St John the Baptist Church, Little Missenden Guide for teachers Contents Introduction...................................................................................................................................... 2 Background....................................................................................................................................... 2 Image bank 1: Church building.......................................................................................................... 3 Source pack 1: Romans in Little Missenden...................................................................................... 7 Lesson 1: Traces of the Romans......................................................................................................... 9 Source pack 2: Anglo-Saxon invasion and conversion.......................................................................10 Lesson 2: Anglo-Saxon invasion and conversion............................................................................. 13 Source pack 3: Vikings in Buckinghamshire...................................................................................... 14 Lesson 3: Attack of the Vikings........................................................................................................ 16 Source pack 4: Norman architecture................................................................................................ 17 Lesson 4: The Normans are coming!............................................................................................... 20 Image bank 2: Medieval wall paintings............................................................................................ 21 Source pack 5: Medieval religious beliefs......................................................................................... 24 Lesson 5: Medieval religion............................................................................................................. 26 Image bank 3: Reformation paintings.............................................................................................. 27 Source pack 6: Tudor and Stuart religious turmoil........................................................................... 28 Lesson 6: The writing on the wall.................................................................................................... 31 Image bank 4: Georgian, Victorian and 20th century monuments and stained glass........................ 32 Source pack 7: Local Georgian and Victorian dignitaries................................................................. 36 Lesson 7: Agricultural revolution or rural idyll?.............................................................................. 39 Source pack 8: Local stories of the World Wars............................................................................... 40 Lesson 8: Brave boys and land girls................................................................................................. 42 1 Introduction These lesson plans and resources are designed to be used as stand-alone lessons to fit in some local history to your Key Stage 2 British history topics on the Romans and Anglo-Saxons (the first three lessons), or to be used as a whole for the local history topic. For a post-1066 topic, (e.g. a significant turning point in British history) the last few lessons cover topics such as the Tudor reformation, the industrial revolution and the twentieth century World Wars. There are also many hands-on activities that have been designed for families (and can be downloaded here - link) but could be run within the lessons to make them more practical and will be referenced where that is the case. The lessons could be undertaken without visiting the church, but we recommend, if you can, trying to take your class/es on a visit to the church. Please contact [email] to organise this. Volunteers will be delighted to do a special guided tour for schools and to run some practical making activities. There are also recording activities designed for visiting youth groups that could be used by older children on a visit to the church. These will also be referenced in the lesson plans where available (and can be downloaded here - link). Background St John the Baptist church was built between AD 950 and 1000 in the late Anglo-Saxon period. An earlier building clearly stood nearby as Roman brickwork was reused in this first church. The church was then enlarged in the Norman period starting with the aisles being added and later in the medieval period there were more changes to the fabric and the north chapel and porch were added. During cleaning of the interior of the church in the 1930s traces of medieval wall paintings were found under the limewash. In medieval times as most people couldn't read, the walls of churches were painted with scenes from Christian tradition and the bible. Most churches were painted but at the reformation of the 16th century the paintings were either destroyed or whitewashed. It's very rare for some to still survive. At St John the Baptist's in Little Missenden there is, for instance, a huge painting of St Christopher opposite the doorway, and next to him the story of St Catherine was depicted in cartoon form. In 2016 the church applied to the Heritage Lottery Fund to conserve and restore the wall paintings. During this time the conservators found new wall paintings that had not been seen before, in particular traces of a Doom painting on the chancel arch. Doom paintings depict the end of the world with angels trumpeting the dead from their graves to be sorted into those who will go to hell and those who will go to heaven. Traces of the angels' trumpets have been found to the left of the chancel arch under the tie-beam. 2 Image bank 1: Church building St John the Baptist church, Little Missenden Composite plan showing the dates of different parts of the church. 3 This shows four main phases in the church building's development. The red is Anglo-Saxon in date, the yellow is Norman, the green is 13th or 14th century AD and the blue are 15th century additions and improvements. 4 Traces of red brick can be seen in the wall of the tower. This is reused from a Roman building. The black flint to the left is from the 15th century improvement of the tower. [need more close-up pictures of the entire building exterior] 5 Inside the church North walls of the nave and aisle. South walls of the nave and aisle. Looking west to the tower. Looking east to the chancel. Looking south to the main door. 6 Source pack 1: Romans in Little Missenden Roman pottery was found in a field near Holmer Green, south of Little Missenden. The Roman pottery sherds included a piece of a mortarium, which was a pot with bits of stone baked into it so it could be used as a mortar to grind up spices and other food. It was a common household item. [picture of a mortarium] Three Roman coins were found in the garden of Town Farm just south of the church. On the left is a coin of the Emperor Hadrian minted at Rome from 119-121 AD/CE. Another was much later in date, a coin of the Emperor Valens minted in Antioch (now Antakya in Turkey) from 364-378 AD/CE. Shardeloes house, just south of Little Missenden, was built in the 18th century, and a lake was dug. In digging the lake in the 1750s workmen found remains of a Roman villa, including these bronze bowls, stylus (for writing in wax) and brooch. There were also coins dating to about 280-300 AD. 7 This satellite photo shows the area where there might be a Roman villa in Little Missenden, according to archaeologists. The blue pin shows where the Roman coins above were found. Can you see any signs of a building under the grass? This is a model of a Roman villa which shows how it was made. Some of the rooms had open spaces underneath them for warm air to circulate and the floor was held up on pillars made of tiles (these are called hypocausts). Generally the walls were made of thin red bricks and then painted white. The roofs were made of wood and covered in red tiles. 8 Lesson 1: Traces of the Romans Objectives To explore the Roman history of Little Missenden and the surrounding area To identify the source of the Roman building material in St John the Baptist Church To understand why Roman building material was reused Resources Image bank 1: Church building Source pack 1: Roman remains near Little Missenden Main activity Show children the photo of the church from the image bank. Explain that this is St John the Baptist church in Little Missenden and ask any of the children if they have been there or seen it. Tell them this church was built over 1000 years ago, between 950 and 1000 AD/CE in what we call the Anglo- Saxon era. But also tell them the building holds clues to earlier settlement. Give out a copy of the source pack per table and ask them to work out what that earlier building might have been, what it would have been built out of and what date it was. Give children about ten minutes to read through the sources and discuss. Get each table to feed back about what date they think the earlier building was, what it was built out of and what kind of building it might have been. (There's not good evidence for a villa in Little Missenden, better at Shardeloes and dating to AD 280-300, made of bricks, tiles) Tell them that parts of that building were reused in the walls of St John the Baptist church. Plenary Show the close-up photos of the exterior church walls from the image bank one by one and ask children to shout out when they think they can see Roman remains