I'm sure the kids (and adults) loved their day, and to be honest who wouldn't have? But would it have been any less a day if they'd just talked about TC's (been shown the Mereweather one) and then said but nowadays we don't do that on protected sites? They could still have made one for their school?
I think its a big cock-up on the part of EH (again, sigh) and particularly poorly handled (again, sigh).