Children are enjoying a packed programme of summer holiday events in Tavistock with an historic theme.

The first of the weekly events at Tavistock Guildhall courtroom covered all thing piratical with a treasure hunt in the permanent history exhibition and a craft session to make pirate hats and puppets.

Nova, six, and her sister Eden, ten, on holiday from St Rumon’s and St Peter’s schools in Tavistock, made and decorated a pirate hat each and made simple puppet pirates and pirate parrots.

Eden named her pirate Matey McLobster Legs. She said: “We looked at the books they gave us to give us ideas for our designs. Drake is famous in Tavistock and he was a privateer which is like a pirate, but approved by people like the queen who was Elizabeth the First. It’s been good fun.”

Meanwhile, friends Amy Tojo, eight, and Millie Hanson, seven, made two pirate puppets. Millie’s mum Rachel said: “The girls have really got into this session and are engrossed – we’ll definitely come to more.”

The weekly Wednesday programme, at the Guildhall, also covers mining in the Tavistock and Tamar Valley and the history of crime and policing.

The next session is on Wednesday, August, 6, which has a craft session based on the work of famous Arts and Crafts designer William Morris (who had local inks, as his father was among the original investors in the Devon Great Consols copper and arsenic mine which sparked the mining boom).

On August 13, a session called Getting Inventive shows children ingenious mining inventions and asks them to design their own mining tools.

On August 20, youngsters will learn all about crime and policing in Tavistock at a session called You’re Under Arrest – appropriately based in the Victorian courtroom. The final session, called Down the Mine, on August 27, will take children on an historical journey under their feet to find out about what is happening underground in the mines using fun and games.

More information at Tavistock Heritage Trust’s volunteer discovery team at [email protected]