Here’s a film summarising the project and about making a better future for the river. HAP’s really enjoyed being part of the Connecting the Culm team, carrying out their community engagement work.

Here’s a – check out Cat talking about her work at 3 minutes 50 seconds in!

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The concept of Victorian Xmas cards was used as a starting point. If you haven’t seen Victorian cards before take a look at some examples here. Christmas cards were invented during the Victorian era and took off in a big way in the 1880s. A demand for novelty led to a whole genre of bizarre and darkly humorous cards. Santa kidnapping naughty children, creepy clowns and dead birds were just some of the popular themes!

With this concept of a quirky, fun-loving and slightly cheeky take on the Christmas card as a starting point, we created characters based on local themes: Exeter Victorian sculptor Harry Hems’ collection of characterful medieval angels, Exeter’s blue boy and St Katherine’s medieval nuns. The workshops were aimed at being light-hearted and fun, so as well as themes suggested by us, participants were encouraged to let their imaginations run wild and create their own characters and storylines to animate.

With animations featuring minecraft characters rescuing an ice-skating snowman, nuns bowled over by giant snowballs and mischievous angles, it was a truly Victorian Xmas card-inspired result! Here are the animations, courtesy of Burn the Curtain:

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Roman Military Exeter

The first event was A Guided Walk Around the Fortress of the Second Augustan Legion at Exeter with Dr. John P. Salvatore. This tour evolved out of a celebratory coffee with John, who has worked 50 years in archaeology this year – quite an achievement! John has a keen interest in Roman military archaeology and mentioned he runs occasional tours of Roman military Exeter. We were really keen to attend one of his tours and he kindly agreed to run one, which we organised as part of Heritage Open Days.

It was a fascinating event, transporting us back in time 2000 years to reimagine the Guildhall shopping centre as barrack blocks and Exeter Cathedral as the site of a Roman military bath-house. It was a unique opportunity for local people to see the location of excavation sites from the 1970s, with an archaeologist who worked on them. Here’s feedback from two of our eighteen participants:

We thought John Salvatore was an inspiring and imaginative speaker – he really made you ‘see’ the Romans in Exeter. The idea of walking the perimeter of the fortress was brilliant and to have a fully kitted-out Roman soldier describe daily life at the time was a real treat at the end of a terrific evening. Top marks to everyone involved.’

Linda and Ian

Dunkeswell Abbey Tour

The second Heritage Open Days event was a guided tour of Dunkeswell Abbey, delving into the skills and masterful water management of the monks who lived and worked there. The tour was part of the Connecting the Culm project which aims to make the river better for wildlife and people, and more resilient to flood and drought. 

Participants found out about the resourcefulness of the Cistercians, how they managed the water landscape in the medieval period and why they chose this beautiful rural site to build their abbey. We were kindly given access by a local resident to see the impressive earthwork remains of the fish ponds, astonishing in their scale.

The beautiful weather combined with the idyllic rural location and a pop-up cafe (run by local residents) selling tea and cake made this a perfect day out. We had a great turn out with 44 people attending the tours.

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Using information stands, river themed activities and collaborative art to welcome people in and generate conversations, we have been raising awareness of the challenges the River Culm faces due to climate change and how we can work with nature to solve these problems. As a result, communities have been coming up with Nature-Based Solutions to tackle flood and drought, improve water quality in the river, and create a better place for wildlife and people.

HAP will be continuing its work with the Connecting the Culm project delivering a new series of events over the next three months called ‘Catchment Connections’. At these events, people can find out how to get involved with the project and learn about the Blueprint for the Culm, a 25 year vision for the river. Download the event flyer here and join us at one the events to find out more about the project.

As part of the ‘Catchment Connections’ events, we will be running guided tours at Dunkeswell Abbey this September, during the Heritage Open Days festival. Come along to find out about this tranquil monastic site in the Blackdown Hills, the resourcefulness of the Cistercians, how they managed the water landscape in the medieval period and why they chose this rural site to build their abbey.

Water management was vital to the survival and self-sufficiency of the monastic community and the Cistercians were experts at managing water in the landscape. Discover how the monks used their skills and knowledge to create a thriving rural community and explore the ancient remains of this monastic complex.

Find out more about this Connecting the Culm event at Dunkeswell Abbey and book tickets here

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The Understanding Dunkeswell Abbey Church project, funded by The Pilgrim Trust, is exploring the history, current state and heritage significance of the former church at Dunkeswell Abbey, created by the women of the Simcoe family in the C19th. Find out more here.

