VIRTUAL TOUR OF ACTON COURT

‘‘It’s been a great privilege and pleasure to explore Acton Court and create this tour. We hope it will encourage visitors to come and experience this remarkable legacy of Henry VIII’s Progress to the West Country almost 500 years ago.’’

Professor Kate Giles, Director of Heritage360, University of York

A Royal Progress to Acton Court

Henry VIII, acompanied by Anne Boleyn, was on the way to visit Acton Court at Iron Acton on the summer Progress, August 1535.

Acton Court is participating in the ‘Henry on Tour’ research project exploring the summer Progresses of Henry VIII, over the four decades of his reign. The project is led by Historic Royal Palaces in partnership with the universities of York and Newcastle and brings together a range of documentary sources to trace Henry's itinerary as he left London during the summer months to visit various regions of the country.

Sir Nicholas Poyntz, an ambitious young Tudor courtier who had inherited the family manor at Iron Acton, took a huge gamble and embarked on an astonishing new building project to create a suite of purpose built lodgings to host Henry for a splendid feast on the 23 or 24 August. His gamble paid off. Although news of plague in Bristol nearly scuppered his plans, it seems likely that Henry did visit, and he may even have knighted Poyntz whilst there. Poyntz continued to build at Acton, following his successful acquisition of Kingswood Abbey, but also embarked on a new building project at Ozleworth, which became the family seat of Newark Park. 

The virtual tour of Acton Court, created by Heritage360 and accessed from the link below, offers visitors an opportunity to step through the building, explore hidden details and even some of the finds from the excavation of the site, from the collection at Bristol Museum. 

There is a user guide below. If you would like to leave feedback or suggestions for improving the virtual tour please contact us using the form below.

Acton Court virtual tour user guide

Welcome to Heritage360’s virtual tour of Acton Court



To enter the building, click on the person roundel at the centre of the screen. 

This will take you into the building, where you can move through the space using a mouse or trackpad. Try clicking to enter the porch, for example. 

Once in the space, you will see a series of yellow information buttons that tell you about the space or room itself, and green information buttons that provide further information about individual features. 

Click on these and they will pop up and can be expanded, then closed to enable people to explore what they are most interested in, and in what order. Some of these include scans of features such as the graffiti. These can be expanded to full screen and then features within the viewer can be used to analyse the detail more closely, using tools within the viewer, such as Matcap to look more closely, rotate the object etc. 

At any point you can close the image and return to the tour. 

Once inside the building, you can follow your own curiosity, turning left or right, or looking up and down. The Ground Floor Tour extends through the 1535 East Range into the mid 16th century Lodgings, but not the present ground floor kitchen. 

At any point you can use the features in the bottom left hand of the screen to move between floors by clicking on the Floor Selector button. This magically moves you directly to the First Floor above where you are located. You can then explore this floor as well. Our First Floor Tour includes all the 1535 East Range but not the upper section of the North Range (the Long Gallery). 

Clicking on the Dollhouse button enables you to ZOOM out and see the entire model from the exterior. Here, you can also click on the small camera positions outside the Dollhouse to take you into the gardens and view the exterior elevations of the building. 

Feedback on Virtual Tour

If you have explored the virtual tour we would be interested in any comments or feedback on the experience, is there anything else you would like to see?

Please send feedback using the form below.