Enhancing community engagement with the historic environment
Submitting Institution
University of StirlingUnit of Assessment
HistorySummary Impact Type
SocietalResearch Subject Area(s)
Built Environment and Design: Architecture
Studies In Human Society: Policy and Administration
Summary of the impact
Successive Scottish Governments, local authorities, statutory bodies and
sector agencies have sought to address issues of community (re)engagement
with their historic environment within community-building and place-making
social agendas. Through History Tomorrow, our
commercial history unit, we have been central to initiatives designed to
restore property of the past to communities. Our major impact is with
Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) projects like Prestongrange, Kilmun, and the
Ochils Landscape Partnership (OLP), where community volunteers were
trained and empowered to undertake their own research, thereafter becoming
trainers themselves. Imparting such training skills to community
volunteers restores a sense of possession of their `own' histories and
effectively inculcates post-funding sustainability amongst them.
Underpinning research
Historians in this case study include Oram, Ross, Smyth and Mills and
their underpinning research is focused in the field of `public history'. A
key dimension of their activity has been the enhancement of community
engagement with the historic environment, first through the provision of
high quality but accessible and rapidly-disseminated research but
increasingly through the development of projects that underpin HLF-funded
community-led projects. This commitment to enhancing community engagement
with the historic environment is grounded in research experience which
exposed a gathering trend towards disengagement arising from breakdowns in
traditional communities, a sense of disenfranchisement stemming from the
professionalization of the historic environment sector since the 1980s,
and a disjunction between governmental and institutional recognition of
the economic significance of this sector and popular perceptions of the
value of the historic environment to the cultural and economic life of
their communities.
The full extent of this public disengagement, together with proposed
measures to address it, were initially researched and set out in the
Historic Environment Advisory Council for Scotland's Report and
Recommendations on Strategies for Engaging Young Adults in the Historic
Environment (co- author Oram). In addition, Oram's experiences as
Director of the Scottish Burgh Survey Project and Smyth's as
Principal Researcher on three `community' record-linkage projects, The
Coffin Close, Neighbourhood Identity and Hospital Records and
Patient Narratives, identified communities' sense of disempowerment
and disinheritance in respect of the cultural heritage of their own
neighbourhoods, and also an absence of knowledge or skills within those
communities to enable them to reconnect with their pasts. Identifying an
opportunity, Oram and Smyth secured strategic University funding for a new
appointment (Ross) to create and manage the commercial research and
community skills-training unit called History Tomorrow.
Key instances where research by History Tomorrow has provided the
basis for community-led projects include Prestongrange, where historic
research by Oram was subsequently developed into an inter-disciplinary
HLF-funded community project which provided training for volunteers in
oral history recording techniques (Smyth) and palaeography and archival
skills (Ross).
A similar project is the OLP where initial Clackmannanshire
council-funded original research undertaken by Ross enhanced local
awareness about areas of historic and cultural significance, informed
community participation in local planning debates, and subsequently helped
them to shape development proposals for a successful £2.26M grant
application to HLF to fund 22 different community projects (Ross
represents the University on the OLP executive committee). A further
strand of this program continues to be the education of school children in
awareness of their natural environments and all 6 primary schools in the
OLP area have responded magnificently to the opportunities offered to
them, including the creation of their own animated films about the field
trips they have undertaken as part of Industrial Devon [Mills]
Original research by History Tomorrow has also underpinned the
subsequent development of two other major projects. The first of these
concerns Hermitage Castle in Liddesdale where the Hermitage Action
Group (HAG) commissioned Oram to research the monument's cultural
significance and inform debate about the local historic environment in
relation to future wind-farm development. The second example is at Kilmun
(Argyll) where Ross and Oram were engaged by a local heritage group
(Argyll Mausoleum Ltd) to undertake historical and architectural research
on the site of the family mausoleum of the Dukes of Argyll. Their research
proved that the site was originally early medieval in date and their
report underpinned a successful Stage 1 HLF bid to restore the mausoleum
and consolidate what remains of the medieval collegiate church. A total
funding package of £1M has now been put in place to sympathetically
restore the site and provide reinterpretation of the various monuments.
References to the research
Publications
• R. Oram, Prestongrange (Stirling, 2008)
• Historic Environment Advisory Council for Scotland, Report and
Recommendations on Strategies for Engaging Young Adults in the
Historic Environment, Presented to Michael Russell, MSP,
Minister for Culture, External Affairs and the Constitution (May 2009).
• R D Oram, P F Martin, C A McKean, T Neighbour and A Cathcart, Historic
Tain: Archaeology and Development (Edinburgh and York, 2009).
• J.J. Smyth, D. Robertson and I. McIntosh, `Neighbourhood Identity: the
Path Dependency of Class and Place', Housing, Theory and Society,
27 (2010), 258-73.
