On Monday 1st February Classes 2 and 3 visited The Commandery at Worcester, to find out more about how the Tudors lived.

There were no electric lights in Tudor times, so they had to use candles when it got dark.

Cheap candles were made from animal fat and were very smelly!

Richer people had candles made from beeswax.

We warmed some sheets of beeswax in our hands, put a wick along one side and rolled them into candles. The beeswax smelled of honey.

Then we had a go at writing with a quill, (goose feather). We had to dip our quills into pots of ink. Ink was often made from soot.

We got lots of ink on our hands!

In Tudor times they shook sand on their writing to blot the ink dry.

In Tudor times it was easy to see who was poor and who was rich, by the clothes that they wore.

The Tudors may only wash their clothes once or twice a year, and rarely bathed. Queen Elizabeth I once said that she would have a bath every 3 months, whether she needed it or not!

They must have been very smelly! Rich ladies often wore strong perfume to cover up the smells.