Community & Learning Intern Blog – Glitter and ocelot throws

20 July 2015

Meghan’s back after being on holiday for two weeks!

We decided to start the week with breakfast and coffee at New Inn to fuel a planning and ideas session for our project, based on the architecture of the House. In fact, the caffeine did such a good job we almost missed lunch, we were so excited by all our ideas! We then based ourselves in the library to begin researching education offers from other institutions in more depth, and how we could use these to develop our own ideas.

We also made casts of flower designs from an architrave (a style of moulding which frames some of the doorways). Afterwards we helped out with the delivery of the Fantastical Furniture. These will be interactive installations aimed at inspiring children (and maybe grown-ups too!) to engage creatively with the House and its history.

After the delivery, we set off on an adventure around Buckingham town centre to deliver posters and flyers for the grand opening of the Welcome and Discovery Centre, as well as for the summer family activities programme. Everyone we talked to was lovely and extremely accommodating. We even managed to treat ourselves to some ice cream before we got back to the House! 

This week we also dived into researching what museums and other stately homes offer in terms of online learning.  This meant we spent quite a bit of time in the library, and as a result we’ve both memorised what all the guides have to say about the room! We also had a chance to get creative and messy, decorating the trail markers for the fleur-de-lys trail – for this we went wild with glitter and sequins to transform the markers into ‘sparkly fleur-de-lys’. After laminating the pages, we set up the trail in the respective rooms.

On Thursday we had the chance to talk to Oliver Cox, who dropped in while we were researching in the library. He works for The University of Oxford and is responsible for organising our internships at Stowe. He gave us lots of advice about working in arts and heritage. After meeting him, we did some final research before collating our findings in shared documents.

Finally, we spent an evening this week helping Ruth, Visitor Services Manager, with the stock-take for the new Welcome Centre before labelling everything with their price stickers. One of the many items to be sold in the new centre is a luxurious ocelot throw, which intrigued us all!  We managed to get it all finished in a few hours, and ultimately we were all happy to help out in any way we could to make the prep for the opening easier. Not to mention the cake she treated us all to in the end…!