Our Trengwainton heritage project will work with five schools over the period of the project. Different themes inspired by Trengwainton's history will link with each school.
Newlyn School's class 5 and 6 visited Trengwainton this Autumn and learnt about WW2. The workshops explored the 'Dig for Victory' campaign, the 'make do and mend' ethos, the different roles men and women played during the war and how the war affected Trengwainton and Penzance.
In 1943 three Land Girls and two boys were employed at Trengwainton garden. The main lawns and the Terrace were ploughed up and planted with vegetables, the produce being sent to London to feed the troops.
Gareth, one of Trengwainton's full time Gardeners of 27 years, has a large collection of wartime memorabilia and ran for us an inspirational workshop to highlight the war effort. At Trengwainton a 'Dig for Victory' area is now dedicated to that period of time.
A week after Gareth's workshop Angie Butler, a local writer and poet, ran a captivating Woman's Land Army workshop with the same classes. The workshop looked at WW2 from a woman's perspective.
The children's work will become part of next year's outputs and will be displayed at our Sharing Day, 5th December at The Exchange Gallery.
"The children had first-hand experience of artefacts and came back with a wealth of new ideas and local stories from the past. They had a much better idea of what life would have been like for ordinary Cornish folks It led on perfectly from our immersive learning evironment - it was the outdoors part!". Jo Fitzgerald, Newlyn School
