Prior to the event some research was done into the local history of the school grounds and the surrounding area. this helped to build a story to capture the children's imagination and give a real reason for the dig.
Fortunately the school is built in the grounds of Gilbertstone House.
The house was owned by Richard Tangye who was an engineer whose company helped Brunel launch the SS Great Eastern. With his brother he founded the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and was a great collector of relics. (see above)
We were also lucky to find a news story reporting the death of a gardener at Gilbertstone House. With a little bit of manipulation we were able to include him in our story.
Year 6 as part of their Forest School sessions were helping to make some changes to the site and kindly agreed to bury the mummy that was stolen by the gardener from Sir Richard Tangye. ( It was a little harder to to find facts for this but a coded Victorian diary was easily translated for our purposes - and you do have to ask why he died so suddenly?)
Hi.. I was part of the first intake to Lyndon Green Junior School. I lived in Brays Road (No.90). We used to play in what we called the woods where the boating pool was with its island. This is where the special school is now. It had many ornamental trees and must have been a Victorian arboretum. To us young boys it was a magical place. On the pond, we had a large static water tank that must have been part of Gilbertstone Hall. It was rectangular and made a perfect raft in which three or four lads could easily punt themselves round the island. The pond was fed by a small stream and held many newts, sticklebacks, leaches and pond creatures. The 'barge' got buried in the foundations of the new school when they put conduits in for the stream. There was also 'Baggies' the site of an estate off Barrows Lane which was also a favourite place to play. Many happy days spent in the Sheldon area when i was little. We were very lucky!
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