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Our Visit to St Albans Cathedral

on 23/11/2018

We had a fantastic day at St Albans Cathedral, learning about the Dissolution of the Monasteries and how to make brass rubbings.

Write about your day as a comment to this post. What did you do? What did you learn? What did you enjoy the most and why? Remember – no one is particularly interested in what you had for lunch!!


30 Responses to “Our Visit to St Albans Cathedral”

  1. Joshua says:

    Today we went to St Albans Cathedral. When we arrived we listened to a lady explain what activities were planned for our visit. Next we met Sue and she told us that St Albans is named after a man who let someone bad into his house and the bad person told St Alban about being a Christian. St Alban thought being a Christian sounded brilliant and decided to swap clothes with the bad person. St Alban was arrested and executed because the courts thought he was the bad person who had stolen when what he had actually done was take the blame for something he had nothing to do with in the name of Jesus. This is why everyone remembers St Albans because of the brilliant thing he had done. After, we all dressed up as monks and we were given a short history talk about King Henry V111 and how he took everything away from the monks and the Catholic Church. This was called the Dissolution of the monasteries. Still dressed as monks we walked through the Cathedral to where the statue of Jesus was and Andrew got to dress up as an Abbot. Sue explained what an abbot was and what his responsibilities were. After, we moved to where the Cathedral organ is and then I dressed up as the abbot. Jack and Yuri made me sign a form to let King Henry know what he could take from the Cathedral, such as the stained glass windows, jewels and some statues from the walls.
    After lunch we went to a small room outside the Cathedral to do brass rubbings and a lady called Jenny helped us do the brass rubbings. I did a rubbing of a lion. I had to put some paper on the top of my brass picture, sellotape it down and use 3 wax colours of gold, bronze and silver which I rubbed over the lion. I could see very clearly the detail on the lion.
    I really enjoyed my visit and learned more about King Henry V111 and the Tudor period. We have been learning about the Dissolution of the monastries in class and it was really interesting seeing a Cathedral where King Henry V111 took riches, money and power.

    • lochinver4jch says:

      A thorough account, Joshua. Well done! Remember the man that Alban saved was a Christian rather than a criminal.

  2. samuel says:

    I thoroughly enjoyed the visit to the cathedral today – I felt that I learnt so much more from being there, and I gained more information about the Tudors.

    My favourite thing today was learning about Tomas de Lamare, that he had visited the cathedral for 67 years and he was 75 years old. They have buried his body at the cathedral.

    I also learnt that the second leader of the monks was friends with King Henry the VIII which was bad because Henry wanted to shut down the monks who made medicine.
    The monks would pray with their robe hoods on.

    I enjoyed the brass rubbing session, which included the 3 different colours, bronze, silver and gold. I rubbed out a man with a dog at the bottom – the dog represents luck.

  3. Ishaan says:

    Our visit to St. Albans Cathedral

    We spent the day learning about Alban’s story, dissolution of monasteries, and brass rubbing.
    We learnt about the story of St Alban. Alban was a roman catholic, he sheltered a stranger who was going to be prosecuted. This stranger was a Christian priest. He taught Alban about Christianity. When the romans found the Christian priest, they took him & Alban and beheaded them. There is a shrine in the Cathedral to honour St Alban.
    I learnt about how the dissolution of monasteries came about. King Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon, but the pope wouldn’t allow him as Roman Catholic don’t believe in divorce. So, King Henry VIII formed his own church of England. For him to do this he dissolved, demolished all the monasteries to use the land to get money. This was called dissolution of monasteries. We learnt about the different roles of the monks. We dressed up as monks and each had a different job. Andrew was the head monk ‘Abbot’, I was the cellarer (all the keys for the cellars), Rohan was monk who looked after the poor people. Jenson was the monk who looked after the sick people.
    After lunch, I learnt about brass rubbing. Before we started, we looked at some brass pictures of important people praying. I did a brass rubbing of a knight praying by using gold and silver wax and rubbed it on the black piece of paper which was on a brass template of a knight praying.
    I enjoyed dressing up as a monk who oversaw the cellars as I felt like I was in charge. My favourite part of the day was brass rubbing because I got to see the picture which had a lot of detail.

    • lochinver4jch says:

      Wow, Ishaan! You have remembered a lot 😊 Well done. Don’t forget to use capital letters for all proper nouns!

  4. Oliver says:

    OUR TRIP TO ST ALBANS CATHEDRAL

    Today we went to St Albans Cathedral where we learnt about the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII. The Cathedral is like a big church and was cold inside but also beautiful. We went by Golden Boy coach and stayed until 3 o’clock!

