What better way for our Year 7 History students to begin getting to grips with the past than by stepping straight into it?
We are fortunate to be just a few minutes from the historic city of Chester, where more than 2,000 years of history can still be seen in its streets, walls and buildings. From its origins as the Roman fortress of Deva Victrix to its medieval heart and beyond, Chester is a city where the past is quite literally part of the present.
And our Year 7s don’t even need to leave the College grounds to experience history for themselves.
Saighton Grange has a remarkable story of its own. Before the Norman Conquest, the manor of Saighton was held by the secular canons of St Werburgh in Chester. In 1092, Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, transformed their church into the Benedictine Abbey of St Werburgh, and Saighton became part of the abbey’s holdings. The Grange subsequently became the principal country house of the Abbots of Chester.
Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Saighton passed through various owners before being purchased by the Grosvenor family in the 1840s. The medieval gatehouse was retained, while the rest of the house was rebuilt as the grand Victorian property we recognise today.
Saighton remained a family home until 1969, before beginning a new chapter when Abbey Gate College opened its doors here in September 1977.
And, naturally, a building with such a long history wouldn’t be complete without a ghost story.
The Red Lady is said to haunt the upper rooms of Saighton Grange, and her story is now part of the folklore surrounding the house. When Lady Jane Grosvenor visited the College last year, she shared her own memories of Saighton from the 1950s and 60s, including stories of the mysterious Red Lady. Her recollections offered a fascinating glimpse into the building’s more recent past, when it was still a Grosvenor family home.
This week, Mr Wilcock took his engrossed Year 7 History class out of the classroom and into the grounds and buildings of Saighton Grange. As they explored, students heard stories spanning centuries – from the site’s monastic origins and connections with the Abbots of Chester, through its transformation into a Victorian country house and its years as a Grosvenor family home, to its life today as Abbey Gate College.
But this was no ordinary history walk. Armed with a questionnaire, the Year 7s had to look closely at what they were seeing and record what they were learning along the way. From architectural features to the stories attached to different parts of the building, they were challenged to connect the evidence around them with the history they were being taught.
For Year 7, it was a chance to do more than simply learn about history from a textbook. They could walk through the spaces where people once lived and worked, examine the buildings for clues, and begin to understand how Saighton has changed over hundreds of years.
It is one of the great privileges of studying History at Abbey Gate College: sometimes, your classroom isn’t a classroom at all. Sometimes, it’s a medieval gatehouse, a Victorian country house, a former family home… and perhaps even the occasional ghost story.
Want to discover more about Saighton’s Grosvenor history? You can read our earlier article about Lady Jane Grosvenor’s visit to Saighton Grange, when she returned to a house she knew and loved as a child and shared some fascinating memories of its former life. Read “Saighton Grange Revisited: Lady Jane Brings the Past to Life”
History really is all around us at Saighton Grange.
