Tudor Living History at the Westgate Museum
Visitors to the Westgate Museum in Winchester will have the chance to step back in time and experience what life was like for everyday folk in the mid-sixteenth century during the weekend of Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 September 2011. Members of the Pastpresent Living History Group in Tudor period costume will be on hand to answer questions. There will also be replica objects from the period for visitors to handle and use.
Visitors will be transported back to the year 1590. Mistress Rebbecca Bowden and Master James Wood will explore everyday life in Tudor times through their eyes. They have experienced and survived the change and upheavals of the time.
From their earliest lives during the tumult of the Reformation, at the end of Henry VIII’s reign, to the threat of the Spanish Armada only two years before, through times of plague and the famine, the glories of the great and the suffering of the poor – they have seen all these in their life times.
Robin Iles, Winchester City Council’s Museums Education Officer said, “The Westgate Museum is an ideal setting for this event. It housed a debtors’ prison in the late sixteenth century and still contains the graffiti carved by prisoners into the soft chalk walls. On display is a portrait of Ralph Lamb, who attended the wedding of Mary Tudor in Winchester Cathedral, and a Tudor ceiling, which might have been made to commemorate that royal wedding. Armour, coins and everyday belongings from the time are also on show, and there is even replica period armour and historical costume to try on.”
Cllr Patricia Stallard, Portfolio Holder for Economic Prosperity at Winchester City Council, said, “This free event at the Westgate promises a fascinating insight into Tudor period life in Winchester. It is one of the year-round programmes of free, family-friendly events hosted by the City Council’s museums, and is likely to be particularly popular with local families who have children studying the period at school.”
You can meet the Tudor re-enactors at the Westgate Museum on Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 September, 10am - 5pm. Admission is free.