Lucy Worsley has a talent for engaging people with history by bringing it to life, and I've just found this brilliant reconstruction of Henry VIII's crown, based on a 1631 portrait of Charles I standing behind it.
In the mid-eighties, I covered the restoration of the Mary Rose for The TES, and found it looking more like a heap of railway sleepers than a ship. Children are not interested, for the most part, in bare buildings. They need to see and experience things as closely as possible to what they were. Click the picture for a link to Maev Kennedy's excellent Guardian piece and a video showing the reconstruction.
PS. They've also got one of Henry's day to day hats.