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There is more to planning a visit to a site like Conisbrough Castle than just making sure that the bus will turn up on time.  As many teachers will know, finding useful resources for use in lessons can be time consuming and often quite frustrating.

With this in mind, we at Conisbrough Castle have placed hyperlinks on this page to websites that teachers may find useful in planning lessons connected to their visit to the Castle.

(Please note that Conisbrough Castle, The Ivanhoe Trust or Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council can not be held responsible for the content of external websites)

• schoolshistory.org.uk: This site provides Online History lessons, easy to access background material, GCSE revision tasks and downloadable resources for teachers.
  
• Shields, Knights and Heraldry:  Free software for kids to make their own shields (coats of arms). Learn about the Middle Ages, feudalism, knights and chivalry while making a coat of arms.  (Shields, Knights and Heraldry requires PC running Windows 3.1, 95 or 98 and a printer.  This program allows you to print Heraldic Animals and other Heraldic Devices onto A4 paper so that pupils can colour-in and cut-out then glue down to assemble a coat of arms.)
  

• Build a Medieval Castle: Free educational software.  Build your own medieval castle, complete with towers, gatehouse and keep. To understand how an army lay siege to a castle, how a castle was defended, or what it might be like to live in a castle (though this varied by who you were) -- build a model castle. (Build a Medieval Castle requires PC running Windows 3.1, 95 or 98 and a printer.  This program allows you to print parts of a medieval castle onto A4 paper or card so that pupils can colour-in and cut-out then assemble a model of a castle.)
  

• Download and build a free card Trebuchet: The Trebuchet model comes as a ready-to-print PDF-booklet (21 pages), complete with assembly instructions. Scale 1 : 25. - 6.4Mb download.  (This download comes as a PDF document, you will need a working version of Adobe Acrobat Reader or similar program installed on your computer in order to view and print)
  

• Fiddlers Green Paper Models including a fine collection of paper models of medieval buildings all available as reasonably priced PDF downloads or on a CD, just follow the links on the home page and don't be put off or distracted by all the aircraft.
  

• BBC School Homepage:  What more needs to be said, the BBC website contains masses of useful and interactive content concerning all aspects of Education and the National Curriculum.
  

• Time Team Website:  Here you can catch up on the latest programme updates, see more of the personalities who make Time Team tick as well as unearth more of the archaeology that brings Channel 4's award-winning series to life.
  
• Castle: Channel 4's popular series presented by Marc Morris in the summer of 2003 and repeated on the Discovery Channel in January and February 2004.  Sadly, Conisbrough didn't feature in the series.  However, the website for the series makes a valuable resource.
  
• Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval Britain: Part of the Channel 4 History website packed with all the useful information that anyone visiting the age of chivalry would need.
  
• Weapons that made Britain: Another page from the Channel 4 History website, this time taking a look at medieval weapons.
  
• Medieval England: People, politics, warfare, and daily life in medieval England.
  
• History Learning Site Year 7: A simple looking website with loads of information for Year 7s studying medieval realms.
  
• Learn History - Medieval Age:  This topic is about Britain after the Norman invasion of 1066. It is known as the Medieval Period or the Middle Ages.  You will learn about crazy kings and queens, bloody battles and wars, horrible diseases and huge castles and cathedrals. 
  
• Medieval Medicine: Ailments and Cures (Humors, Epidemics, Healing and Hospitals, Surgery and Dissection); Religion, Miracles, Women, Education); plus much more.
  
• Timeref.org Follow the history of Medieval Britain from the time of Alfred the Great, through the Norman Conquest and up to the start of the Tudor Age. Detailed Timelines contain events for years between 800 and 1499AD. Maps show the locations of castles, abbeys and cathedrals in England, Scotland and Wales. Every person and building on this site has its own timeline and links to related subjects.
  
• Medieval Herbs: A list of websites dealing with herbs and their uses both culinary and medicinal during the medieval period.
  
• Old Maps:  This link will take you to old-maps.co.uk. You will find an old map of Conisbrough dated 1854, as well as links to modern maps and aerial photos, incidentally the aerial photo is out of date because of new housing developments close to the Castle.
  
• Google Earth: Want to know more about a specific location? Dive right in -- Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips.
  
• UKVillages.co.uk:  Although this link is set to find Conisbrough, you can look up other villages in the UK including yours. (This site takes a long time to download).
  
• TeachersXpress:  If you can't find something here to inspire your pupils then they are beyond all hope.  This website has been put together with teachers in mind, it covers every aspect of education in the UK in the 21st century.  We only looked at the reference section and had to come away because we were finding too many interesting things.  Top Site.
  
• Young Archaeologists Club:  Offer membership to schools and individuals for a very reasonable fee, it has branches local to Conisbrough Castle and is part of the Council for British Archaeology.
  
• British History Online: is the digital library containing some of the core printed primary and secondary sources for the medieval and modern history of the British Isles. Created by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust, we aim to support academic and personal users around the world in their learning, teaching and research.

If you come across a website that you think we should include on this page please let us know.

Click to download a PDF copy of our Booking Confirmation Form  Click to download a PDF copy of our Booking Confirmation Form 

Click to download our "Information for Teachers" PDF document (546Kb)

Click to download a FREE e-guide to Conisbrough Castle (537Kb),

Excavations at Conisbrough Castle 1973 - 1977, by Stephan Johnson, an excerpt from the Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 52, 1980. This is presented as a series of gif images that have been scanned from a set of photocopies provided by Chris Robinson from Doncaster Museum.

Excavations at Conisbrough Castle 1973 - 1977 PDF 8446Kb This file is better quality than the file above but will take a while to download using a dial-up connection.