    When we arrived at the Cathedral we were met by a lady who took us to do some brass rubbings of people who wanted to be remembered. These were huge brass murals set in the floor or walls, which we then copied in our workshop – that was fun and I loved the way the detail gets onto the card just by rubbing the crayons over the brass.

    Next we met Steve who talked to us about the dissolution which was when King Henry VIII wanted to set up a new Church because the Pope wouldn’t let him divorce Catherine of Aragon – so he forced lots of people to accept the Church of England. I learnt that when King Henry’s Commissioners arrived at St Albans Cathedral all of the monks were so scared that they handed over the keys to the building! There were 35 monks who all signed a scroll. We all dressed up as monks, I had a really important job as the Keeper of the Keys. Steve dressed up as a Commissioner and asked me for the keys – but I didn’t give them up!! Mrs Chronias made a joke about shaving a monks’ bald spot into my hair – I believed her, I am so gullible. The bald spot is called a tonsure.

    My favourite part of this day out was learning about the dissolution of the monasteries – it’s really interesting. I loved dressing up as a monk and think that the Keeper of the Keys is a very important job.

  5. connor says:

    TRIP TO ST. ALBANS CATHEDRAL 2000 years old.

    At 09:15 4C & 4R took the coach to st. albans cathedral .
    When we got there, we all got off the coach and lined up in pairs.
    Together we walked up to the cathedral. When we got inside we realised how big it actually was. Everybody put their bags on a peg and we all sat down in front of the teacher. She told us that there would be 2 groups – 1 group doing brass rubbing & the other group would be doing a role play of the monks and king Henry the VIII. We would swap over at lunch time. I was doing the role play first. Our teacher told us the story of the Christians and the romans. Then we went to the longest bit of the church. We all got dressed up as monks except Alec who was the leader so he wore green clothes and a hat. We all looked a bit silly but we all had different jobs. I was a novice. We waked around the cathedral and stopped to sit down and talk about king Henry VIII closing down the cathedral and sending him a letter. But I said why should we send him a letter? It will draw attention to us. Then Alec said “good point!”. So we went to a different part of the cathedral and Alec pretended he had stolen something. And then he stopped being a leader. Then Max.M became leader and in the corner Alec became king Henry the VIII and then he came into the scene and said what’s going on here? He said to us sign this paper and the leave or don’t sign but you still have to leave. Then it was lunch time. Yummy!

    After lunch we did brass rubbing. The teacher there told us about brass and some brass on the floor. She said that when king Henry closed the monastery he had stolen some brass. Then we went to another building and did some brass rubbing. I made a lion, after that the teacher took us back to the monastery she asked us if we liked the monastery. Everyone said yyyyyyyyeeeesssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then we got back on the bus and went back to school.

    • lochinver4jch says:

      A thorough account, Connor. Well done! Don’t forget to use capital letters for all proper nouns!

  6. Oluwadara says:

    Our trip to St Albans Cathedral

    We went to St Albans Cathedral. I was in Mrs Roses’ s group and we learnt about the dissolution of the monasteries. We got to dress up as monks and a lady told us about the dissolution of the monasteries. She took us around to different parts of the cathedral and gave us all different jobs. The most interesting part for me was when we went to St Albans’s shrine. I got the job of the shrine keeper. My job was to organise ceremonies for the shrine to be shown. Then we went to a different place in the cathedral and we learnt how the monks had to let King Henry VIII close down the monasteries. It must have been really sad that the monasteries had to close down.

    Then after lunch and break the groups switched activities so my group were doing brass rubbing. Here are some simple instructions for brass rubbing:
    1. Get a brass picture.
    2. Find the edge of the brass picture.
    3. Rub the wax crayons up and down.
    Then you should have a perfect brass rubbing. My favourite part of the trip was when we did the brass rubbing because I think it is a fun way of learning art. I can’t wait till our next school trip!

  7. Shay says:

    Our Trip to St. Albans Cathedral

    Today classes 4C and 4R from Lochinver House School went to St. Albans Cathedral.

    The first thing we did was listen to what we were going to learn about. These were brass rubbing and the dissolution of the monasteries.

    We went into the cathedral to see some famous brasses. Brasses are made from the metal brass and they are like photos with lots of patterns. We saw a brass of Thomas de la Mare who lived in the cathedral from 8 years old to 75 years old. We then got to do our own brass rubbing in the Education Centre. I made a brass of a lion by putting the lion brass underneath, putting black paper on the top and then rubbing really hard on the paper to make the picture appear.

    Then we had lunch, but no one wants to read about that!

