In the Footsteps of the Romantic Poets
Digital Gallery
'In the Footsteps of the Romantic Poets’ aims to help pupils of all ages understand and connect with their local landscape and heritage through making, playing and exploring outside. The project takes inspiration from the Romantic Poets, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William and Dorothy Wordsworth, who lived and wrote in Somerset’s Quantock Hills. Artists and cultural partners collaborated with schools, over a period of 4 years, to build skills and understanding across subjects through an immersive learning experience.
2024
'In the Footsteps of the Romantic Poets’ aims to help young people understand and connect with their local landscape and heritage through the inspiration of artists and poets
Students collaborated with Feral Practice to make a film exploring what the Romantic poets’ ideas mean for us today
Photo credit: Jon Barrett | QLPS
"The Bluebell is the sweetest flower...its blossoms have the mightiest power"
Activity included listening to and creating poetry and prose; developing art and design skills and learning about contemporary arts practice and its curation.
"It made me notice the smaller creatures and how important our forests are"
Last day of filming at Ladycombe for 'The Word for Home is Forest' and the weather was kind
Regular trips got pupils out on the hills, feeling the wind and getting mud on their shoes
A trip to Will's Neck, the highest point on the Quantocks, to experience the power of the wind and reflect on how artists use the elemental landscape to make their work
Bringing the outside in
A range of creative teaching resources were produced to encourage nature based approaches within Art and Design and across the curriculum
"Nature can generate a multitude of positive emotions, such as calmness, joy, creativity and can facilitate concentration"
Artist, Jon England, brings his practice into the classroom sharing insights into the industrial, cultural and natural heritage of the Quantock Hills
"The best thing was hanging out with my friends outside, especially making rubbings and doing observational drawings"
A trip to Kilve beach introduces fossils - deep learning and deep time!
2023
Sketchbooks provided a safe creative space for personal responses to landscape change and its associated hopes and fears
Our film, ‘Sketchbook Journeys’ shares the learning from a whole year group of Key Stage 2 pupil’s experiencing the Quantock Hills as young artists.
'It is the first mild day of March, each minute sweeter than before. The Redbreast sings from the tall larch...there is a blessing in the air'
The poets inhabited a world where nature was close and mythology never far away. Drawing real and imagined beasts and making wishes for future worlds at Alfoxton Park, once the home of the Wordsworth's. Excerpt from William Wordsworth's 'Lines' ...'written at a small distance from my house'
On that very day Coleridge walked from Nether Stowey to the Wordsworth's home to read the Rime of the Ancient Mariner to his friends
Commemorating Coleridge's first reading from a manuscript now lost and using oak gall ink as the poets once did
Secondary Students were given the same immersive experience, visiting the Quantock Hills through the seasons but this time with a view to making a film
A visit to Alfoxton Park to explore Dorothy and William Wordsworth's home through drawing, poetry and creative writing with artist, Peter Stiles
'This hermit good lives in that wood which slopes down to the sea...'
Understanding charcoal making, still practiced at the foot of the Quantock Hills at Hestercombe but no longer by hermits!
'As the twigs tangled close by, this log fell and died, deciding to say goodbye'
Excerpt from a child's poem, inspired by the decay and renewal of a woodland habitat.
Feeling confident with new people and developing a broader understanding of the world beyond the school gate
Some students were able to experience the Quantock Hills through four academic years. We watched them grow in confidence, build trusted relationships and make new friends
World building and character design moved beyond the classroom to the Coombes
With the support of artists Fiona MacDonald and Megan Broadmeadow, students designed characters and costumes before beginning to film on location in the Quantock Hills
Photo credit: Jon Barrett | QLPS
"It was inspiring making and desgining our own costumes"
Students learnt to storyboard, create soundscapes and digital animations, informing the film's development at every level
2022
Walking and talking with rangers and artists, pupils documented their surroundings, identifying species and habitats
In the Footsteps of the Romantic Poets encouraged students to take inspiration from the Romantic Poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dorothy and William Wordsworth and to understand their local heritage through making, playing and exploring.
Teachers and cultural partners have collaborated with artists to build skills and understanding across subjects through an immersive learning experience
Finds, fossils and fragments inspire storytelling at The Museum of Somerset
'Beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing on the breeze'
A host of golden daffodils - Introducing the language of art and poetry; couplets, composition, viewpoint, foreground
For some it was the first time they’d spied the Somerset coast from a high ridge, dipped bare toes in a cold woodland stream or experienced the simple thrill of a roly-poly
Going wild at Great Wood: Forestry, farming, found materials and filmmaking
2021
The classroom was transformed into a photographic studio where scientific principles are introduced through the process of making
Artist, Brendan Barry, kick started classroom with a series of workshops in schools to ignite the imagination. Pupils collected plants and familiar objects and their experiments on light sensitive paper revealed new landscapes
Given freedom to explore and play, they were encouraged to understand and respect the natural world around them
Looking at Landscape with artist Liz Gregory in a Georgian Landscape Garden
Understanding charcoal making at Hestercombe Gardens and Gallery
After a year of limitations and challenges, where many children and young people have been confined indoors for prolonged periods, a national lottery funded project has given pupils across Somerset an opportunity to step outside the classroom and be transported to the Quantock Hills to explore, make and play
Telling tales of Dead Woman's Ditch and The Gurt Wurm...
The Landscape Partnership team turned out in all weathers bringing their insight and expertise
'Beyond the tracks, my heart so free'
Professional development for teaching staff took many forms, developing skills for art and design; learning about their locality and bringing in the sustainability and global dimension
Art Gallery
‘In the Footsteps of the Romantic Poets’ was produced by SPAEDA, on behalf of the Quantock Hills National Landscape and the Quantock Landscape Partnership Scheme with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
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