Gory Story trail Key Stage 3

about this trail

KS3 | Subject: History | Topic: Castles, Crime and Punishment, Medieval, Tudors | Session Type: Route-based

Does the Tower of London deserve its gory reputation?

This self-guided trail covers the mighty 950 years of the Tower’s history, including stories from the Medieval and Tudor periods. It explores the often hidden history of the Tower’s different roles as fortress, palace, prison and much more.

With three routes which can be explored separately or combined for a longer visit, students will have the chance to investigate some of the Tower’s most famous landmarks and residents, and to decide for themselves whether the Tower of London truly deserves its gory reputation.

Learning objectives

This trail does not require prior knowledge. It is structured to allow students to:

• Expand their knowledge of the Tower of London’s history, by exploring history where it happened.
• Consult a diverse range of evidence and facts.
• Decide to what extent the Tower’s ‘gory reputation’ is a fair assessment, a generalisation or in need of revision.

National Curriculum Links

This session supports:

• Understanding historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and using them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends and frame historically-valid questions.
• Understanding methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discerning how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed.

Booking Information

Availability
Monday to Friday (during term time).

Capacity
To encourage collaboration, you will receive one activity trail for every two students. We advise that students work in groups of ten with a supervising adult.

Price
Free (included in £4.10 price of admission)