    In the afternoon we learnt about Alban. Alban lived in Verulamium which was the Roman name for St Albans. He became a Christian after sheltering a Christian priest. He was beheaded because he pretended to be the priest instead of giving him up.

    Then we learnt about the dissolution of the monasteries. This was when Henry VIII shut down and attacked all the monasteries because he wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon for not producing a son. However, the church and the monks would not let him. St Albans cathedral was very lucky and didn’t get destroyed because the monks decided to give in to Henry VIII.

    We got to dress up as monks, got given jobs, had a chapter meeting and prayed to Albans grave.

    My favourite part of the day was the brass rubbing because it was really hard work but it came looking great with lots of detail.
    The whole day was great fun at St Albans Cathedral.

    Thank you to all the teachers for taking us.

  8. Yuri says:

    On Friday 23rd November 2018 Year 4 went to St. Albans Cathedral. I learned that Henry VIII sent his Commissioner to check how bad the Monastery was, so that he could knock down the Cathedral and build Church of England instead and become the head of the church. This way he could divorce Catherine of Aragon. But there was nothing wrong with St. Albans Cathedral, so he could not knock it down.
    A museum staff member taught us about the monks, who lived in the Cathedral / Monastery around 1520 and she gave us monks’ robes and told us to pretend we were real monks. We all had jobs like real monks, which were: cellarer, cleaners. I was a guard and I had to take cellarer’s keys and was on a mission to arrest all the monks.
    We also did brass rubbing – for portraits you could only rub vertically and for landscapes horizontally. My brass rubbing was of a knight with lion standing next to his left leg. This was the best part of the trip for me.
    We also walked around the Cathedral and saw St Alban Shrine, lovely stained class and some very old statues.

  9. Valentino says:

    On Friday we went to Saint Albans that day it was brilliant learning about the Tudors but I was a little bit more interested with the Brass rubbings.

    The Brass rubbing was spectacular the way you have to rub is so fascinating. With the animals like the lion or dog witch means your strong or loyal, you rub sideways but with the people you rub upwards and downwards. that was my favourite.

    My second favourite was being a Monk. I was the Monk that looked after the poor people and helped them find a bed so that they could sleep in. Shay was the leader but oh no Aaron took his place now it is getting even worse King Henry the VIII has come to shut the cathedral down he has given us a warning if we surrender we would live a happy life but if we try and defend ourselves we will be hung by our necks on a tree and guess what, we surrendered! King Henry VIII did that so he could take our land. ☹

  10. Cian says:

    On Friday we went on a trip to St. Albans cathedral.

    Firstly I went to the dissolution of the monasteries and we got to dress up as monks and we were all given a job and I was brother cellar and I took care of the keys all over the church so no one can get them.

    Before that we heard the story of the whole thing about the dissolution of the monasteries. But I have to say the acting was definitely my favourite part! The reason I liked it was because I just love acting thing out more then just being told it!

    I really loved the brass rubbing too because you get a hugely great result. So what you have to do is choose one of the brass pictures on the table then you would get some paper and wrap it up very tightly and then tape the back and sides. After that you have to trace round the picture until you see an outline of your picture and then you use coloured wax to colour it in and there you go.

    We also learned that king Henry VIII closed down all the monasteries in England because he wanted to get rid of the pope and start up the church of England so he could divorce his wife and marry Ann Boleyn.

  11. Zachary F says:

    Today we went to St. Albans Cathedral.
    When we got there we walked around to the entrance and went inside the huge Cathedral. We sat down, and a lady told us about the activities we were going to do. We worked in groups and our first activity was brass rubbing. First our leader told us about some very famous brass pictures that we could find in the cathedral. The pictures were of people who worked and served at the church a long time ago so that they could be remembered. Our leader took us to a work area and she explained how to do a brass rubbing. First step we got a chance to feel around the brass picture with our hands, so we knew where everything is because then we had to cover the brass with black paper. We used a heelball to do the brass rubbing. We got 3 different colours, bronze, silver and gold. We rubbed the heelball over the black paper and the pattern came through. I choose to do a gold lion and after that I started to put silver on top. You had to push really hard for the patterns to come through. Then we had lunch and got to play outside for a bit.

    After lunch, my group went to learn about the dissolution of the monasteries which happened when Henry VIII was king. We got to dress up as monks, they wore a black cloak and we were given a label to say what job we did. I was the Guest Master who would have looked after the people who visited the Cathedral. We all sat down, and our group leader told us the story of why St. Albans Cathedral was called St. Albans. The story was, Alban was a Roman and his friend was a Christian priest who was being persecuted. Alban wanted to protect him, so he swapped clothes with the Christian. When the Romans came looking for the Christian, they thought that Alban was the Christian priest and they executed him. Alban was very brave to protect his friend, and this is why they called the Cathedral, St. Albans.

