Worcester Panels

The 9 pull-up panels for The Butts exhibition, to open in The Hive, Worcester in July arrived today. The panels look great and the bamboo casing and poles for the pull-ups give them a much better look than the standard brushed aluminium.

All of the last elements of the exhibition are arriving this week including the baskets, rugs and washing line for the under 7s Rogue's Gallery. The costumes are already here featuring a Roman female, Tudor archer and Victorian cattle worker.

The motion activated Message in a Speaker is also here and about to be programmed.

Calver Weir Memories Day

Today was the first public event of the Calver Weir Oral History project. Bill facilitated a memories day in Calver village which brought together the volunteers and participants willing to share memories, photos or other info about Calver Mill, its Weir and the River Derwent nearby.

The village Methodist Hall resounded to stories about stainless steel kitchen sinks, boyhood games along the river and the mill's appearance in the BBC series Colditz. Colleagues who worked at W & G Sissons, occupants of the mill for much of the second half of the 20th century were reunited after many years, including the Sales Director and his secretary.

Volunteers gained their first experience of collection memories - and of scanning documents. The Chair of the Calver Weir Restoration Project was later interviewed live on BBC Radio Sheffield.

We now have almost 20 people who wish to be interviewed or have other historical information they are willing to share.

Delving into Medieval Hope-Castleton

Residents of Hope and Castleton are getting stuck in to the Medieval Common People Project being organized by Hope and Castleton Historical Societies. The project has got off to an exciting start with visits to three record offices and a training day in landscape archaeology. The project is also drawing in people from other parts of the Hope Valley and Sheffield.

Lichfield Record Office Research

We have made visits during February to learn how to use Derbyshire Record Office, Lichfield Archives and Sheffield Archives. Archivists at each have shown participants how to use their catalogues and do searches, as well as what types of documents they have. At Derbyshire and Lichfield we even had the chance to begin our research on the day, because the Archivists kindly brought a selection of documents from their stores for us to see and look through.

A good example is the day we spent in Lichfield. Andrew George, Principal Archivist, gave an clear and enjoyable introduction to the types of records available. Both villages were part of the Medieval Diocese of Lichfield, therefore a wealth of ecclesiastical records are stored in the Archives. There are wills, inventories, Bishop's Registers, charters and a range of other documents which give an insight into Medieval life in Castleton and Hope. The group left the excellent training day enthused and buzzing - both with what they discovered on the day and the potential discoveries to be made.

We are following the documentary research up with more visits to the record offices and monthly research sessions. Our next one is on Wednesday 28^th March, 7pm at the Old School Hall, Hope. All are welcome. We will discuss what subjects we hope to research and share discoveries to date.

Landscape Survey Training Day

The landscape survey got off to a great start with a training day on how to do archaeological survey. After an introduction to the subject, we headed up the valley side north of Hope to practice some of what we had learnt. Our aim is to record the archaeological features associated with the old routes between the two villages – which may date to the Middle Ages.

If you would like to find out more about the project, and how you can get involved, please contact Di Curtis, 01433 620724, dicathope@aol.com or Angela Darlington, 01433 620281, amstafford@hotmail.co.uk.

Tideswell Tales

Friday the 16th March was the first meeting of the Tideswell Tales project since the news that the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded a grant to the Tideswell Living History Group.


Bill at inHeritage has been fortunate to work with the group of people in Tideswell, Derbyshire, to develop the oral history project, following on from the success of the Tideswell Trails project. 


Bill worked closely with the group to create a series of self-guided trails, funded by the Peak Park's Sustainable Development Fund. The desire to conduct oral history interviews was born out of the Trails project and Bill facilitated the project development then grant application which led to the successful award of the grant in mid-March. We set up the Tideswell Living History Group as interest in the village widened and we realised there was a strong community demand for the oral history project.

The project will collect the memories and old photographs of Tideswell and district residents, ex-residents and visitors - adults and children - in order to preserve and communicate over 150 years of community life through voices and pictures of all ages. It runs from March 2012 to September 2014.

We have identified three themes: 

1) Childhood now and then: recording adults and school children talking about school, home life, holidays, activities and games in Tideswell. 

2) Community Celebrations through time, from Tideswell Wakes Week to VE day and Coronations to Jubilees (linking to the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 2012). 

3) Tideswell Traders through time, shoppers and shopworkers at shops, mobile shops and markets (linking to the 75th anniversary of the last cattle fair in 1937). This includes Holdsworth’s which was Swift Levitt’s magnet factory during WW2. Workers are still alive and we’d like to create resources ready for the 60th anniversary of VE Day in 2015.

We are currently organising memories days, oral history training and will soon be creating a dedicated website for the project. We'll post details of the website and events here as we finalise them.

AHI Committee

I spent today at the spring committee meeting of the Association for Heritage Interpretation. I was voted on to the committee, and as a trustee of the Association, in September, and this was my first committee meeting. It was a packed meeting, both the agenda and the size of the room for the number of members. We discussed and agreed lots of activities and decisions to help move the Association forward during the harsh economic times of the present.

One item specifically relevant to me, as the current website editor, was the future of the website.  We will be creating a members only section soon with resources for members of the AHI to access. These will include past conference papers, past issues of the journal, best practice guidelines, etc.

The AHI is also in the process of drafting a new constitution and finalising arrangements for the 2012 conference. If you are involved in heritage interpretation and would like to find out more about the AHI and its activities check out the website.

Worcester Cartoon Panels

Here is a sample of one of the full cartoon panels that make up part of the exhibition about The Butts in Worcester. This is panel 7 which covers the cattle market, and where Kasey discovers her grand-grandfather at work. The full exhibition opens in The Hive in July.

Lune Aqueduct and Lancaster Canal

We had an inception meeting today with staff from British Waterways to begin a year-long project called 'Digital Memories of the Lune Aqueduct'. This project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, aims to discover, record and communicate people's experiences and stories of the aqueduct and canal. We will train volunteers to undertake oral history work, along with local history research, heritage interpretation and podcast production.

We met at British Waterways beautiful Red Bull Yard in Staffordshire - and I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of the area which also has a canal-side pub of the same name serving great food.

inHeritage won the tender because of our track record of oral history and audio trail work, including the Railway Memories from the Monsal Trail project completed last year for the Peak District National Park Authority. We were also chosen as the preferred contractor because of our experience and commitment to community training.

The project is one of two oral history projects we are managing this year. The other being about Calver Weir and Mill.

Colour Cannons

Here is the coloured version of the cannon cartoon frame for the Worcester Archives exhibition in The Hive. Please see previous news story. The frame will appear on the leaflet publicising the exhibition - so look out for it around Worcester soon.

The cartoon element of the exhibition builds on our success of creating vibrant and exciting heritage comics, such as the one produce for the Romans on the Don project and in Warwickshire.