Know Your Place: West of England

The 1st, 2nd & 3rd editions of all Gloucestershire Ordnance Survey maps have been uploaded. Gloucestershire Archives’ tithe and inclosure maps have also been digitised and will be added soon. Groups can now start adding images and other content to the community layer. http://kypwest.org.uk

The project runs until June 2017 and expands on the very successful Know Your Place Bristol website. The project is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, with generous match funding and support from local authorities and heritage groups in the region.

Help us to run a successful series of events

We are working with a number of museums, archives, and cultural and heritage centres across the region to organise and host a series of community events targeted at local interest groups and the public.

People from all over Gloucestershire taking part in a workshop at Museum in the Park, Stroud.

 

We are recruiting events volunteers to help run and support these events across Gloucestershire, Bristol, Bath, Somerset and Wiltshire. For more information and a detailed description of the role and how to apply, contact: Alice Millard, Assistant Project Officer, kypwestofengland@southglos.gov.uk

Avon Local History and Archaeology

ALHA’s local history day 2017 will be held at UWE Frenchay on Saturday 22 April. The topic will be The Street, broadly interpreted. Streets are so much an everyday feature of ordinary life that we tend to take them for granted. They differ in their origins, in how they have changed over the years, in how we and our predecessors have used them, what part they have played in people’s lives, how they looked (to artists as well as users) and how the look of them has changed. Streets have had their ups and downs, not just physically but also in how people have regarded them socially.

         

 

 Our speakers, from different parts of our area, will look at various aspects of streets at different dates in different places and over different periods of time, and will outline their changes, visually, environmentally and socially. Presenters include -

Pat Hase on Weston-super-Mare High Street;

John Chandler on Chipping Sodbury;

Mike Manson on Old Market, Bristol;

Peter Malpass on Corn Street;

Jenny Gaschke on the Braikenridge street views; and

Steve Poole on policing street disorder.

For further information: www.alha.org.uk; William Evans, Tel, ans and fax 0117 968 4979. wm.evans@btopenworld.com

Aerospace Bristol

Construction of the new Concorde building is well under way with the roof and external cladding fully completed and internal fit-out in progress. Listed building hangar 16S now has a new power-floated floor and near completion of the internal structures for the visitor services and learning spaces. The retail fit-out contractor has been appointed and catering fit-out about to be tendered. The construction and fit-out programme remains on schedule for opening in early summer 2017.

Exhibition design is complete and most packages have been tendered or at Invitations to Tender stage covering fit-out, graphics, mounts, showcases, AV and interactives.

Over 140 active volunteers have now largely completed the conservation and restoration of the large objects going on display. These are now being wrapped and ready to move to the museum in the first 3 months of 2017. Small object conservation is being carried out by two Conservators seconded from Bristol Museums Services The curatorial team are finalising text and image selection from our archives and external sources

Of the £19m budget, there remains a £2m funding gap. The Bristol Aero Collection Trust has launched a public appeal for support.

Linda Coode/Adam Jones

South Gloucestershire Council

South Gloucestershire in the First World War Project: 2014 – 2018

This project commemorates the contribution of the local people during the First World War and the challenges they faced. The project is unique because many of the WW1 projects only ran for the first year of the centenary. This project runs from 2014 – 2018, the full span of the centenary of the Great War. It is funded by the HLF and South Gloucestershire Council.

The elements used by the project are wide-ranging, diverse and innovative, from online learning resources, school visits, and a social media drama on ‘Twitter’ to the use of QR codes. With a local South Gloucestershire focus it encourages a wide range of people to want to find out more about the history of their local area during the First World War.

There are 62 war memorials in South Gloucestershire and an estimated 1500 names of people who were killed. This part of the project enables all the family and military information that can be found of each of those names in one place on the project website.

 A QR (Quick Read) code

www.southglos.gov.uk/ww1 for further information Cherry Hubbard, Project Engagement Officer, cherry.hubbard’southglos.gov.uk

  

A Forgotten Landscape Project

This season’s talks will be at Tockington Methodist Church, Lower Tockington Road, Tockington BS32 4LG.

Talks start at 7:30 and run for about an hour. Talks are free but you MUST book your place at http://www.aforgottenlandscape.org.uk/get-involved/events/

For AFL Project news, events and opportunities, generally, www.aforgottenlandscape.org.uk/get-involved  Or contact Katie Scaife on 01454 863 043 or Katie.scaife@southglos.gov.uk

 

      

 

The Station Road Centenary

Aircraft has clearly played a leading role in the modern industrial history of Gloucestershire and inevitably we focus on Bristol and Gloucester aircraft history. Nevertheless, a lesser known event is also taking place namely the Centenary of the Station Road industrial site in Yate, another key element of the Gloucestershire aircraft story.

