Award Winning Re-Creations at Kentwell

Tudor Re-Creations

Kentwell's Re-Creations of Tudor Domestic Life are the most outstanding evocation of the Tudor Age in the UK. The most authentic Tudors in a most authentic Tudor setting.

Kentwell's Tudor Re-Creations offer a unique opportunity for both Schools and the General Public to see how the family in a Great Tudor House might have lived, and how the community in and about the manor supported them. The Re-Creations show people of all levels going about their daily lives in the House's heyday in the 16th Century.

Kentwell has always focused on making its Re-Creations accessible to schoolchildren. The Great Annual Re-Creations by their 30th year in 2008 had then been visited - and hugely enjoyed - by more than half a million schoolchildren.  Schools are encouraged to bring children in costume (for which Kentwell provides visiting schools with easy-to-follow instructions to make). Children thus feel part of the Re-Creation - not mere spectators.

On the other hand, the public visiting at the weekend are asked NOT TO COME IN COSTUME.

Schoolchildren and visitors need little (if any) knowledge of the period to enjoy their visit. Each can immerse themselves in the Tudor period and will obtain a real feeling of having visited Tudor England. Nowhere else has such an unrivalled location, as many Tudors, or as great a range of activities to match the scale or breadth of Kentwell Tudor Re-Creations.  None even attempt to portray a Tudor community in the way Kentwell seeks to do.

Awards to Kentwell

Kentwell's Tudor Re-Creations have received several major Awards, not least being the contribution the Re-Creations made to Kentwell being declared Heritage Building of the Year for 2001.

More about Tudor Re-Creations

WWII Re-Creations

Kentwell's WWII Re-Creations are a rare exercise in nostalgia showing how WWII impacted upon civilian life.

Kentwell's WWII Re-Creations started in 1995 partly to mark Kentwell's role during WWII  as a huge transit camp and partly to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of VE Day. That first WWII Re-Creation, 1945 Re-Lived, was huge with over 70 1940s vehicles and hundreds of Participants, representing both the military and civilians. It stretched Kentwell's resources and energies to the very limit. No attempt has been made to repeat the scale of it.

Instead, Kentwell has developed three quite different WWII Weekend Re-Creations each year. Each has its distinct theme. They are smaller than the original 1945 Re-Lived but each still enables visitors to indulge their own, or their parents' (or grandparents'), nostalgia for those, now distant, times.

WWII Whodunits

Nowadays, some WW11 Re-Creation days feature Kentwell's version of a 'Murder Mystery' which enable visitors to become even more involved as they attempt to solve the 'crime'.

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Victorian Re-Creations

Kentwell Christmases have always been very special and in 2009 it was decided to open at this time to the public with a Re-Creation of the Victorian age - a Victorian Christmas in December. After all, the Christmas as most of us recognize it today was created, one might say invented, by the Victorians. Encouraged by this first foray into the period Kentwell will hold a Victorian Garden Party for one weekend in August 2010.  A Kentwell Victorian Christmas looks likely to become a regular feature running for an extended weekend just before Christmas each December.

More about Victorian Re-Creations

Whatever the Period

 Whatever the period, whatever the year, Kentwell's aim is to bring that period, and that year, to life as authentically as possible through the dress, speech, activities, historical events and atmosphere of the time.

List of Re-Creations