Written by Matilde-Iris R & Mariella B, Year 7
A site of execution, imprisonment and tourism, our trip to Oxford Castle was rich with history.
To start with, we were split into groups. Our group went for a gentle hike up the mound. Since Oxford Castle is a motte and bailey-style castle, it was made up of a large mound that would have had a tower, and a lower fenced area for the soldiers. After a few minutes, the view at the top of the motte was stunning.
After that, we took a short snack break and then it was on with the show! Led by our lovely tour guide Briony, we climbed all one-hundred-and-one steps of St George’s Tower. We stopped after forty steps to look at a room that Parliamentarian soldiers had been locked up in. Supposedly it had been shoe-deep in human waste! We climbed the last 60 steps, and although some of us had been doubting whether we would survive the climb, the view at the top was well worth it.
Next, we had a tasty packed lunch, then it was time to keep going. We had a quick stop at the gift shop, much to everyone’s delight, and then reenacted the trial of Mary Blandy.
Mary Blandy had been arrested and hanged for poisoning her father in 1752 after her lover (who was married and had two children) William Cranstoune sent her a vial of arsenic, saying it was a love potion. He suggested that she should feed it to her father to make him fall in love with the idea of them getting married. Before meeting Cranstoune, Mary Blandy had been thirty and a spinster, which was unacceptable in the 18th century. So her father advertised her, saying that whoever married her would get a sum of £10 thousand, equivalent to over £2 million nowadays.
After a long and arduous trial, we decided that Mary Blandy was innocent! Some of us on the guilty side were not happy.
Thank you to all the teachers who made this incredible learning experience possible!
