The Totnes Heritage Trust has teamed up with the Plymouth Business School
in finding ways in which the public can benefit from its acquisition of historic
papers relating to the restoration and reordering of St Mary’s Church in the
Victorian times.
The Trust working in partnership with the Totnes with Bridgetown Parochial
Church Council, is engaged on the St Mary’s Church, Totnes, restoration and
reordering project. The project includes a substantial element of heritage
engagement and audience development.
The Trust was successful in its application to the Plymouth Business School
for the appointment of a intern under the auspices of school’s iMayflower
Virtual Internship Scheme. The opportunity arose out of the need for the
Totnes Heritage Trust to develop a strategy and action plan for the
presentation and public access to the important historic documents in its
possession.
Zoe Shearman, the trustee leading this part of the project, says “The trust
acquired a case of papers relating to the reordering of St Mary's Church by
the famous architect, Mr Gilbert Scott, between 1866 and 1876. It would very
much like to use the documents to not only illustrate aspects of the church’s
history but to draw parallels and comparisons with the current reordering
project. It is also very keen to build learning opportunities into the project and
to reach new partners, such as the Totnes Image Bank, the Totnes Museum
and U3A.”
The Totnes Heritage Trust, working with the appointed intern, Richard, plan to
develop a strategy and action plan for the future delivery of a heritage
engagement project that includes:
- Cataloguing and making accessible the Scott papers
- Engagement with and skills development of young people, initially through
social media online platforms
- Digitisation and development of online archive
- Conservation and presentation of significant items for exhibition
- Touchscreen presence at St Mary’s Church
- Designing outreach activities for community groups
Richard has commenced his work with the Trust and has reviewed and
summarised the Restoration Committee Minutes from 8 May 1866 to 12
September 1875. As this part of the St Mary’s project develops the Trust will
reveal further the nuggets of information it comes across and its plans for
public access