    Next, we had a meeting to talk about how we could stop Henry the VIII from shutting down the monasteries. We thought we could show him what we are good at and our skills like writing books and saving people. We decided to let Henry VIII take the monastery because he is the king. One of the king’s advisors came with a scroll that we had to sign to say that we were happy to go and live somewhere else. I thought I could have gone to work at an Inn because I learnt some skills from working as a Guest Master in the monastery. At the end we took all the monks clothes off and got our bags ready to go back to school.

    I really enjoyed this trip and would like to go again.

  12. Matthew says:

    I think it was quite fun when we had to dress up Because when Alec dressed up in the costume it was massive for him and I liked it when we dressed up because we don’t usually don’t dress up in different costumes in school and we normally dress up in our school uniform and I like a change now and then and then we were dressed up in Tudor monk costumes and also we got jobs I was the cook for the monks and for the guests .Alec was the leader of the monks and he got kicked out of his job and the prior became the leader which was Max M. Then Alec was working for King Henry VIII and he came back and asked us to sign a paper if we we wanted to go away and i singed it and after all of that bit Alec said I was his most trusted man and to be silly Alec said i was his executor. Then we did brass rubbing and i colured mine in gold and silver but mainly silver the whole thing was colured in silver except the fluffy bit on the tail of the lion the mane was silver the whole thing was after that was the end of the trip and on the coach I sat next to Alec.

  13. Max M says:

    OUR TRIP TO THE ST ALBANS CATHEDRAL
    On Friday the 23rd of November we all went on a school trip to the St Albans Cathedral on a big Golden Boy Bus.
    When we got there, we had a guided tour around the church. We got to dress up as Monks and were assigned various Monk jobs. We had a Monk meeting in the main part of the church. On the agenda we had to come up with the solution for the closure of the monasteries requested by the King Henry the VIII. My job was a Deputy Head Monk, I was in charge when the Head Monk was away. Everyone had lots of fun dressing up.
    After lunch, we did brass rubbing. We had to put a piece of card over a brass sculpture then rub wax crayon over the card. This then gives a print of the 3D sculpture. Mine was a sculpture of a knight. They used this technique to create more copies of the sculpture. This was my favourite part of the day.

  14. Adnan says:

    Going to St Albans Cathedral.

    On our School trip today. We were learning about the Tudors. My favourite bit was doing brass rubbing. It was very interesting learning how to do brass rubbings.

    How to do a brass rubbing. We each got a brass sculpture. We got some card and put it over the sculpture. We used masking tape to stick it down. We had wax crayons the colours were bronze,silver and gold. You rub the colours one by one. Keep on rubbing till you have a wonderful picture. Then undo the masking tape and you have a wonderful picture. This is how you do a brass rubbing. This was the favourite bit of my day.

  15. Jenson says:

    OUR TRIP TO ST ALBANS CATHEDRAL!

    Last Friday we went to St Albans cathedral and I loved it. My favourite part was brass rubbing, I did a lion. Here are the instructions for brass rubbing; first get a piece of wood with a picture on it on it that sticks up. Next put a piece of paper over it and cellotape it to the back. After turn it back over and push down on the edges so you can see where the edges are. Finally choose some wax crayons and colour over your picture. I coloured my lion in gold.

    Walking through the Cathedral was an amazing site. At the start we all dressed up as monks! The lady taking us around St Albans Cathedral was telling us the story about King Henry the eighth becoming the head of the Church of England. She took us round to different places in the Cathedral and gave us all different jobs, I looked after the sick people.

    Whilst we were there we learnt the story of St Alban. He saved a Christian that was being chased by the Romans. The Christian turned St Alban into a Christian. To save the Christian, St Alban switched clothes with him and let him escape out the back door. That day, St Alban made a great sacrifice but got executed. He was buried on top of a hill and that’s why we call the area St Albans!

    Thank you teachers for organising it!!!!!!

    I look forward to the next school trip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  16. Zach says:

    Last Friday year 4 went on a school trip to St Albans Cathedral. We travelled there by coach. When we arrived there we all got into our groups and the first thing we did was to look at the brass plates on the floor and on the walls. The lady from the Cathedral told us all about the brass and said that only rich people would have brass done of themselves because brass is very expensive. There was one person who wasn’t rich but had a brass plate of himself. The lady said that the man had worked at the Cathedral for 67 years and he died at the age of 75, which was a pretty high age at the time. After we looked at all of the brass plates we got to do a brass rubbing. I did one of a lion. We used black paper and bronze, silver or gold wax. I really enjoyed doing this, it was my favorite part of the day.

