Workshop length: 1 hour

Suitable for: KS1-3

The arrival of the railway in Folkestone in the 1840s led to a boom in tourism, marking the beginning of the town as a fashionable seaside resort. Using original source material and artefacts, the workshop will explore the Victorian craze for sea-bathing, what Victorians did on their holidays and how the town grew to accommodate the incomers.

For the longer workshop, you can include the development of the railway into the town and how local people (including children) profited from tourism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

During the workshop, you can:

• Examine original artefacts, documents and images

• Design a Victorian postcard

• Learn about Victorian dress & swimwear

• See original footage of Folkestone in Edwardian period

 

Post-visit: Pupils can write or draw a story about a boy or girl’s first trip to the seaside in the Victorian era and what types of things they did on the trip.

National curriculum links:

History (Local History)
The Victorians
The British Seaside

KS1

• Pupils learn about significant historical events, people and places in their own locality

• Pupils will identify similarities and differences between ways of life in different periods

• Pupils will learn about events beyond living memory

KS2 – 3

• Pupils will make a local history study

• Pupils will make a study of an aspect or theme in British history that extends their chronological knowledge beyond 1066

• A significant turning point in British history (the railways)