From Vikings to Victorians, pond dipping to pre-school nature play, the St Osyth Priory Education Centre aims to create memorable and inspiring school trip experiences for children.
The education programme focuses on the history of the St Osyth Priory Estate and its wildlife. The rich resources for outdoor learning on the estate include a historic deer park, wilderness garden and pond dipping platform, enabling children to become immersed in nature. Groups discover the Estate’s wildlife through meeting the rare breed farm animals or riding on a tractor trailer to view the rich and varied array of habitats within the grounds.
Meanwhile the history programme celebrates the Estate’s heritage which can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon period. School visit programmes celebrate the most compelling eras of the Priory’s story including the Viking raids, its Medieval monastic heyday and the Tudor turmoil of the dissolution of the monasteries.
St Osyth Priory Education Centre also facilitates group visits to the Estate and runs school holiday programming for families. Since opening in June 2021 it has welcomed thousands of school children and families into the privately owned St Osyth Priory Estate. Thanks to generous support from the Culture Recovery Fund and Essex Community Foundation and help from the Sargeant family an Education Centre and classroom space has created a base for visiting groups to use, staffed by a team of trained teachers.
The work of St Osyth Priory Education Centre is overseen by a charitable trust, The St Osyth Priory and Parish Trust (SOPPT). The Trust works to preserve, for the benefit of the public, the buildings, monuments and land of historical and architectural interest firstly at St Osyth Priory and secondly St Osyth Parish. In addition to managing the St Osyth Priory Education Centre, SOPPT also works to fund and deliver the restoration of historically significant architecture within the Estate focusing on the Tithe Barn and Darcy Tower.
