Monsal Trail Walk

The Walks Around Britain video features the Peak District's Monsal Trail and the inHeritage audio player of railway memories.

Sounding Out Interpretation

Inside the Circle of Fire is a new exhibition at Sheffield's Millennium Galleries by Cabaret Voltaire co-founder Chris Watson. Chris spent 18 months recording the sounds of Sheffield to create this immersive sound map of the city's heart beat, from bird song in Ecclesall Woods or on the city's Peak District fringe to Forgemaster's blast furnaces, football crowds and Fargate on a Friday night. He deliberately calls the exhibition a site-specific sound map which recreates the sounds of 21st Century Sheffield. He hopes audiences have a creative relationship with the exhibition, there imaginations stimulated by recognisable and personal sounds.

Sound from Inside the Circle of Fire.

I visited the exhibition today and was struck by the emotional and powerful potential of using artistically-conceived sound as interpretation in a gallery environment.

Reclining on a cushion, I was transported directly and vividly to places I associated with the sounds. Strong, personal connections though none of the sounds were otherwise signposted or captioned. You, as listener had to actively work to make those connections, to interpret the places in Sheffield evoked in the songs of birds and chants of football crowds, in the roar of furnaces and churn of rivers. Each new sound brought a place, sometimes more than one, to mind and raised a range of emotions, all of which originated from my own experiences of those 'imagined' places. I assume that sometimes the places I associated with the sounds are the same locations Chris recorded and sometimes they are different. I will have no way of knowing beyond the small number of places mentioned in the exhibition's publicity. Perhaps I transmuted the sound of the crowd at Bramall Lane into my real-life experience of matches at Hillsborough - or vice versa. It really doesn't matter, what is important is that I re-envisaged a moment in my life in Sheffield through the power of sound. Projected photographs do aid place recognition, but are never displayed to match the sounds. The exhibition probably does require you to have life experiences of Sheffield to create strong, emotional remembrances and mental geo-transportations.

Sound from Inside the Circle of Fire. With added surreal dimension from a four-year old's voiceover on behalf of a soap.

This is aural art as part-celebration, part-interpretation of a contemporary landscape and biographically timelined relationships with it. Sound enables emotional triggers which (re)create moments in time and space so that exhibition audiences dynamically reveal and tell their own stories of places in reaction to those sounds. Multiple personal conversations are provoked between spatial structure and the individual in a way that didactic interpretation can not manage. Inside the Circle of Fire is a good example of how successfully and powerfully we can interpret places by providing space for the audiences to do some of the work themselves.

Chris Watson talks about Inside the Ring of Fire

http://youtu.be/h1x_wvFmqi8

Hands on History Barnsley - Test Pits Day 1 - the video

Hands On History Barnsley: First test pits

Hands On History Barnsley: First test pits: Day one of the 2013 season of test pits - New Lodge Crescent, with a visit from Barnsley Central MP and Shadow Minister for Culture and Her...

Calver Weir Finale

Calver Weir Exhibition

The Calver Weir oral history project came to a glorious end this weekend with an exhibition in Calver Village Hall.

Over 200 people visited the exhibition over the weekend. The launch was attended by 10 interviewees, 2 Heritage Lottery Fund officers, all of the oral history team and about another 15 residents and visitors.

Interviewees watch the movie

The event was the culmination to 18 months hard work by the team, who had recorded 22 interviews and searched Derbyshire Record Office's collection of Calver Mill documents. Highlights include finding the sources of the 19th century mill's cotton and the range of tools required each year to keep it operating, childhood memories of playing on the weir and river, working life at Sissons stainless steel factory and the filming of Colditz by the BBC. The main success was seeing a group of people come together, learn historical skills and work as a team.

The oral history team

inHeritage has been involved with the project throughout, mentoring and guiding the volunteers and producing a travelling exhibition, booklet, movie, comic and podcasts. We have also created an archive which is deposited in Calver, Derbyshire Record Office, the Peak District National Park Authority and the East Midlands Oral History Archive.

Booklet, comic and celebratory ale 

The Movie

The exhibition

The comic

The food

Hands on History Barnsley

We are just starting a new three-year archaeology project north of Barnsley, in Athersley, New Lodge and Smithies. Bill is project managing for the Romero Communities as well as providing interpretation services and archaeological advice. We are also contributing some educational activities. We are working with local archaeological contractors who will supervise and train volunteers in test pit excavation, finds processing, geophysics and fieldwalking.

The first season of garden and school playing-field test pits begins on Monday 2nd September.

You can find out more at http://handsonhistorybarnsley.blogspot.co.uk

Here is the press release:

The Romero Communities have received £79,800 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for an exciting project, Hands on History, in Athersley and New Lodge. Led by volunteers from the local community, the project aims to help local residents discover the archaeological past beneath our feet and lead courses in archaeology and local history. The project begins in September and runs until May 2016.

Explaining the importance of the HLF award, Fiona Spiers, Head of the Heritage Lottery Fund -Yorkshire and the Humber said “This exciting project will enable people to actively learn about the history of their local area and gain skills in archaeological investigation.  This project really will uncover the hidden heritage of Athersley and New Lodge, letting everyone get involved and learn about their community’s past!”

Carol Clair of Romero Communities says “We are grateful to the Heritage Lottery Fund who have awarded the grant to look into the archaeological history of Athersley and New Lodge. This means we can dig archaeological test pits, do geophysical surveys and run courses in archaeology and local history. Anyone who would like to have a go at archaeology is welcome. You don’t need to know how to dig or do geophys as archaeologists will train and supervise you. We will also provide all equipment.”

The test pits will be dug in people’s gardens during September for the next three years. We are looking for finds such as old pots and clay tobacco pipes that can show how the area was used before the estates were built. In October, we also hope to do geophysical surveys of the area to the north to see what ancient features are buried beneath the soil. Pupils from all three local primary schools will also get the chance to join in. They will dig test pits in their school grounds and have lessons about archaeology.

Finds from the test pits will be shown at a Finds Road show in November.

Turner Trails in Boroughbridge

Just come across one of our 2011 Turner Trails panels at Boroughbridge information centre.