Learning and education

We have a range of events, activities and resources for schools at our heritage attractions including the Museum, Castle and Guildford House.

Guildford Museum

Our permanent exhibitions offer a range of subjects to explore including:

• Surrey's prehistory
• Roman history
• Saxon history
• Medieval history
• Trade and industry
• Childhood and toys
• Lewis Carroll
• Gertrude Jekyll

In addition, our Scullery offers stimulating activities for small groups of pre-school age children.

Find out more about our changing exhibition programme, events and activities at the museum.

We welcome schools for free self-led visits. Booking is required to avoid overcrowding.

Space is available for use during your visit, including for lunch.

Visits can be booked from Wednesday to Friday, 10am until 3pm.

Toys Through Time Workshop

Toys Through Time workshop at Guildford Museum includes

• a visit to the Playtime! exhibition, full of toys and games from the early 1800s up to the 21^st century with a supporting activity looking at old and new toys
• a handling session focusing on original toys made from different materials
• a craft activity: making a thaumatrope (an optical toy popular in Victorian times)
• a chance to play with a variety of replica toys

Workshops are available 10am to 12pm, Wednesday to Friday at Guildford Museum, Quarry Street, Guildford.  

Up to 30 children per session. Lunch space is available if required.

To book or for further details including availability or adaptations for older students, email learning@guildford.gov.uk.

Guildford Castle

Bring history to life with a pre-booked self-led visit the Great Tower of Guildford's Norman Castle. Follow up with a visit to Guildford Museum to learn more about Medieval objects.

For groups visiting the Museum, space is available to use for lunch.

Guildford House

Guildford House is a Grade I listed town house with changing exhibitions and an art gallery.

Recent exhibitions have included prints by Henri Matisse, photographs by Cornelia Parker and paintings of Guildford from our own collection.

Find out more about our changing exhibition programme, events and activities at the gallery.

We welcome schools for free self-led visits to our exhibitions. Booking is required to avoid overcrowding.

Visits can be booked from Tuesday to Friday, 10am until 3pm.

Discovery Boxes - hold a piece of history in your hands!

Use our Discovery Boxes to bring history to life in your classroom. With a range of real and replica artifacts, and accompanying resources, children can be inspired by the objects of the past.

Themes of our Discovery Boxes include:

• Archaeology - the Guildford area in the past
• Prehistory - stone age axes (two boxes)
• Roman:
  • Roman coins in Surrey
  • The pottery of Roman Surrey (two boxes)
• Victorian childhood toys
• The Surrey cottager around 1800
• Guildford in the second world war
• Evacuees

Boxes contain handling objects, as well as some objects sealed behind Perspex which can be viewed but not handled.

Discovery Boxes are £15 for three weeks.

How to book your visit

To book your visit, Discovery Box or to find out more information about our education and learning provision, email learning@guildford.gov.uk.

Learning resources

We have a range of learning resources available for schools. As we develop our new resources, we will share links and downloads on this page. Check back regularly for updates!

If you'd like to be the first to hear about our new educational activities, sign up to our Schools Newsletter by emailing learning@guildford.gov.uk.

Your feedback

We are currently developing further resources and education activities. We'd be interested to hear your views on what you would like to see from our Heritage Service. You can email your ideas to learning@guildford.gov.uk.