    After lunch we swapped round and my group got to do a tour of the Cathedral. We leaned about someone called Alban who was a Roman. He wanted to protect his friend who was a Christian who the Romans were trying to kill. Alban wanted to be a Christian the same as his friend. He helped his friend by swapping clothes with him so that he could escape. The Romans caught Alban and when they asked him if he was a Christian he didn’t want to tell a lie because of his faith. When he admitted to being a Christian the Romans executed him by chopping off his head.

    We were told about the monks who lived and worked at the Cathedral. We also heard about King Henry eighth who wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon because she was ugly and she didn’t give him a son. He asked the Pope if he could divorce her but he said no. King Henry was angry at this and so he decided to build his own churches so that he could take over and make his own rules and decisions. He wanted to rule all of the churches and cathedrals and he offered the monk’s money and a new house if they left the church immediately.

    I really enjoyed our trip and I can’t wait for the next one.

  17. Raphael says:

    On 23/11/18 4C and 4R went to St. Albans Cathedral. We all sat down and the teachers told us what groups we were in and what we were doing. I was in Mrs Coppings group.

    I did the brass rubbing first. The teacher showed us some brasses on the wall and on the floor. I can remember two of them. One was Thomas de la Mare, who was abbot. The other one was Don Roberts. He left his family and started as a monk at only 8 years old!! Then we went to a workshop and started our brass rubbings. I chose a lion, we had 3 heelboards (wax crayons). They were in gold, silver and bronze. I chose a lion because it represents strength. This was my favourite part because the detail showed so easily. You had to tape a black paper to an actual brass. Then you colour over the paper. That’s it. Done.

    After lunch we all swapped and I did the dissolution of the monasteries where we had a talk about how Henry VIII closed down the monasteries. He closed them down because he wanted to divorce his first wife (Catherine of Aragon) but the Pope wouldn’t let him so he made up the Church of England and he shut all the monasteries down. St Albans Cathedral was one of the monasteries that was shut down. As the head of the Church of England he could make up the rules and could divorce his wife.

    After, we dressed up as monks, I was the bookwriter. Jaiveer was the abbot but he was sacked. Then Luca was abbot. Then one of Henry VIII’s soldiers came with a note. We all had to sign and leave the monastery. Then we all packed and went home.

  18. Alec says:

    I really enjoyed going to St. Albans Cathedral, especially because all the boys got dressed up as monks and I was the abbot and Henry VIII’s soldier. Brass rubbing was fun too. I did a lion in gold and silver. It turned out great.
    St. Albans Cathedral is named after a man called Alban. He lived in the times of the Romans. One day a Christian came to town. He tried to teach people to start believing in one Christian God. The Roman soldiers went looking for him to kill him because they believed in many gods. The Cristian man hid in Alban’s house and was praying. When soldiers came Alban dressed in Christian man’s clothes, because he started to believe in one Christian God. The soldiers grabbed him and took him to the king. There they pulled his hood off and everyone gasped when they saw it was Alban. King said: this is your last chance to say that you believe in Roman gods. And Alban answered: I do not. There is only one God. And they cut his head off.
    Years later the people build the church over his grave because St. Alban so strongly believed in Christian God. We saw his grave.
    I want to say thank you to all the staff who showed and told us so much about history and what happened to St. Alban. It was a wonderful day.

  19. Luca says:

    Trip To St Albans Cathedral

    Last Friday year 4 went to St Albans cathedral, to learn more about the dissolution of the monasteries by king Henry the VIII. The Cathedral was very big and very impressive. The roof on the inside of the Cathedral was very high and beautiful, with pictures of red and white roses and the England flag.

    A lady took us to see all the brass rubbings of famous people who lived in tudor times. Before lunch time we made are own brass rubbings and our teachers did it too.

    Another lady from the Cathedral came to tell us about the dissolution of the Monasteries. She told us how Henry the VIII sent a letter to all the monasteries to tell them to close there monasteries down. Henry wanted them to close down because he wanted his own church of England so he could divorce and Marry whenever he wanted.

    We also had the chance to dress up and act as Monks and Abbots. I got to be a Monk and an Abbot and I really liked dressing up.

    My favourite part of the day trip out to St Albans Cathedral was when we had the chance to make our own brass rubbings.

    I can’t wait until our next school trip.

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