The Tiger Hunt

Friday 13 June 2025, Attingham Park, with secondary school students from Telford.

On a hot summer day in Shropshire, twenty teenagers from New Road Acadamy,  a comprehensive school in Telford arrived at Attingham Park, an eighteenth-century Regency mansion set within 200 acres of parkland. Despite being less than half an hour from their school, it was a place they had never visited before.

They had been invited by the National Trust to take part in a day-long workshop I was leading as part of my work with Thoughtful, the charity I co-lead. The workshop formed part of a wider collaboration designed to help National Trust staff and volunteers engage more diverse audiences in new kinds of conversations about artworks, artefacts and architecture.

Attingham Park, Atcham, Shropshire, seen from the south, by Wehha, Wiki Commons

The students came from a school serving a complex community, including young people experiencing high levels of socio-economic disadvantage, pupils with SEND, children in care, students with English as an Additional Language, and those with Education, Health and Care Plans. Like many disadvantaged young people, they faced significant barriers to visiting and engaging with heritage sites such as Attingham Park.

The students, aged 11–14, were hot, excited and somewhat intimidated by their surroundings. When I began the workshop with my usual introductions and games, many sat in stunned silence. Their teacher quietly explained that some were so nervous they might not speak at all.

Meanwhile, National Trust staff and volunteers looked on hesitantly, wondering whether the Philosophy for Children (P4C) approaches that Thoughtful had been modelling in training would really help these nervous students engage with the Trust's collections and exhibitions, especially with only a few hours together.

It took time and care to warm the group up. As the morning went on, we visited some wallpaper that had recently been restored. Dubbed ‘The Tiger Hunt’–it was not the kind of exhibit you would usually expect a group of teenagers to find riveting, but by now they were already thinking deeply about the concepts and questions raised by the objects they had examined so far. In particular, they had become absorbed in the ethical and political questions raised by the exhibition of artefacts connected to colonialism, slavery and the hoarding of generational wealth.

By the time we stood in front of the wallpaper, the children were crackling with energy. The work depicted a panorama of imagined scenes from colonial India, including big-game hunting, dancing concubines and servants with darker skin than those they served. It raised questions about sexism, racism, power and control, yet it was brightly coloured and strangely beautiful.

A panel from The Tiger Hunt, Attingham House, © National Trust.

Over the course of a couple of hours, these initially shy young people confidently defended and criticised the National Trust's decision to restore the wallpaper. They explored whether it helped or hindered efforts to address these issues today, and before long every student except one boy, Oliver, was contributing to the discussion.

It was almost lunchtime, and the morning session was drawing to a close when Oliver, observing the other students engaged in lively dialogue and facing one another, got out of his seat and took a side. Tentatively, I passed him the ball as an invitation to speak, and he did—quietly but determinedly.

He spoke out against the racist stereotypes depicted in the wallpaper, but he also defended the wallpaper as a reminder of the ever-present harm of racism. ‘If we remove these images, if we refuse to look at material like this’, he argued, ‘it becomes too easy to forget how far we have come and too easy to go backwards’. By conserving and displaying the Tiger Hunt, rather than hiding it away, ‘we have to confront racism, yesterday and today’.

Later in the afternoon, after the teenagers had enjoyed half an hour of exuberant play in a playground designed for much younger children, we reflected on the day before the coach arrived to take the group back to school.

The teachers praised their students for thinking so carefully and speaking so clearly. The National Trust staff were delighted by what young people could achieve in such a short space of time.

As the workshop drew to a close, Oliver was the last to speak. He said that being close to objects that were so interesting was a ‘privilege’ and something he would ‘remember for a very long time’.

The National Trust staff felt, on the contrary, that the value of the day had come directly from the students themselves. In listening to the young people speak with curiosity and compassion, they felt the privilege had been all theirs.