Family trail at Trent Park House of Secrets launching for October half-term

New trail encouraging children to explore the fascinating story behind the building launches later this month

Visitors to Trent Park House of Secrets (credit Harry Elletson)

A newly-opened Second World War museum in Enfield is launching a “family trail” in time for the upcoming October half-term.

After more than a decade of planning and restoration work, Trent Park House of Secrets was opened to the public in July and has since welcomed thousands of visitors.

The museum tells two contrasting stories of pre-war socialising and wartime intelligence gathering. On the ground floor, the lavish rooms of the mansion house as they looked under socialite Sir Phillip Sassoon’s ownership have been restored and recreated, while downstairs visitors can learn about the ‘secret listeners’ who covertly recorded the conversations of Nazi prisoners being held there during the Second World War, gathering intelligence which later proved crucial in helping the Allies to defeat Nazi Germany.

For children, the basement spaces offer hands-on activities where young history detectives can find out how captured German generals were secretly overheard during the Second World War.

Upstairs, launching from Tuesday, 27th October, a new ‘Amazing Creatures Explorers’ trail, described as “a playful way for under-eights to explore the state rooms and the glamorous interwar years”.

The trail is free, and maps can be collected at the ticket desk or downloaded before a visit. At the end of the state rooms, children can marvel at a scale model of the house, frozen in time from 1942.

Visitors then head down to the basement, where the secret listeners recorded the generals’ conversations through microphones hidden all over the house – in light fittings, plant pots and even the billiard table.

Children can pick up a phone to hear extracts from an officer’s diary, test their ears in the playback room by listening, recording and spotting keywords in English and German, and watch films that use AI to bring historic photographs to life. They can also try the air-raid siren, peek into the 1940s kitchen and storerooms, and finish with a photo in uniform.

Trent Park House of Secrets is open from Tuesday to Sunday, 10am–5pm, with tickets costing £14 for adults and £12 for children under 17 years. Under fives can enter for free. Family discounts are available. For more information:
Visit trentparkhouse.org.uk

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