The Sleep Walk at Little Moreton Hall
Gemma Gibb, Associate Editor
Calling all sleep-deprived families of the world – head to this unique tumbling Tudor manor house to experience a Sleep Walk adventure trail around the hall and gardens from Wild Rumpus (producers of the award-winning Just So Festival). Part of the fascinating How We Used To Sleep project between the University of Manchester and the National Trust’s Little Moreton Hall, collect a map to follow a sequence of experiences reflecting a night’s kip Tudor style including segmented sleep (they enjoyed two superb sleeps in a night) sleeping potions and tinctures, “nightmare creatures” and the joy of waking to up a fine sunrise.
Throughout 2017 Little Moreton Hall will be exploring why the Tudors were so good at sleeping, its importance for physical and mental wellbeing and what lessons we can learn from them in our busy 24/7 society today. Dr Sasha Handley’s book Sleep in Early Modern England (her research has inspired this project) has recently been shortlisted for the 2017 Wolfson History Prize. We love that the sleep walk aims to encourage families to become more knowledgeable and enthusiastic about sleep … and we can only live in hope that with this fine learning, bedtime might be obeyed all round.
Look out for the Dream Library installation at the hall which will also be appearing at the RHS Tatton Flower Show and Just So Festival this summer to catalogue and share your own dreams and discover what others have been dreaming about too.
What better place for this experience to take place in than the fantastical inside and outside spaces (with its stunning interiors and gardens) of one of the great timber-framed surviving halls of the Tudor period. It has been said to defy all structural logic that it can still be standing with its crooked walls and wibbly wobbly floors. Whether you get your sleep sorted or not, visiting Little Moreton Hall itself gives families a rare opportunity to slow down a little together and to experience one of the best scenic moats and mounds for strolling and rolling around (but hopefully not into). Dreamy ….
