SCHOOLCHILDREN from Windsor have visited the home of the Big Friendly Giant.

The 20 pupils from Year 4 at the Royal School in Windsor Great Park joined children’s literature specialist, Dr Ann Alston from the University of West of England, for a BFG-themed workshop at Cumberland Lodge today.

Cumberland Lodge, the educational foundation in the Great Park, has a surprising connection to Roald Dahl's famous children’s story The BFG.

That connection was revealed in 2016, when the University of Wales Press published new research showing that, when the Queen gives the BFG "a special house with tremendous high ceilings and enormous doors" in Windsor Great Park at the end of the book, Dahl was in fact referring to Cumberland Lodge.

He had visited just a few years before The BFG was published. Cumberland Lodge was also the name of his childhood home in Cardiff.

The pupils spent an hour exploring how Roald Dahl drew on his own experiences of childhood in his writing.