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You are here: Hudson's > Mrs Hudson Says... > Mrs Hudson Says... November 2022
Every month, Mrs Hudson along with her three children and Dinky the Irish Wolfhound investigate the best family and dog friendly heritage attractions that the UK has to offer.
Read on to see where the Hudsons have been this month.
Where is this year going? I can’t believe we’re already in November! It won’t be long now before the year is over, back in January, we made the plan to visit as many heritage attractions as we could over 2022 and though we haven’t managed as many as we’d have liked, we have travelled fairly far. We’ve visited London, Cambridge, Wales, Yorkshire… It’s been a whirlwind and we can’t wait to find new places to visit in the New Year.
As it is November, we, of course, wanted to find a firework display to visit and as the 5th fell on a Saturday, it was the perfect thing for us to do together as a family. The weather was pretty terrible, so we were anxiously waiting all day to see whether or not we could go. We chose to visit the display in Bradford on Avon as it was nearby and we’ve rather fallen for the place. The wet weather meant that the fair that usually proceeded the event had to be cancelled but the fireworks themselves still went ahead.
Naturally, we left Dinky home in bed where he could sleep through the whole thing, so it was just me and the children. Despite the weather, I was really looking forward to it, it won’t be long before the kids, especially Florence, will feel they are too old to enjoy things like this. She’ll want to go with her friends and not me, so I need to make the most of it! While we were there, Bertie asked why we have fireworks and he and Florence had a debate over whether Bonfire Night is a celebration of the plot failing or a way to remind parliament what could have happened. It got very deep for a moment! As we’d been in Yorkshire last month, which is the birthplace of Guy Fawkes, I thought it would be a good time for a lesson – linking something fun we do every year back to something that took place in history. I talked with them about Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot and when we got home, we did a little research. The kids were very excited to learn that they had visited some of the places that Guy Fawkes would have done as a young man. They were so interested, that we thought we would organise a trip to London to tour the Houses of Parliament and visit the Tower of London, where there is a new Gun Powder Plot exhibition next door.
We found a free Saturday and headed on our journey. The Houses of Parliament run tours pretty much every Saturday and also during the school holidays when politicians don’t have debates. There are several different options of tours, including guided tours and multimedia ones which last around an hour and a half. It was really interesting – I’d only ever been once before with Mr Hudson and had one too many in the Commons’ Bar, something I didn’t repeat this time.
All three of the children were fascinated by the multimedia tour and I would highly recommend if you are visiting with youngsters. We were shown told all about the various customs, like what happens with Black Rod, saw the room the monarch can use and got to look at all the books that contain laws dating back to the time Parliament first came into existence. They also had a section about Guy Fawkes and we learned that to this day, when parliament is opened, guards search the cellars – just in case!
After we had finished our tour, we walked over Westminster Bridge towards South Bank to grab some food and do some people watching, before getting a water taxi over to the Tower. We have been to the Tower of London a couple of times and it was very busy, like you would expect on a weekend. We decided to go straight to the Gunpowder Plot experience, as it is an immersive experience, it is rated a 12A, so bear this in mind if you are planning to visit with your children. My three loved it, but it really does throw you straight into the 1600s and there are a lot of loud noises which did make us jump! All in all it was a great day out and I feel like I know everything there is to know about the gunpowder plot now! It will certainly make me look at Bonfire Night in a whole new way.
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