School Visits

Pricing

• Self-guided museum visits - Free

• Part day visits (typically 2 hours), including a workshop - £2 per child (50p surcharge for craft materials where applicable)

• Mini digs, longer visits, metal foil crafts, or workshops combined with a town walk - £3 per child (50p surcharge for craft materials where applicable)

Timings

We can accommodate school bookings on any weekday, although Mondays are preferred, and can be flexible with regard to timings.

Please note that the Museum is open to the public Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 4pm.

Location

We can accommodate groups at the museum, but we are happy to visit your school to run workshops. We simply ask for an additional donation to cover travel costs.

Facilities

We can normally make the Pepperpot available to you for lunches and for storage if required. The availability of the Pepperpot cannot be guaranteed so please book with us as soon as possible.

We do not have dedicated bag and coat storage at the museum.

The Pepperpot has its own toilet facilities, and there are 2 toilets available at the museum.

The Chief Wireless Operator on the Titanic, Jack Phillips, came from Farncombe and learned Morse Code at Godalming Post Office. He stayed at his post as the ship sank, sending the SOS messages which brought the Carpathia to rescue the survivors of the tragedy. Jack’s last radio message was sent just 2 minutes before the Titanic sank and he was lost with the ship.

Jack was a significant local person and a key figure in a historical event of international fame. He is remembered in the beautiful Arts and Crafts Phillips Memorial in Godalming, on a plaque in Farncombe Church and in a specially commissioned portrait and framed photograph on display in the Museum

Jack Phillips and the Titanic Workshops

A Jack Phillips session for KS 1 lasts about an hour and a quarter. It involves an introduction to Jack and to Morse Code, the Luggage Detective Workshop and Polar and the Titanic Pig. You can add additional workshops, including the Post Office Memorial Craft workshop or the Jack Phillips town walk, depending on the time you have available.

A KS 2 session begins with an illustrated talk on Jack and includes one or more workshops. Choose your workshops from the list below and do contact the museum to discuss what combination would work best for you in the time you have available.

Morse Code

Examine copies of original telegrams and work out the process of sending and receiving a telegram. Use Morse keys to send and receive messages in code. Find out about telegrams sent from the Titanic.

Luggage Detective

Examine “left luggage” and identify and interpret clues, to discover to whom the luggage belonged. Create your own traveller on the Titanic – what would they have in their luggage and why?

Polar and the Titanic Pig

• Find out more about life on board the Titanic through the stories of two special passengers - Polar, a toy bear who belonged to 9-year-old Douglas Spedden and a pig musical box which belonged to Edith Russell. Use the beautifully illustrated book "Polar, the Titanic Bear", props and memories to explore the luxuries of first class travel and the drawbacks of wearing a hobble skirt

Post Office Memorial Crafts

• Decode the symbolism of the ornate Arts and Crafts style frame of the Post Office Memorial to Jack Philips and use metal foil and embossing technique to create your own small memorial to take home or display in school

Town Walk

• See Jack’s school and the Post Office where he learned Morse Code, before a study visit to the Phillips Memorial

Talented artist, designer, writer and horticulturalist, Gertrude Jekyll was definitely ahead of her time. Explore original resources at the museum or in school to find out about this significant local person.

Study Gertrude Jekyll and you will be covering many areas of the KS 1 curriculum beside History, including: Impressionists and Arts and Crafts artists in Art; fairy stories and traditional tales in Literacy; growing plants in Science and designing gardens in DT. Local schools have planted Jekyll borders in their school allotments and gardens and created art and craftwork inspired by Miss Jekyll. The ideas are endless, thanks to Gertrude!

Gertrude Jekyll Sessions

You can choose between the Artist Gardener, Puss in Boots and Old West Surrey workshops for your session, which can be delivered in the museum or at school. The session will last around an hour and a quarter and will involve a talk from Miss Jekyll and hands-on activities for the children.

Artist Gardener

• Miss Jekyll shows some of her drawings, paintings and garden designs and explains how she uses colour. Plant cress in an activity designed by Gertrude Jekyll herself for her book “Children and Gardens”, or make a model snail (inspired by one Miss Jekyll made for the Queen). Look at Miss Jekyll's pictures and craft work and make your own sketches.

Puss in Boots

• Miss Jekyll introduces you to her cat Thomas and to his portrait in the character of Puss in Boots. Using freeze frame techniques, step into the picture and create characters for the next scene in the story. Bring the picture to life with drama, costume and lots of imagination. Examine Miss Jekyll's sketches to see how she worked up her ideas for this picture and develop your own animal hero.

Old West Surrey

• How did people in the cottages and farms of Victorian Surrey light and heat their homes, cook and eat? What tools did they use to earn their living? What did they do with their leisure time? How does this compare with our lives today?

Town Walk : Gertude Jekyll’s Godalming

• Discover the sleepy Godalming Gertrude Jekyll remembered before the coming of the railway, and the bustling Victorian town she described in Old West Surrey.

Godalming Museum was founded in 1921 to tell the story of the town and surrounding villages. There are more than twenty thousand objects in the museum collection - maps, documents, photographs, film, books, paintings, prints and drawings, and memories, as well as artefacts, all illustrating how the local area has developed and the lives of its inhabitants changed, over the centuries.

You can see some of these resources on-line: go to "Explore on-line" in "What to see and do" on this website. On the "What to see and do" page you can also see how resources are displayed in different galleries and in the "Images of Godalming" digital display at the museum, and find out about the museum's local studies library.

These resources have all been collected for the benefit of the community and we love to share them with local schools and other groups - do talk to us if you are planning a local topic, we may well be able to help.

The Story of Godalming Workshop

• A half hour introduction to Godalming's Geology, Archaeology and Local History, beginning in the Cretaceous and ending up in the 20th century and touching on the lives of famous characters associated with the local area. This can be delivered as an object handling session as part of a museum visit or in school with a smaller group, or as a PowerPoint presentation to a larger group.

Town Walk

• Beginning at the Pepperpot, the ancient heart of Godalming and the hub of its old market place, this walk takes in the Rivers Ock and Wey, the mills, evidence for the tanning and woollen industries, the Parish Church and the Phillips Memorial Cloister. It looks at the local architecture, the timber framed Tudor and red brick Georgian, houses and the surviving coaching inns on the High Street.

• This walk can be adapted to suit particular areas of interest and lengthened or shortened according to the time available. The standard walk takes around 1 hour.