A group of about 25 home-schooled children and their mothers spent the morning at the Heritage Centre, Bell End, Rowley Regis, one day at the end of January.
After light refreshments, the visit began with a brief, illustrated talk on the fact that, for nearly 2000 years, Christianity has been the source of tremendous blessing to our country.
The group, armed with clipboards and pencils, then spent half-an-hour on a picture and object search of the exhibition. Their observation sheets and questions were prepared by Steve and Priscilla West from Dudley, and have proved very popular with younger visitors.
The group was then divided into two to study the life of Alfred the Great. Mrs West told a gripping story to the younger group of Alfred in his early years, from the point of view of his mother, Osburgh. Roland Burrows took the older children through the main points of Alfred’s life and achievements.
Well did John Foxe, in his Acts and monuments say of Alfred, ‘Among the Saxon kings … mentioned, I find few or none to be preferred, or even to be compare, to this Alfred, for the great and singular qualities … worthy of high renown and commendation’.
This was followed by some model-making, time restricting us to the making of Saxon longboats, while the younger children made replicas of Alfred’s crown.
There was just enough time before lunch to sing a song specially written on the life of Alfred the Great, to the tune of ‘Green grow the rushes O’.
A happy morning was spent learning of the mighty works of God in our nation’s history. The visit ended with an indoor picnic lunch in the schoolroom. We hope that this will be the first of many similar visits, teaching the rising generation of our precious Christian Heritage.
For more information or to arrange a visit, see www.christianheritagecentre.org.uk or phone 01384-637314.
