Our Historic England Covid-19 Emergency Response has ensured that the unique heritage of St Anns Allotments continues to be shared during lockdown and long into the future.
Using funds from Historic England the team at STAA engaged with members of the community, other gardeners at St Anns Allotments, local history experts, Schools, Teachers, and volunteers along with Graphic Designers and Virtual Reality specialists to create a range of digital assets that helped us maintain contact with our users as well as expand our reach as a community based organisation. Importantly the project also allowed us to consolidate our repository of important historic documents and digital artefacts and make this available to anyone interested in the rich and vibrant history of St Anns Allotments.
Outcomes from the project include:
- Digitising and cataloguing the STAA Heritage Archive, a comprehensive catalogue of important historic documents.
- A comprehensive update of the STAA website.
- Creation of virtual tours for our Heritage garden and The St Anns Community Orchard, providing wider access to the historic gardens during lockdown and well into the future.
- A 300% increase in visitors to the STAA website.
- Developing our capacity and capability to deliver a range of heritage talks including new face to face and online.
- Recruited new volunteers to our heritage team.
- Attracted a younger audience.
- Creation of a STAA YouTube Channel
- 300 plays of our heritage audio recordings on Soundcloud
(Figures correct at March 2021)