It has been an exciting week here at the Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire! We have heard that the Winterton All Saints Educational Resources – which we designed – have won the Flora Murray award. The Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology presented the award at their AGM. The Society promotes interest in all aspects of Lincolnshire’s Heritage. Their awards scheme recognises the endeavours and achievements of local groups, societies and individuals. The Society presented the runner up Excellence award to the Middlefield Dig, a project that our colleagues at Archaeological Project Services collaborated on.
Winterton All Saints Church
In 2008, Winterton All Saint’s Church was in desperate need of restoration work to stabalise and repair the building, and also to ensure the church remained a useable space by the local. The church is a 13th century Grade I listed building, and as such is a building of exceptional interest. It has also been on the Heritage at Risk register. As Winterton has grown over the years, the church has also grown to accommodate more people. This latest modification is the continuation of the church adapting to the needs of the village.
A key way of helping the community engage with the church was to encourage children to see it as a fun, safe space through education. Educational resources would help children get used to the space, and the historic theme of the resources would help them associate the history and legacy of Winterton with the church.
Education
The award was for the educational work which Winterton PCC arranged as part of the wider Heritage Lottery Fund project. Some of the project’s activity plan funding was used to commission Heritage Lincolnshire to work with all three Winterton Schools to prepare lesson materials for pupils to use in the church for a variety of subjects. The award picked out work planned for Key Stage 3 at Winterton Academy, which was just one of three separate phases of project.
The first set of resources covered subjects such as maths, science and RE for primary school pupils. For example, the maths lesson transformed the nave of the church into a giant 2D grid to help pupils learn about co-ordinates.
The second stage of work provided activities specifically for secondary school ages pupils, with resources provided for RE in Years 7, 8 & 9. One example was the creation of ‘A Church in Time’ booklet, to guide students around the development of the church as a result of changes to both the community and religious practices over 700 years.
The final stage was provided in 2018 by Community Archaeologist, Lydia Hendry. She helped year 4 students to explore the Romans in Winterton through a five week course. In this time they explored all different aspects of the Romans in Winterton: from invaders, to town planners and farmers, to being residents of Winterton. They finished by exploring the more light hearted side, exploring Roman feasts and enjoying one of their own!
“A great practical experience for the children. They were allowed to actively participate in the daily lives of Romans which was a fantastic treat for them. The activities linked with clear learning objectives for each session. Experimental learning at its best.”
Future
We are looking forwards to seeing how Winterton All Saint’s church continues to engage with the local community, now that the works are coming to an end. But for now we want to say thank you to Winterton All Saint’s Church, for inviting us to contribute, and thank you to the schools of Winterton, for getting involved so enthusiastically in the project.
Middlefield Dig
The Excellence Award went to the Middlefield Dig. This was part of a wider project called ‘Middlefield’s Utopia’ which is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project has been exploring the history of the estate in Gainsborough. This estate is important as the architects designed it on the ‘Radburn planning’ ideals. Radburn was a revolutionary town planner, who tried to create a Utopia through his designs. The estate design featured open spaces and separated driving and pedestrian areas in order to encourage socialisation between neighbours. APS supported the project by supervising the digging of test pits within the local school. Volunteers also dug additional test pits across the Middlefield estate. APS then took the finds and carried on with the research and post-excavation processing. Read more about it.
