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| Project Title |
| Research to Celebrate 150 years of The Billericay Reading Rooms with local schools |
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| This is an extract of the report submitted to the Heritage Lottery Fund describing the project outcome. |
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| Approved purpose |
Summary of achievements |
| Four local schools, St. John's, St. Peter's, Quilters and |
The four schools all visited the Rooms on different days |
| Buttsbury, will research the history of the Reading |
and were given a talk on the history of the Rooms from its |
| Rooms and how its use has changed from its original |
inception and the reasons for starting it in the first place. A |
| purpose over the last 150 years, with the students |
local Historian Charles Phillips who has recently |
| undertaking a visit to the building. |
completed and published a book on the History of |
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Billericay, including the Rooms was in attendance and |
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was able to answer questions put to him by the students. |
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This was then followed by a quiz based on the Rooms |
| One of the schools will create a 3D sculpture to reflect |
Buttsbury Juniors pupils worked in pairs and walked the |
| this visit. |
high street and took details,including recent and old |
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photographs of all the different buildings.From this they |
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used a range of artistic skills in order to build their |
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miniature High Street using a variety of materials.They |
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looked in particular at the special details of each building |
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and how their appearance has evolved over time. The |
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result of their work was then displayed over the three days |
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in the Reading Rooms. Throughout this project the |
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children showed great interest and excitement in studying |
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the history of their local town and also the history of the |
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Reading Rooms. To quote their Teacher " they have |
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taken great pride in being part of this project and their |
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enthusiasm as well as the work they have created, has |
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been incredible" You will be able to see from the |
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photographs sent to you the outcome of their display. |
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Their visit to the Rooms and also the Cater Museum also |
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helped in the construction |
| The students will visit the Cater Museum, with two of |
All schools first visited the Reading Rooms over a period |
| the schools also visiting Braintree Museum for a |
of three days and were given an insight into the history of |
| Victorian school day. |
the rooms, which was followed up by a Quiz to see how |
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much they had learned. Also in attendance was Charles |
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Phillips, a local Historian, who had just completed a book |
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on the History of Billericay and the pupils where able to |
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ask a variety of questions. During their visit the children |
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were taken over to the Cater Museum in Groups of 15. To |
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further keep their interest we had constructed from a large |
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sheet of white paper a wall and on their return from the |
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Museum each pupil was asked to choose a brick and then |
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write their name, school and what they thought of the |
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Museum. At a later stage we were able to arrange to |
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produce a Tea Towel of the wall from a photograph and |
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subsequently we visited each school accompanied by the |
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Town Crier and at the full Assemble,each participating |
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pupil was presented with a free Tea Towel. The |
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comments placed on the wall evidenced the interest and |
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enjoyment of their visit. We found out later from the |
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Museum Curator, that the increase in children |
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accompanied by parents in the following half term had |
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increased considerably with many of them returning to |
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spend more time there.Two of the schools visited the |
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Victorian Museum at Braintree and all of the pupils |
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dressed in Victorian costume for the length of their visit. |
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They spent an hour being taught by a Victorian Teacher |
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and were subjected to the strict teaching methods of the |
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age. Feedback from the puils was that it was an extremely |
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worthwhile experience. It is likely that the schools will now |
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include these trips into their curiculum in future years as |
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part of the History curiculum in Year 6. |
| One of the schools will experiment using Victorian |
There was a change from the original decision as it was |
| recipes to make cakes and biscuits. |
decided that they would arrange for the Trustees wives to |
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cook a wide variety of cakes and biscuits from original |
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recipes and allow visitors to sample them and take away |
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copies of the recipes. The school therefore decided to |
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research Chocolate and discovered that the chocolate bar |
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was introduced into the UK during Victorian times. They |
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really enjoyed finding out about how chocolate was |