• A. Ross, Kilmun Church and mausoleum, (Stirling, 2010).
• R D Oram, Hermitage Castle: A Report on Its History and
Cultural Heritage Significance (Stirling, 2012)
• A. Ross, Clackmannanshire and the Ochils (Stirling, 2013).
• J.J. Smyth and D. Robertson, `Local Elites and Social Control: building
council houses in Stirling between the wars', Urban History, 40
(2013), 336-54.
Grant awards
• Life and Death in the Coffin Close: anatomy of a slum c.1855-1914,
ESRC, 2001-02, £38,674 [Smyth].
Scottish Burgh Survey, Historic Scotland, 2002-10 £80,500 [Oram].
• Neighbourhood Identity: effects of time, location and social class,
Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2005-09 £43,991 [Smyth, co-Principal
Investigator].
Hospital Records and Patient Narratives, Wellcome Trust, 2008-10
£48,958 [Smyth].
• Ochils Landscape Partnership, £2.26m, largely from Heritage
Lottery Fund and EDF Energy, in conjunction with Stirling/Clackmannan
Councils and 20 community groups, including the University of Stirling
[Ross].
• History Tomorrow: in the REF2014 audit period Ross has tendered
for over 60 commercial research contracts totalling £326,556.02,
winning £214,871.76 in income, a success rate of 66%. These contracts were
secured from clients including County Councils, property developers,
archaeology companies, sustainable energy plcs, museums and heritage
bodies [Historic Scotland, National Trust for Scotland, Forestry
Commission, Scottish Historic Buildings Trust, Scottish Natural Heritage
and the Scottish Wildlife Trust].
Details of the impact
Enhancing community engagement with Scotland's historic environment is
the impact achieved through initiatives pursued by Oram, Ross and Smyth
through History Tomorrow. Community- focussed history and
archaeology projects aimed at awareness-raising and identity-building at
local levels have reunited targeted groups with their cultural heritage
and historic environments. Delivery stemmed from projects which enhanced
inter-generational social cohesion and restored possession of communities'
own heritage to social segments previously excluded or alienated, often
through appropriation of their community past or its dismissal as
irrelevant.
One stimulus for this delivery was Historic Scotland's strategy
of providing local government planners, council archaeologists and local
community groups with evidence necessary for informed decision-making
concerning development policies in Scotland's historic burghs. It
commissioned a team under Oram's direction to produce `Burgh Surveys' of
four historic towns. Three of these reports have been published to date
and they have been further utilised by the respective local communities:
-
Historic Tain (2009), reported by the national news, and since
publication it has been extensively utilised by local communities to
underpin and develop their own research projects.
-
Historic Whithorn (2010). This has been used to inform both
government and the local community to underpin current interpretations
of historic locations within the town in relation to both urban planning
and tourism.
-
Historic Fraserburgh (2010). The publication of this book was
reported in the local press and its contents are now informing the
freely-available RCAHMS site record.
Another example of such processes in action is Prestongrange. Oram was
commissioned to assess the surviving historic records and devise a
programme of projects for community volunteers. His report informed a
successful HLF application made on behalf of the local communities by East
Lothian Council. This stipulated that Stirling University train 25 local
volunteers to enable them to undertake their own research on Prestongrange
and its former industries. Oral History and record-linkage projects
(Smyth) focussed on the coal mine and brick factory (both closed by 1975).
Volunteers were trained to interview surviving ex-employees whose
testimony enriched the local historical record, exposing the former
centrality of those establishments to community life. The volunteers
actively continue to collect oral reminiscences. Training in basic
palaeography (Ross) enabled community-based volunteers to design,
undertake, interpret and write up their own research projects. The
volunteers delivered their findings in a booklet that traced their
training processes and how they utilised their new skills for the benefit
of their community. Digging into the Past: 800 Years at Prestongrange
(2009 - see section 5), was funded by East Lothian Council, Historic
Scotland, and The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and it provides an
invaluable record of what Stirling's support enabled volunteers to
achieve, underscoring the revived sense of community in an area which had
previously experienced three decades of socio-economic decline.
Furthermore, these investigations by Stirling-trained volunteers continue
to shape East Lothian community-based investigations into their own
history and landscapes in a sustainable manner. Much of what has been
discovered and recorded by these volunteers informs current community-led
plans for museum expansion at Prestongrange and their research continues
to be used there to educate visitors and maintain local community pride in
their historic environment.
