On Tuesday, 9th October, 5B (and their friends in 5A) all visited Newcastle Castle for knight training school – and very good it was, too! We made the visit as part of our humanities topic, ‘Life in a Castle.’
Our guide for the day was David and he told us everything we needed to know about what it was like to be a knight in Medieval England. We had to climb the stone steps of the castle to reach the learning room – there were a lot of them!
We learned some very interesting facts, such as knights began their training when they were only young boys by being ‘page boys’ for someone who was already a knight…most of us didn’t like the idea of being someone’s servant!
There were lots of amazing artefacts for us to explore – and all real things a knight would have used. The chain mail, helmet and gauntlets were all very heavy, but they needed to be to stop opponent’s weapons in battle. We got to explore (dulled) swords, knives and a shield and even had a look at a mace; the mace seemed particularly scary!
As well as all of these artefacts, we also watched a history of the Newcastle Castle and how it had changed since it was originally built.
To finish our trip, we went into the castle dungeons. There were still hooks on the walls where prisoners would have been chained up! There were also some stocks, which David was kind enough to ‘model’ for us – they looked very uncomfortable!
All in all, it was a super trip and we were really able to experience lots of things, not just about knights, but also about life in a castle.
Being a page boy
Trying on chainmail armour
Trying on gauntlets
The gauntlets were not very comfortable!
The helmet weighed a lot!
Knights used shields to protect themselves in battle
The shields were heavy too!
