MORE than 1500 primary-school children and teachers will experience the nativity story though interactive workshops at Lambeth Palace this week.
For its fourth year, Wintershall Education is presenting its “Travelling Crib” to children in the garden.
On Monday, children from Holy Ghost Catholic School, Balham, and St Mary’s C of E School, Twickenham, followed different characters from the nativity.
They first gathered in the Great Hall, recently refurbished as part of the £40-million renovation of the palace (News, 30 June), and were given a purple “pilgrim bag” to be used to collect small tokens from each character they met.
A Roman soldier paraded in the garden; one of the wise men explained the purpose of following the star and his journey; and, in the Crypt Chapel, the oldest part of the palace, Zechariah spoke about Gabriel’s visit.
In a large tent, as Mary was preparing for her journey, she asked the group about what supplies she might need, which prompted some endearing suggestions, including “baby powder”.
Lambeth Palace A shepherd leads the children through the Lambeth Palace grounds
Two shepherds introduced the children to their flock of sheep, saying that “God loves animals as much as he loves humans.”
In preparation for the animals, the head gardener, Lindsay Schuman, said that she “leaves the grass a bit longer” towards the bottom of the garden, “because they like to have a munch, although they did have to go over the formal lawn early this morning, which I was slightly holding my breath about”.
The two donkeys, Denzel and Sam, were a highlight for the children, who were thrilled to be able to stroke them. The Traveller who led them, played by Trish Bonnett, said that she first saw a Wintershall performance in 2001, and “absolutely loved it”. She began taking part in 2016. For her, it was “all about getting the [Christian] message out there in an engaging way”.
Wintershall began its partnership with Lambeth Palace in 2022. Wintershall’s education officer, Lucy Hall, said that her “main hope is that the Christmas story becomes about the children’s story and their lives rather than just being a weird Christian tradition that happens which is all about presents”.
Making the story accessible for children of different backgrounds or faiths is also something that she considers. “We have a whole teaching resource that we link in with the British values of the school, and just generally, about how we behave towards each other. We’re looking at the social and emotional skills of a child. They need to learn how to talk to each other, how to play to each other, and I think the characters of the nativity are really good examples of how we behave and how we communicate with each other.”
Lambeth Palace Children ask Mary questions
Ms Schuman said that the garden was a “therapeutic space”. “The garden encourages encounter, which I think is incredibly powerful, because it’s not just encountering God: it’s also encountering other people.”
She continued: “It’s about sharing what we’ve got here. And I think that’s always been at the heart of the Archbishop’s mission, to share.”
Lambeth Palace’s special-projects director, Danny Johnson, agreed: “We are incredibly blessed and fortunate to have this enormous, big asset in the middle of central London, and, actually, it’s wasteful for us not to use it.
“Some of these children, who attend central-London schools, have never even seen open space this size, let alone live animals and so on. It’s a beautiful way to start telling the story of Advent, and leading towards Christ’s birth, but in a way that is unusual. Hopefully, it will stay with the children and nurture something in terms of that exploration.”
