Social activities and optional trips

The orientation programme and welcome reception on 1 July will give you the chance to meet your fellow students and the Summer School staff.

We also arrange a number of evening social activities and optional trips during the programme:

Optional weekend trips

There will be two long weekends (four days) during the Summer School, giving you the chance to travel to mainland Europe, Ireland or elsewhere in the UK. The dates for these weekends are:

  • Friday 9 July – Monday 12 July
  • Friday 23 July – Monday 26 July

We are offering a number of optional trips during the long weekends to Scotland and Paris. The other two weekends provide free time for exploring London and the area closer to Kingston, including the option to go on a day-trip to Stratford and the Cotswolds.

British Culture fieldtrips

If you are not taking the British Culture class, you may still have the opportunity to participate in its fieldtrips, paying a fee per trip (space permitting). Whether this is possible depends on your schedule.

Full information about the 2010 trips will be available at the start of the Summer School, but in the meantime you can see details of the 2009 trips below for an idea of what to expect:

  • Hampton Court Palace: Students travelled to Hampton Court Palace by boat for a lecture tour of the palace and visited the grounds and gardens.
  • Greenwich: This trip included a visit to the Old Royal Observatory (the location of zero longitude), the Royal Naval College (designed by Christopher Wren) and the Queen’s House (designed by Inigo Jones). It addressed the role of Britain in the development of accurate timekeeping and navigation in the 17th and 18th centuries.
  • Stonehenge and Bath: We visited to Stonehenge, a World Heritage Site, en route to the Roman baths in Bath, where students also took a walking tour of the town to see the Georgian architecture.
  • Oxford: We took a walking tour of the ancient heart of the city of Oxford, which gave an introduction to the architecture, history and way of life in Britain’s oldest university, and visited Christ Church College.

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