning such as;

• Why did we not find a ... ? Or,
• What else might we expect to find here ? Or,
• What is the environment of this particular location like ? Or,
• In what way is the animal specially adapted to this environment ?

There is scope for IT work and graphs as well as art and descriptive writing. For example, why not get students to produce bar graphs for each of the log slices they examined - comparing the numbers of mini-beasts found under each slice ?

Theme 3 - Geography

The woodland walk area is a perfect size for conducting any number of geography related activities. There are resources available for work on map making and field sketching - but obviously you can develop your own versions if you wish, or create other work to develop geographic skills.

Why not use the woodland walk as a way of helping your class to develop their map making skills ? You could travel through the woodland area, accompanied by a guide, and help the children to make a map of the route they take. All the sheets, practice maps and instructions that are needed to do this can be downloaded from the property website. One way of using geography and a fantastic site like this, is to link it with some work on how other cultures might make maps. There is another map making exercise, which is resourced at the site and on the website, which allows you to make a map-stick. This is an aboriginal way of recording a journey and involves the children collecting small things along their walk in the woods and tying them onto a stick, in the order they find them, using appropriately coloured wool. This then leads them to be able to tell the 'story' of their journey back in the classroom, using their map-sticks to ensure they give a full and detailed account. The house will provide the sticks, prepared to size and show some examples of map-sticks previously made. All you need to do is to provide a variety of earth/woodland coloured wool (pre-cut to about 30 cm lengths).

There is an ideal location, about of 2/3 the way around the woodland walk, for doing some field sketching. Children can view a series of different habitats from the viewpoint, or could look for human impact on the environment. They can practise their artistic skills and powers of observation too. Again there are resource sheets available for you to download, which also give access to this activity to different levels of ability.

Field sketching at Leighton Hall

Learning objectives

All of these activities are designed for Key Stage 2 children and have been tested by children from years 3, 4, 5 and 6 from a local primary school. The activities are all designed to support the geography national curriculum - in particular the sections:

1. Undertaking a geographical enquiry.
2. Developing geographical skills.
3. Knowledge and understanding of places.

There are numerous opportunities to link geography activities with the literacy, science, art, IT curricula or to foster citizenship or multicultural understanding.

Whatever activity you chose, a guide will accompany your class and help in showing the likely features to use, giving information about the key points along the route, and advising about the sort of items to look out for.

Timing : Making a map or making a map-stick will each take about 1 ¼ hours. To make the field sketch would take about 15 minutes - but you might decide to allocate more time for this.
Again the overall time you should allocate for a geography activity in the woodland is approximately 1 ½ hours.

Deciding on suitable nouns and adjectives for an extended saga poem based on a trip to Leighton Hall Woodland Walk.

Theme 4 - Literacy etc.

The opportunities for creative writing, stories, poems etc, at the woodland walk is endless. One activity that has been tried and for which a recording sheet is available, is to use the walk to write a sort of Icelandic 'saga'. As the guide takes you round on the walk, you will stop at various points of interest. At each place you could record a certain number of nouns and adjectives on a record sheet. This can then be used back at school as the framework for a series of verses in a long extended poem, or a Viking saga. It could be combined with some imaginative writing to produce a story - perhaps ending with the site of the old graveyard deep in the woods.

You could use the place for some good artwork too. Bark rubbings could be taken, leaves drawn, views sketched or even, in autumn, leaves collected to make collages etc.

A guide is available to accompany you on all such activities.

Timing You should allow up to 1 ½ hours for these sessions.

Theme 5 - A Woodland Walk

It may be that you just wish your children to go on a guided woodland walk. If so then you can book a guide and be taken on a route through the woodland area. The guides are experienced at pointing out numerous features of interest which would help children gain a better knowledge and understanding of the environment.

You can download a map of the route and some trail notes and could lead your own group through the woods without the guide if you wish.

Timing You should allow about 1 hour 20 minutes for a guided walk through the woods, but you could just take a group around the woods yourself for anything from 30 minutes upwards.

Resources

The house will provide;

• A guide to accompany your class around the woodland walk if you book a tour.
• All the equipment needed for pond dipping - but you should make your own recording sheets if you wish the children to keep a record of what they see.
• Any resources needed for the earthwalk activities.
• Any resources needed for any activities that support the habitat studies that you might book in advance.
• Sticks for the 'make a map-stick' activity.
• Full sets of resources on line to support the suggested geography activities, poetry words recording, instructions as to how to run these activities, notes and a map to accompany the woodland walk.

Practicalities

Leighton Hall has been assessed by Lancashire LEA's risk assessment team. It has been assessed as a 'category A' site and is included on the county's database of approved sites for visits. This means, if you are a Lancashire LEA school, that you must do your own school risk assessment and do not have to apply for permission from the LEA to visit the site. All schools will find the relevant parts of the House's own risk assessment on the website useful in helping you with your own risk assessment. However you are strongly advised to make a preliminary visit if you have not been to the property before, if at all possible.

About half the route around the walk is on path covered with woodchips. This is to make it easier for the less physically able to have access to the area. However the second, slightly steeper, part of the woods is not so covered, although the path is still fairly easy to walk on for most people. Sensible outdoor shoes, or trainers, are advised for all of the outdoor activities. Remember to bring raincoats if the weather is wet.

There is a picnic area for your children to eat a packed lunch.

There are toilets available for visitors to use, and a gift shop with suitably priced souvenirs if you wish the children to use it.

You should have downloaded any of the resource sheets you need for the visit, and made enough copies for the children.

If you are going to be working in groups, it is always a good idea to have them arranged before you arrive at the site.

You should download a booking form from the internet. It is very important that you decide in advance of the visit the type of outdoor experience theme you wish to have at Leighton Hall - and that this is indicated on the booking form. You are encouraged to telephone the hall to discuss any queries that you may have regarding the educational activities for the woodland area.

Remember

Many children also enjoy the caterpillar maze in the walled garden if the weather is nice. There is also a small children's play area - children should be supervised if using this area.

Costs

A visit to Leighton Hall costs £3.95 per child. A preliminary visit by the teacher is free, and there is one free adult place for every 10 children booked.

Further information etc.

Leighton Hall
Nr. Carnforth,
Lancashire,
LA5 9ST

Tel : 01524 734474
Email : schools@leightonhall.co.uk
Website : www.leightonhall.co.uk

Written by K. Creaser
Education Officer, English Heritage/Historic Houses Association Education Project,
July 2004