From mid-July to early August 2018, Marshall County Gatton Academy student, Jackson Chumbler, along with 50 members of the Gatton’s Academy’s class of 2019 traveled to England, staying one week in London and two weeks at Harlaxton Manor. Students earned three hours of college credit in Honors English 200: Introduction to Literature under Professor Walker Rutledge.
Over the course of the 23 day program, students developed an appreciation for literature by visiting author’s homes and sites of literary inspiration based of assigned course readings. For example, when students were studying Jane Austen’s Persuasion, they traveled to her home and gravesite in Winchester and Chawton. When they studied William Shakespeare, students took a field trip to the Globe Theatre and watched Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Students traveled by coach to visit Warwick Castle then to Stratford-upon-Avon to Anne Hathaway’s cottage (Shakespeare’s wife), Holy Trinity Church (Shakespeare’s burial site), and Shakespeare’s birthplace.
Students traveled by train to Oxford for a guided walking tour of the city and its literary history, including stops at New College and Christchurch College. These sites are associated with C.S Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Harry Potter series. Students went to the Harry Potter studio tour on the outskirts of London. Students also traveled by coach to Nottingham and visited Lord Byron’s Newstead Abbey. The group also visited Stonehenge, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, in Wiltshire. It is regarded as the best preserved prehistoric monument in England.
In Harlaxton, students explored extensive gardens, hidden staircases at the manor, and bicycled along the canals. After reading Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, students spent the afternoon at the moors hiking along Bronte Falls, returning to Harlaxton in the late evening for a film showing of Wuthering Heights.
Otherwise students stayed at Harlaxton College’s beautiful manor house campus near Grantham, England while visiting locations throughout the United Kingdom.
While the students had scheduled trips every other day, they were given time to explore England on their own. In groups of four or more, they were allowed to navigate the tube system in London to explore different sites, and they were allowed to take taxis and trains in Harlaxton to discover neighboring cities. This allowed them to fit in with those around them and see England outside of a large tour group. It was in these expenditures that students were able to see the culture of England. Londoners were very open to talking about the small differences in our ways of life, and some even discussed local politics. Unexpectedly, many of the British hadn’t yet met an American—especially in the smaller towns. The students were often the first American they met, and their first impressions were important for how the British view America as a whole.