Herbert Art Gallery & Museum

Curriculum topics available: Invaders and Settlers, Saxon Settlements, Saxon Laws and Justice, Arts and Culture.

Using original artefacts from the collection and exploring the local legend of Lady Godiva, pupils will find out about life in Anglo-Saxon Britain. Through role play pupils will re-enact Lady Godiva’s famous horse ride through Coventry, and by examining the evidence will decide the truth of this story.

The workshop will also explore aspects of crime and punishment as well as art
and culture. Additionally, pupils will have the opportunity to design and make their own Anglo-Saxon print to take away.

Curriculum topics available: Crime and Punishment, Queen Victoria, Factories and The Workhouse, Childhood and Schools, Inventions.

This interactive workshop uses role play, costumes and handling objects to compare past and present. Pupils will experience a day in the life of Queen Victoria’s servants and discover how everyday chores were carried out. Pupils will also be able to see Victorian toys and learn about the games that children would have played.
Changes in national life are illustrated as pupils learn about 19th Century developments in transport and how this enabled people from cities like Coventry to visit the seaside – pupils will find out what Victorians wore on the beach and how they made ice cream!

Curriculum topics available: Women in wartime, Air Raids Blitz and Battle of Britain, The Home Front, Rationing, Evacuation.

This session enables pupils to discover the impact of the war on daily life using original costume, role play and a wide range of stimulating Second World War objects. It explores the experiences of people in wartime Coventry including the Blitz, air raid precautions and civil defence, and includes an exciting visit to an underground shelter.

Curriculum topics available: Autistic Spectrum, Emotional and Behavioural Disorders, Visual Impairment, Fully Wheelchair Accessible, Disabled Toilet Access, Social Skills, Raising Aspirations.

We are able to adapt our sessions to make them accessible to your groups learning needs and styles, but ask that you assist us in understanding the level of requirement. We welcome visits from SEN and SEBD groups and are happy to explore how we can deliver our sessions most appropriately for your pupils.

Our facilitated sessions are highly interactive and inspiring learning experiences. We use museum objects to tell the story of Coventry, comparing the past and present and exploring how important events relate to global history. Your pupils will look at and engage with historical evidence to understand how historians make decisions about how historical stories are told.

Using the unique objects of the history galleries and social history collections, local history will be brought to life and give pupils a hands-on and interactive experience outside of the classroom that puts curriculum topics into context, helping pupils understand historical objects in the real world.

Fresh from its recent return home to the Natural History Museum, Dippy the Diplodocus (DIP-low-DOCK-us) has stomped into Coventry and set to remain as dino-in-residence at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum until 2025!

Dippy the dinosaur is a life-size, plaster-of-paris replica of a Diplodocus carnegii skeleton. It was gifted to the Natural History Museum by Andrew Carnegie and was first put on display in May 1905. Dippy quickly became a star, capturing hearts and imaginations, and went on to tour the UK from 2017 to 2021. After a brief return home to London, Dippy arrived in Coventry this year, and has been delighting visitors since February 2023.

Discover the amazing creatures that lived in Coventry and Warwickshire during the time of the dinosaurs. Presented in collaboration with Warwickshire Museum, Warwickshire's Jurassic Sea is a free fossil display will take you back in time to the Jurassic era, a time when much of the region was underwater.

A selection of fossils drawn from both the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum and Warwickshire Museum collections offer a fascinating insight into the strange sea creatures that swam through Coventry and Warwickshire between 200 and 145 million years ago. The display includes our star fossil - an ichthyosaur skull found in Harbury.

Curriculum topics available: Fossils.

Warwickshire's Jurassic Sea is a free fossil display will take you back in time to the Jurassic era, a time when much of the region was underwater.

A selection of fossils drawn from both the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum and Warwickshire Museum collections offer a fascinating insight into the strange sea creatures that swam through Coventry and Warwickshire between 200 and 145 million years ago. The display includes our star fossil - an ichthyosaur skull found in Harbury.

Curriculum topics available: Medieval Society and Feudalism.

Coventry enjoyed a 'golden age' in the medieval period, which is reflected in our extensive collections.

Coventry has had a rich religious heritage that began with St Osburga's Nunnery and then the Benedictine Priory. By the end of the 1100s Coventry had become established as an important city based on the cloth and leather trades. The archaeological finds from medieval Coventry illustrates both city life and the city’s trade links. Objects include pottery, small dress accessories, cloth fragments, leather shoes, belts and pieces of saddlery and occasionally a coin.

By the 1400s Coventry was enjoying a 'golden age' of prosperity and importance and the collection reflects this. Material from this period numbers over 1,500 objects ranging from rings and jewellery to brooches, points, buckles, decorative studs, nails, tools, horseshoes, keys and strap ends.

Highlights of the collection include a 1400s sallet (helmet), a wooden carved figure of St. George and the Dragon, a leather face mask used in mystery plays, choir stalls from Whitefriars and over 1000 carved stones excavated from the Benedictine Priory.

John Bailey Shelton, a keen local archaeologist, built up a large collection of material through the 1930s and 40s. His collection formed the nucleus of the archaeology material held by the museum.

Curriculum topics available: Craft, History of Art, Painting, Design, Sculpture, Drawing, Printmaking.

The Herbert’s permanent galleries showcase objects drawn from the social history, archaeology and visual art collections.

On the ground floor, the History Gallery tells the story of Coventry and its people from the medieval period to the present day. It includes sections which look at the city’s watchmaking and ribbon weaving industries, the impact of the Second World War and the boom years of the 1950s and ‘60s.

Discover Godiva is a family-friendly interactive exploration of the famous story of Lady Godiva, which includes many of the museum’s paintings of Godiva – you can decide if she really did make her famous naked ride! The Peace and Reconciliation gallery tells the story of Coventry’s role in promoting peace and reconciliation, starting with the Blitz of 1940 and the destruction of the cathedral. The story is told through objects, artworks and oral history interviews.

In Gallery 2 on the first floor you can see our largest painting, Bacchus and Ariadne, painted by Luca Giordano in the 1600s, alongside other paintings from the 1500s to the 1900s. Sculptures from the collection are displayed in the Long Gallery.