Whitchurch Silk Mill wins another award

Congratulations to Whitchurch Silk Mill for winning the 2019 SPACES Award for Heritage Conservation.

The SPACES announcement states that "Design interventions were judged relative to the sensitivity of each element. As a result of the project there is now a secure future for Whitchurch Silk Mill, not only as a visitor attraction, but also a source of employment for the local community,"

See further details here:

https://thespaces.org.uk/spaces-awards-2019-heritage-conservation/

Whitchurch Silk Mill wins RIBA Award

We are delighted to learn that Whitchurch Silk Mill has won the RIBA South Award 2019. The citation makes mention of the interactive learning environment and sensitive detailing which Creative Good helped to design and deliver on this conservation-led project.

More details can be found on the RIBA website here.

Preserving the Fabric at Whitchurch Silk Mill

  

Whitchurch Silk Mill is a Grade II* listed textile watermill built in 1813-1815 on the River Test in the small Hampshire town of Whitchurch. Operating as a working museum, it is the oldest working silk mill in the UK still in its original building. The Preserving the Fabric project has regenerated the site, ensuring that traditional silk weaving continues and that heritage skills are passed on, whilst responding sensitively to the conservation requirements of its industrial and natural heritage.

Creative Good has been providing design and interpretation consultancy services to the project since early 2016, helping to secure an HLF Second Round pass and to deliver the project thereafter. Following a year of closure to enable extensive conservation, extension and refurbishment works, the Mill reopened last month. Follow the links below to find out more.

whitchurchsilkmill.org.uk

bbc.co.uk

basingstokegazette.co.uk

Revisiting Brideshead

In March and April 2017, Creative Good created a new exhibition for Castle Howard exploring the 1981 television production of Brideshead Revisited. Working closely with the Castle Howard Estate, we created sensitive new displays, introducing audio-visual media into a historic context and making all exhibition content more accessible and engaging for visitors.

Sir David Attenborough formally opens Bradgate Park Visitor Centre

We were delighted to attend yesterday's formal opening of Bradgate Park Visitor Centre. Creative Good have been involved with the project for over 4 years, providing interpretation, design and project management services to Bradgate Park Trust, so it was very rewarding to hear Sir David speak about the Park and how much it means to him personally.

The opening event was reported in the Loughborough Echo.

Bradgate Park Visitor Centre re-opens

First enclosed around 800 years ago as a medieval deer park, today Bradgate Park covers some 830 acres and welcomes 500,000 visitors a year. The Park is home to some of the oldest fossils in the world and contains the ruins of Bradgate House, birthplace and childhood home of Lady Jane Grey - the "nine-day Queen" of England. The Park's redeveloped and extended visitor centre opens to the public on 1st July 2016.

Creative Good has been involved in the project to redevelop the visitor centre since 2012, contributing to master planning, fund-raising efforts and publicity events, and providing full interpretive planning, design and management services throughout.

The new facility is double the size of the old visitor centre and new displays will tell the multi-faceted 600 million year story of the Park, covering themes as diverse as geology, ancient history, natural history and modern park management. The pictures here were taken as exhibition fit-out neared completion.

http://www.bradgatepark.org/

New galleries opened for the Museum of the Mercian Regiment

Creative Good has provided design and build services to the Museum of the Mercian Regiment for their new galleries at Nottingham Castle. The Museum covers over 250 years of regimental history, from the founding of the 45th Regiment of Foot in 1741 to the present day 2 MERCIAN. In addition to designing and artworking all of the graphics, including conservation-grade in-case graphics, we produced simple physical interactives and a touchscreen unit for the relocated galleries.

Made possible by the award of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant,  the Museum of the Mercian Regiment (WFR Collection), formerly known as the Sherwood Foresters Gallery, will be officially reopened on 2nd July 2016 to coincide with the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.

 

New visitor centre opens at Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings

Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings is a unique and internationally important site, containing seven listed buildings including the first cast-iron framed building in the world. Historic England and its partners developed a project to conserve and bring back into use two historic buildings and create public realm space so a broad range of people can explore, learn, participate and enjoy the site’s unique and varied heritage.

Creative Good provided interpretation and design consultancy services for the scheme, which includes site welcome, orientation and wayfinding signage, indoor interpretation and exterior interpretation onto the site. The new visitor centre and selected outdoor areas of the site were opened to the public yesterday.

The BBC reported on the opening event here.

Historic England's Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings web page

Friends of the Flaxmill Maltings website

Temporary exhibition opens at Bradgate Park

Bradgate Park covers 830 acres of publicly accessible countryside a few miles outside Leicester. First enclosed as a deer park about 800 years ago, the Park has a wild and rugged aspect with dramatic rocky outcrops and gnarled old oak trees. Within the Park are the ruins of Bradgate House – one of the earliest brick-built country houses in England and the birthplace and childhood home of Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England for Nine Days in 1553.

Creative Good was commissioned by Bradgate Park Trust to develop a temporary exhibition within the Chapel - the only portion of house still largely intact. The Chapel interior was undergoing extensive renovation and the Park wished to introduce modest interpretation into the rejuvenated space, to tell the story of the Chapel and the Grey family who built and used it. Modern interventions needed to be capable of withstanding the fluctuations in temperature and humidity of the unheated environment, and fixings into the historic fabric were to be avoided.

We developed a suite of interpretive graphics, comprising free-standing cassette stands and suspended banners, all constructed from exterior grade materials. The Chapel re-opened to the public at the end of June 2015.

Services provided by Creative Good include research, interpretive planning, copy text writing, surveying and structural engineering (to prove the viability of suspending banners from existing tie bars).

The Wing wins LABC award

The team behind The Wing, the new visitor and education centre built to honour the heroes of the Battle of Britain, has picked up a major award for its unique design. Creative Good worked alongside the building design team to develop the initial concept for The Wing.

The Spitfire-wing shaped building at the Capel-le-Ferne home of the Battle of Britain Memorial Trust was named ‘Best Small Commercial Building’ at the Local Authority Building Control (LABC) Building Excellence Awards for the Southern Region.

Further details can be found here.