In 1917, German POWs based in Yate completed the construction of a vast military industrial unit,  the Western Aircraft Repair Depot, one of a handful of air bases tasked with repairing aircraft, which were enduring staggering losses at this time.

 

With an aircraft and engine repair works and airfield, Yate became a vital cog in the West Country war effort. During the 1920s and 1930s, the western side of the plant continued aircraft production and eventually specialised in aircraft gun turrets. The factory proved a victim of its own success. The German Luftwaffe identified the plant as a key target and struck twice in early 1941, leading to 55 casualties. It was the most traumatic event in the history of Yate. Production continued in several dispersal site around Bristol and Gloucestershire.

 

 

After 1945, the site spawned Parnall (Yate), which manufactured anything from cookers to washing machines to the modern Whirlpool tumble-dryer. Like Parnall Aircraft before 1945, the site has a commuting workforce from Bristol and Gloucestershire and remains a significant manufacturing force in the region.    

The Centenary celebrations will take place in May 2017 at the present Whirlpool factory.

Yate Heritage Centre

 

South Gloucestershire Museums Group

South Gloucestershire Museums Group is an unincorporated association. The aims of the group are to promote inspiration, learning and enjoyment through the exploration of museum collections for the benefit of local communities and the general public.

Membership is open to museums and heritage centres that are open to the public and whose collecting area is wholly or partly within South Gloucestershire.

Meetings take place about five times a year at different museums and are organised by the ex-officio secretary, the South Gloucestershire museums and heritage officer. The meetings include museum development to take the opportunity of providing training and development when representatives of local museums, who may be trustees and/or volunteers or professional staff, come together in one place. Where applicable, downloadable presentations from these sessions are available on this page. 

Group members:

• Acton Court
• Aerospace Bristol (Bristol Aerospace Collection Trust)
• Avon Valley Railway (Avon Valley Railway Trust)
• Dyrham Park (National Trust)
• Frenchay Village Museum (Frenchay Tuckett Society)
• Kingswood Heritage Museum (Kingswood Heritage Museum Trust)
• South Gloucestershire Mines Research Group
• Thornbury and District Museum (Thornbury and District Heritage Trust)
• Rolls Royce Heritage Museum (Rolls Royce Heritage Trust)
• Winterbourne Medieval Barn (Winterbourne Medieval Barn Trust)
• Yate and District Heritage Centre (Yate Town Council)

Touring exhibition promotes heritage

We are launching a pop-up travelling exhibition to promote local heritage.

The museums group, has created an exhibition of nine exhibition banners/stands to promote and raise the profile of heritage generally. It is hoped that this will also attract more enquiries of and visitors to each museum and heritage site

As well as an introduction panel, there is a banner for Avon Valley Railway, Frenchay Village Museum, Kingswood Heritage Museum, Thornbury and District Museum, Yate and District Heritage Centre, Acton Court, Winterbourne Medieval Barn, and Aerospace Bristol.

For more information please visit the S.Glos museum development page at South Gloucestershire Council

 

 

Great War Drama Project

The new Great War Drama Project is to create a heritage learning resource as a new play for South Gloucestershire schools about the First World War and how members of this community were affected at home and on the battlefield of the Somme. The Brass Works Theatre will work in partnership with South Gloucestershire Council (including their 4 local heritage centres), several South Gloucestershire schools and UWE to complete this project.

This project will explore the real lives of people from South Gloucestershire in 1916 in order to create characters for the piece from real history. This will build on the foundations of the Twitter project, which was run by South Gloucestershire Council as part of their FWW project. It created an innovative window on the heritage of people in South Gloucestershire during the Battle of the Somme. It enabled the public to view snippets of the lives of 10 characters, both at home and in France, through the medium of Twitter. Followers were able to get a flavour of these stories through tweets.

         

 

To read more about the characters visit   South Glos About The Somme

So far Adrian Harris from Brass Works Theatre, with assistance from Cherry Hubbard, Engagement Officer, WW1 Engagement with Gloucestershire, has been into Bradley Stoke School, Mangotsfield School and Kings Oak and Sir Bernard Lovell with 6 workshops. This means the Great War Drama Project will have engaged with 150 year 9 school children.

Contact: Adrian Harris: adrian.papercut@googlemail.com