Category Archives: 08 Victorian

02 Iron Age, 03 Roman, 08 Victorian

The Downs

In 1861, Parliament passed the Clifton and Durdham Down (Bristol) Act securing

“both the same Downs to be open and largely resorted to as Places of Recreation for the Inhabitants of Bristol and its Neighbourhood for time immemorial.”

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of this Act of Parliament, Bristol City Council funded Local Learning together with storyteller, Martin Maudsley to explore the Downs with two schools, Burnbush School in Stockwood and Christ Church School in Clifton. The students produced board games based on the area’s natural and historic environment.

Year 5 from Burnbush Primary School on their Downs Local Learning story trail
Year 5 from Burnbush Primary School on their Downs Local Learning story trail

Media producer, Tot Foster has collected memories and knowledge from over twenty people about Clifton Down and Durdham Down, on a diverse variety of subjects from the discovery of Bristol’s own dinosaur, the maiden flight of the Boxkite to escaping goats and peregrine watching.

www.thedowns150.org.uk

08 Victorian

Totterdown

Victorian resources (these were created for St Michael-on-the-Mount Primary School, but contain generic content that can be applied elsewhere).

Totterdown is home to some of Bristol’s most iconic terraced streets, appropriately named, perched on steep hillsides high above Temple Meads Station. Many of Totterdown’s first residents worked on the railways.

Year 2 at Hillcrest Primary School
Year 2 at Hillcrest Primary School recreating School Road in 1901

A Heritage Schools project involved Local Learning working with Hillcrest Primary School, climbing the hills to find out more about the streets and houses and the people who lived in them at the end of the Victorian period. Year 2 students identified patterns indicating the different styles of the builders and produced their own house designs.

“Thank you so much for the work you did with the Year 2 children. They loved it and learnt so much.”

Kim Lamb, Heritage Schools co-ordinator, Hillcrest Primary