History Tomorrow's experience at Prestongrange provided a model
for the development of the OLP, a £2.26m HLF collaboration with Stirling
and Clackmannanshire Councils and 20 different community groups to improve
understanding of and access to the environmental and built heritage of the
Ochils. A Research Assistant from the University of Stirling [McAlister]
has been seconded to this project as Research & Interpretation
Officer. Smyth trained 15 volunteers in Oral History techniques. Apart
from helping to develop this project with the two local councils, Ross
trained 20 local volunteers in researching local history and palaeographic
skills, as well researching the pre-1600 history of the OLP area. His
report subsequently inspired local OLP volunteers to search for landscape
and material archaeological remains relating to the (lost) twelfth century
royal forest of Clackmannan. In August 2013 the remains of a structure now
identified as a hunting lodge, together with the turf banks of a former
deer chase, were discovered on the hillside above Castle Campbell and
subsequently excavated by 50 OLP community volunteers under the
supervision of a National Trust for Scotland archaeologist. In addition,
Ross's report on the historic environment of the OLP area has now fed into
an open-access virtual landscape and historical reconstruction of
important cultural sites within the OLP area, including structures now
lost. This project, however, has a much wider remit to engage different
types of local communities, ranging across society from primary and
secondary school pupils (with materials provided for teachers) to the
unemployed, and the OLP has also acted as a vehicle to widen wilderness
access (by constructing new or improving existing walking and cycling
trails in the Hillfoot Glens), raising local awareness about the historic
environment and Nature, and by removing foreign invasive species of
plants. A final impact of this project has been the recording and
conservation of hitherto vandalised grave markers on abandoned church
sites in the OLP area by local volunteers. This has actively restored a
sense of community pride in these sites and encouraged new genealogical
studies. Vandalism of these sites has ceased since the OLP volunteers
began to manage and conserve them.
A final example of our impact upon different communities is our report on
Hermitage Castle in Liddesdale (Oram). Here, initial community-funded
research commissioned by HAG resulted in Hermitage Castle: A Report on
Its History and Cultural Heritage Significance. HAG used web-
dissemination of this document to enhance awareness of the monument's
cultural significance locally, nationally and internationally, which in
turn informed community participation and external intervention in local
planning debates concerning wind farm developments locally; indirectly, it
has actively enabled them to shape future development proposals affecting
their historic environment. Clearly, the publicised successes of such
community-based historic environment projects have established History
Tomorrow and the University of Stirling as a key provider of
publicly-accessible community-oriented research reports and volunteer
training.
Sources to corroborate the impact
-
http://www.heacs.org.uk/documents/2009/applejuice.pdf
— commissioned report identifying good practice and case studies for
engagement of young adults.
-
http://www.socantscot.org/article.asp?aid=428
— Society of Antiquaries of Scotland Newsletter, detailing publication
of the HEACS' `Engaging Young Adults in the Historic Environment'
report.
-
http://hc.english-heritage.org.uk/content/pub/hlf_external_research_review_july09_web.pdf
- report by HLF on Values and Benefits of Heritage, citing HEACS report.
-
http://www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk/news/local-headlines/hermitage-valley-wind-farm-
reprieve-as-firm-delays-application-due-to-eskdalemuir-station-1-2228222
Newspaper report of Hermitage wind farm development and HAG use of Oram
report.
- V. Nix [Conservation Officer, Dumfries & Galloway Council], Whithorn
Conservation Area Appraisal (March 2012) — `The Burgh Survey is an
important and detailed appraisal that should be referred to before any
development proposals are considered', Page 4.
-
http://www.eastlothian.gov.uk/info/844/archaeology/1171/archaeology_publications/3
- Digging into the Past: 800 Years at Prestongrange (2010),
community archaeology project report, from http://www.prestongrange.org/pcap/pages/news.php
— Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project.
- B Simpson, `The Prestongrange Community Archaeology Project Open day',
in History Scotland 8(i), p.10, Jan/Feb 2008; eadem and M
Johnson, `Community archaeology at Prestongrange: Trying to leave an
Imprint', in ibid 9(ii), pp.8-10, March/April 2009 — c.14,000
copies sold.
- J Smyth, D Robertson, I MacIntosh, Neighbourhood Identity: effects
of time, location and social class, Joseph Rowntree foundation,
2008, pp. 134
http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/neighbourhood-identity-effects-time-location-and-social-
class . This report has now been downloaded over 5,000 times; in
2009 it was cited in `Communities in Control: Real People, Real Power',
a Government Command Paper written by the then Secretary of State for
Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears [http://sandbox.opsi.gov.uk/paper/cm/7427];
other bodies which have referred to various aspects of the Report's
findings include The Young Foundation, Play Scotland, Beyond Current
Horizons: technology, children, schools and families, IGNITE — Regional
Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Communities in NE England and FiLo
— The Fieldwork in London Network.
- Newspaper report of Dollar Glen dig:
http://www.alloaadvertiser.com/news/roundup/articles/2013/10/10/474279-dollar-dig-is-a-day-of-discovery/
-
Ochils Landscape Partnership — Heritage Lottery Funded heritage
access and regeneration project with Stirlingshire and Clackmannanshire
Councils and over 20 community groups
(http://ochils.org.uk/).