Both adults and children are inevitably charmed by this combination of mock Victorian schoolroom (with hard wooden benches and desks, slates, chalk, inkwells and abacuses), re-created East End kitchen and social-history museum. The school closed in 1908, but you can experience what it would have been like during its Sunday openings, when you can take part in a lesson. As a pupil you'll be taught reading, writing and 'rithmetic by a strict school ma’am in full Victorian regalia.
The museum celebrates the legacy of Dr Thomas Barnardo, who founded this school for destitute East End children in 1877. "Ragged" refers to the pupils’ usually torn, dirty and disheveled clothes. On the first Sunday of each month there are two 45-minute Victorian classroom lessons, at 11.30am and 12.45pm, led by an actor in Victorian costume; lesson tickets are first come, first served on arrival.