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It was built by a family of women who poured their time and energy into mastering the craft skills needed to create architectural fixings. Using a large drawing room at their home as a workshop they produced stained glass windows, altars, reredoses, a font, a pulpit, a reading desk, capitals, corbels and furniture reconstituted from antique carvings.

For Women’s History Month we’ve written a blog for the Blackdown Hills AONB about these remarkable women: The Simcoe sisters: Victorian craftswomen in Dunkeswell.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the women of the Simcoe family, come along to our open day on May 7th.

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As part of the project we are asking people to share their memories of Dunkeswell Abbey Church to help form a new archive. Whether you live in Dunkeswell, Hemyock, Exeter or further afield we’d love to hear your stories and anecdotes of Dunkeswell Abbey Church (Holy Trinity) and to see any photos you might have.

Please get in touch with marie@heritageartspeople.uk with your stories, memories or photos. You can also say hello at our Community Open Day on Saturday 7th May 1-4pm at Dunkeswell Abbey Church. Keep an eye on our blog for more info about the open day and also the community website for Dunkeswell Abbey.

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Our heritage educator Catherine Farnell helped the children visualise Mincinglake today, and to understand the history behind it, by creating ‘archaeological layers’ which the children could ‘excavate’ and discover finds from the past, each with their own story.

Once we’d got the group thinking about Mincinglake Valley Park and inspired them with natural objects, archaeological finds and ideas, they were each given their own Mini Mincinglake Book. The children could create whatever they wanted in their books – drawings, writing, sticking, rubbings or anything else which appealed to them. We wanted to embrace all sorts of books for World Book Day – fiction and non fiction, written books and picture books, published books and self created books. For our Mini Mincinglake project we wanted the children to express themselves and explore their thoughts and ideas in their own personalised way.

The session went really well and was great fun. We’d love to develop more ways of helping children to understand and explore their local area and to express their thoughts and ideas.

The Archaeologists gave us an inspiring session. We appreciated the excellent preparation, for keeping to our timing, producing something that engaged the different ages. And generally being very easy for the children to relate to. Great work they are doing! 

Di, Elfins group leader

Many thanks to the Woodcraft Folk’s Elfins group and to Tesco Bags of Help for their community funding.

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HAP’s Education Specialist Catherine Farnell ran a mini museum activity, where the children got to handle reconstructed historic artefacts. Catherine said..

“It’s always a privilege to work in such a historically significant building with enthusiastic children. It was wonderful to give them the opportunity to have a hands-on exploration of the Tudor period. The children were full of enthusiasm and interest.”

Other workshops included exploring the Tudor kitchen, trying on Tudor clothes and learning about history and climate change.

St Nicholas Priory is Exeter’s oldest building. It was founded in 1087 as a Benedictine monastery and was home to monks for over 400 years. The church, Chapter House, dormitory and cloisters were pulled down following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536. The Northern and Western ranges survived and became the home of wealthy Tudor merchants. When you visit the Priory today it is presented as a Tudor town house, home of the wealthy Hurst family. With replica furniture, artefacts and painted in the bright colours used at the time, it gives a unique insight into Tudor life.

If you haven’t yet discovered St Nicholas Priory, it’s a wonderful venue and well worth a visit. Explore the Tudor kitchen (look out for period cooking demonstrations), bedroom, parlour and the Great Hall. Visit the St Nicholas Priory website for opening hours and events.

If you are a teacher and are interested in arranging a visiting to St Nicholas priory, please email education@ehbt.org.uk.

St Nicholas Priory is run by Exeter Historic Building Trust. You can find out more about the excellent work they do in Exeter here.

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“I’m absolutely delighted that we have been shortlisted for this award. Our clients on this project, Torbay Council and Torbay Culture, have supported a creative and collaborative approach that integrates planning in a historic environment with economic, social and cultural development. It’s very pleasing that RTPI has recognised that vision and the work that has gone into bringing it to fruition.“

Katherine Findlay, HAP Consultant

To develop the strategy, HAP carried out consultations with over 800 people and numerous organisations and partnerships – including local museums, heritage organisations, National Trust and the English Riviera UNESCO Global Geopark. We also worked closely with Historic England. HAP consultant Katherine Findlay has also been carrying out follow up work including a recently published Heritage Interpretation Framework, and ongoing action-planning which was supported by the government’s Culture Recovery Fund award to Torbay Culture from the Heritage Fund.

Decisions on the RTPI awards will be made during November. You can read more about the RTPI awards here.

The Torbay Heritage Strategy can be viewed and downloaded here.

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