MURTON PARK 2025
Murton Park by Matilda Tebbutt
On the 23rd June 2025, me and Class 3 went on a school trip to Murton Park. Murton Park is a Viking village. It also has museums. We went to Murton Park because we are learning about Vikings.
The first thing we did when we got there was dress up in Viking tunics. There were two families. In family one, me and Alban were Mother and Father. In family two, Elodie and Jack C were the parents.
The next thing we did was go to the mock village with Ubber. Ubber is a nice and funny man. Ubber started by telling us that his Lordship was away hunting a white stag for his banquet. In the village, there was a bell. A slow ring was for a meeting and a fast, loud sound meant Anglo-Saxon is attacking. Out of nowhere, his Lordship appeared! (He came from the longhouse.) Ubber told us we had to say, "My Lordship" at the end of everything we said to him. His Lordship told us that one family among us will make bread while the other made tallow lamps.
My group made bread and ground wheat for the bread. When you make bread, you make the dough first, then you add water and more flour to make the bread dough smoother. Then we ground the wheat on a quernstone. It was hard work, even Mrs. Davies and Miss Pratt had a go. They were very good. With the bread dough, his Lordship put it on one of the stones around the fire. (There was a small fire in the middle of the longhouse.) Suddenly the meeting bell rang. Ubber and the others were ready to swap over.
This time we were in a workshop. Inside the workshop, there were three wooden tables and some benches along the side of them. Ubber told us that we were to make tallow lamps. Tallow lamps are the type of lamps the Vikings used. To make tallow lamps, you need a lump of clay and a wooden spike. You roll the clay into a ball, then you roll the ball of clay into a sausage as long as your thumb. Next, you poke your thumb into the clay to make a hole. Then with your thumb and two of your fingers, make the hole like a bowl, then take the bottom of the lamp and make it flat and decorate it.
Next, we went back to the hall for some amazing lunch.
After lunch, we went back into the longhouse. His Lordship said we were to split up and look at different homes.
My group looked inside Erik's home. The house only had one room. The room was quite basic. It had a chimney, not like the ones we have today. It was simply a hole in the roof. There were also two long benches at the side of the house. The tops of the benches had lids. You could lift up the side of the benches. Inside of the benches you could keep stuff to sleep on. The children would sleep on the floor, with the adults on the benches. After looking inside the house, we looked at a garden. The garden was made of some plants and pig, cat and dog homes. Some of the plants were grown to heal people.
Guard duty, it was amazing. The first thing we did was line up outside of a house. Then we went into this little shed. Inside were a stack of spears and a rack of shields. We put them on. Then his Lordship said he will show us what guard position looked like. Next, he taught us how a shield wall looked like. Then he said, "Only this once, you are allowed to shout back at adults!" There was a babble of shouts. So he called, "Guard position!" We shouted "Guard position!" back. Next, the instruction was, "Raise spear and down spear." Finally, he said we were good enough to do some charges. His Lordship told us to get in three lines of four and showed us what stieg was. Stieg was where you take one step at a time to move forwards. Then stop. Oh my, and charge was totally different, you still had to move in a line, but you could run. His Lordship went to the end of the long stone path on which we were standing. We tried to scare him off with our shouts, but it didn't work, so we charged at him. We won! His Lordship told us to put our spears and shields back, and we swooped with family two.
Ubber led us into the longhouse to clean the toilets! Instead we played a game called Trip- Trap –Troll. It was very fun to play the game. We had to find a partner and a board. Ubber told us how to play the game, you have four rocks -two are black, and the other two are white. To start the game, you have five islands, four in the corners and one in the middle. There are seven bridges. You move the stones over the bridges.
Suddenly, the bell rang. It was fast and loud. It meant Anglo-Saxon ATTACK! Family two were on guard duty. His Lordship told them what to do to scare the Saxon off, while we shouted stuff at the Saxon.
It was the best school trip ever!
Oh, we also learnt Vikings were: sailors, raiders, traders, settlers, farmers and craftsmen.
