Year 4 had the opportunity to travel back in time and try various activities which people living in Anglo-Saxon Britain would have done.

It was a bitterly cold day so sitting inside the round house with a large fire burning in the middle of the floor was much appreciated even if it was rather dark and smoky!

The walls of the houses and all the fences surrounding the farm are made from woven hazel branches and we all had a go at building one of these wattle fences.

Chalk is an important ingredient used on the floors and in whitewashing the walls so pupils set to work enthusiastically with wooden mallets to bash it into small pieces. It was like watching a small group of Oompaloompas!

Saxon people loved their jewellery and we all enjoyed using copper or silver-coloured wire to make either a ring or a bracelet.

We then set off to find enough green leaves with which to dye chunks of chalk onto which we carved our own house gods using sharp flints.

The highlight of the day for many was the archaeology activity which involved using a trowel to excavate a square of land to discover what was beneath the soil. A grand selection of bones, pieces of iron and pottery and even a kettle were discovered by the intrepid explorers.

There are several types of sheep on the farm and their fleeces are spun into wool on a very basic loom.

There were also two rather fierce-looking wild boars which we were advised to stay well clear of.

It was a tiring day because we kept busy in order to keep warm – probably much as the Saxons would have done. The idea of spending the night in the roundhouse sounded all well and good but we were glad to get back on the 21^st century coach and return to a land of central heating and electricity.