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produced and made a variety of different chocolate items |
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for visitors to sample and give their opinion as to which |
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they prefered. |
| The students will undertake research using the |
Much research was undertaken by all the schools using |
| collections at Billericay Library and the reminiscences |
the Library, the Cater Museum and also the computer. |
| of older residents about how the area has changed. |
They went onto the various Billericay local websites. The |
| Notice boards will be installed in the Reading Rooms to |
results of this research was to produce photographs and |
| display this information and a weekend event will be |
articles as part of each of the schools displays. The |
| held at the Reading Rooms to show the outputs of the |
display Boards where used to show information of the |
| project. |
original history and some of the individuals involved in the |
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creation of the Rooms and then a photograph of the |
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current Trustees.The weekend event was held over the |
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7th to 9th March and was opened on the 7th March by |
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John Baron MP. Also in attendance was the Deputy |
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Mayor of Basildon,a number of local Councillors, |
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Members of the Local Press with Photographers. A |
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Representative from HLF Kate Brown also attended. The |
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rest of the three days the celebration was opened to all |
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people from the Billericay Area and was extremely well |
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attended throughout each day. |
| Quilters Junior School will produce a newspaper as if |
Considerable research was undertaken by the pupils |
| from 150 years ago, documenting the foundation of the |
firstly at the Library finding stories of actual news items |
| Reading Rooms and life in Billericay at the time. The |
from around the time of the opening of the Reading |
| Brentwood Gazette group of Newspapers will provide |
Rooms. This enabled them to discover much more about |
| assistance with this, with a reporter visiting the school, |
how life was in the mid 19th century. They arranged to |
| as well as the students visiting the newspaper's offices. |
visit the Brentwood Gazette Group in Chelmsford and |
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were given an insight into how a Newspaper was |
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produced. This was extremely enlightening for them and |
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in fact from the Gazette's point of view was a first. As a |
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result of this a two page spread of their visit was part of |
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the following weeks newspaper and they also felt it was |
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so worthwhile that they have asked for any other schools |
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who would like to visit to contact them. Help was given by |
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both a Reporter and the Editor as to how they should go |
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about producing their own Newspaper. Armed with the |
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stories that they had researched they produced their own |
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Newspaper, which was printed by a local Printer for them |
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and displayed as part of their exhibit. Smaller copies were |
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also produced for visitors to take away which proved to be |
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a tremendous success, with extra copies having to be |
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printed to satisfy demand. |
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| Funding has been acknowledged in the following areas:- |
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| 1. Newspaper articles/photographs in the Billericay & Wickford Gazette on the 5th March &12th March. The |
| Echo Newspaper on the 14th March. In the Billericay Town Crier April Edition. The Billericay Rotary Web |
| Site. The Reading Rooms web site. The Press release put out by John Baron Local MP. Emmanuel Church |
| News. |
| 2. During an interview on Phoenix FM98 on the 1st March and on their web site. Transcript of the ineterview |
| has already been sent to Kate Brown |
| 3. By various DJ's on Gateway 97.8 FM |
| 4. By John Baron MP when he opened the celebration on the 7th March |
| 5. By the 4 schools in letters to Parents advising of the Trips/Visits and on their websites |
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| Evaluation |
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| The best way of describing the outcome of the Project is to summarise the many Visitors Book comments. |
| Many said that they thought pupils have benefited by being able to become more aware of the History of their |
| Town and how life has changed over the 150 years.The unanimous view of the Head Teachers and the four |
| Teachers involved all echo this sentiment. They have indicated their willingness to work with us again in any |
| future Projects that we may undertake. |
| Visitors felt that it had brought the Town together and made people more aware of both the Reading Rooms |
| and the Cater Museum. |
| They were very impressed at the quality and standard of the exhibits and the amount of research that the |
| pupils had undertaken. |
| The enthusiasm of all the pupils involved was very evident and the way they had joined in the whole concept |
| was very impressive. |
| An interesting feedback comment from one of the Teachers following their visit to the Braintree Victorian |
| School was "we have been using slates and styluses as part of our lessons instead of whiteboards . We have |
| found that our handwriting is much neater than when we use whiteboards" |
| The final completion of the Project was undertaken when the Chaiman and another Trustee of the Reading |
| Rooms accompanied by the Town Crier, attended the Assemblies of the four schools and presented each |
| pupil involved with a free Tea Towel of the "Wall".Tthe Town Crier also answered questions about his role. In |
| total some 1,200 pupils across the four schools were present. |
| The contact between the four school has been another unexpected bonus. |
| Everybody felt that the support of the HLF had enabled the Town to benefit from an excellent exhibition. |
| Regarding the section on Volunteers we would comment that all the Trustees, Committee Members and wives |
| were involved in this project and gave of their time freely. |
| Considerable photographs showing all aspects of the various projects undertaken have been displayed. |
