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FUN FACTS
In the 1800s children wrote letters with quill pens dipped in ink!
🙂 Did you know…
… there is an annual Prize Competition for children in years 5 & 6 called the Hooker Prize?
In the 1800s the first child to live at Valentines was called Sarah! Do you know anyone called Sarah? She was already a teenager when she came to live at Valentines.
By 1860 there were four children at Valentines. Sarah’s children!
🙂 Do you know…
… how you can enter the competition?
… the competition is named after a lovely lady called Cherry Hooker? Here she is at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in the Victorian Kitchen.
… hundreds of children have entered the competition in the past, by writing poems about the mansion or the park.
The 2026 competition task is to write a letter!
Write it pretending you lived long ago and visited Valentines when one of the families lived there!
🙂 Can you find out…?
… how many children have lived at Valentines while it was a family home?
… what other names (apart from George, Thomas, Elizabeth and Margaret) were popular in Victorian times for boys and girls?
… what games might you have played if you visited in Victorian days?
Friends Of Valentines Mansion 