Heritage Open Days in Pershore  

Launch of unique mobile phone game for families and tourists exploring history and heritage in the ancient Hundred of Pershore.

 The Pershore Big Heritage Quest comes to a remarkable climax on Saturday September 13th with the launch of an interactive mobile app enabling families and tourists to uncover the historic story of Pershore. The launch, which will take place in the St Andrew’s Centre at 10.30am, is part of the Pershore’s Heritage Open Day’s programme.

The app created by Oliver John, a sixth former from Pershore High School, is a heritage game which uses information collected by young heritage detectives from schools in and around Pershore.  It offers an exciting and interactive way to explore Pershore and the villages round about and will result in greater awareness of the history of the market town of Pershore and its formidable medieval story.  A Time Traveller’s Guide to the Pershore area is being developed to accompany the game. It will be published online at  heritagedetectives.org. 

It was back in 2013, in Pershore Abbey, that nearly 200 young heritage detectives, some as young as seven or eight, accepted the challenge to lead the Pershore’s Big Heritage Quest in their schools and communities.  For a whole school year they quested, looking for things a time traveller from the early 13th century might still recognise today. It was no easy task. Busy teachers managed to integrate the detective actives into already full timetables with some remarkable results.  There is to be an exhibition of the children’s contribution to Pershore’s Big Heritage Quest in the St. Andrew’s Centre on September 13th. The exhibition which will chart the development of a project that has been supported by and involved volunteers from many different organisations and walks of life over a three year period has been masterminded by the Sandy Marchant honorary project director of the Go West Heritage Knights. The exhibition will be open from 10am to 5 pm.

Schools taking part in the Pershore Big Heritage Quest:

Pershore High School

St Barnabas First and Middle School Drakes Broughton

Holy Redeemer RC Primary School Pershore

Cherry Orchard First School

Defford First School 

Eckington First School 

Elmley Castle First School

Norton-juxta Kempsey First School

For more information:

Contact Sandy Marchant, Honorary Project Director of the Go West Heritage Knights. 

Tel: 07715 555972 or email sandymarchant@uwclub.net    Visit www.heritageknights.co.uk

First thing in the morning of June 30th 2104 ambassadors from schools across the Pershore area gathered in the Council Chamber of Wychavon District Council for the Schools Symposium.  

For a whole year they had been heritage detectives on a quest, discovering more about the story of their local parish over the centuries, and searching to see if there was anything a time traveller from 1204 might still recognise today.  Now in front of local Councillors, the headmaster of Pershore High School and some of the Heritage Knights the young ambassadors presented their findings.  

As they listened to each other the detectives started to see the bigger picture, the story of the Pershore area over the centuries!   Their information will go into a new online Time Traveller’s Guide to the Pershore Area.  The Guide will be featured on a new website for everyone interested in the story of Worcestershire.

Bang on time they came!

It was 10.30 and there was an air of expectancy inside Pershore Abbey, the arrival of a coach outside at the Octagon was the signal that something was about to begin! 

Complete with their instruments, in came the musicians from St Barnabas School Drakes Broughton.  Moira was ready for them of course and she soon had the children in their allotted places practising their rhythmic drumming routine in anticipation of the arrival of over one hundred and fifty young heritage detectives.  

Almost a year to the day of their commissioning the children, ambassadors from first and middle schools in the Pershore area, were returning to Pershore Abbey to celebrate their part in the Pershore Big Heritage Quest. After such hard work it was only right that there should be celebrations and the drummers were ready and waiting to welcome the heritage detectives into Pershore Abbey for a ceremony that would make their teachers Heritage Knights.

Everyone had assembled, the abbey was full of children, teachers and supporters, there was a general air of expectancy…….and then it happened…… a time traveller, a medieval troubadour, arrived in the abbey in a tardis! (only he called it a blue hut)

The troubadour explained how he had discovered the strange hut standing in a field near Pershore Abbey.  It was in August 1204 when King John was to visit the Abbey that he first saw the strange blue hut.  Curiosity got the better of him he said, he had ventured over, looked inside the hut and fiddled with the knobs and it had started to fly!  

 That troubadour enthralled everyone as he talked about his adventures time travelling over the Pershore area. He spoke about what he had seen; the strange things, the sad things, the scary things and the wonderful things. He asked the children about life today.  He was curious about many things but he particularly wanted to know why we talk with our hands over our months and faces - well why?

Escorted by their pupils the teachers were made Heritage Knights and everyone joined the Fellowship of Arthur's Heritage Knights

Then it was time for our time travelling troubadour to travel back to the 13th century to tell Arthur all he had seen and heard but first he asked for our prayers for his journey.

And then he was off, it was all over - was it all a dream?

THE PERSHORE BIG HERITAGE QUEST  - Local history, does it matter?

Report February 2014 

Over the past few months a small group of people with an interest in discovering more about the story of the villages and hamlets in which they live has been meeting to share their memories.  A topic on everyone’s lips has been just how much change there has been in what seems to be such a very short space of time.  We are all familiar with the school building that is now the village hall, the old post office or shop now a private residence or the forge, once the workplace of the village blacksmith, now skilfully conserved as a private house. The old order has changed and often times there is little but a few house or street names to hint at it.  Soon it will all be as distant a memory as the enclosures that created the field system we still see around us or the vast communal fields that preceded them.  

What was it like around here when the Beauchamps, they rose to become the Earls of Warwick, lived in Elmley Castle and the Bishop or the Abbots of Pershore, Evesham and Westminster were the overlords? What can we see around us today that even hints of their time in the places we know as our home and does it matter?

The Heritage Knights set up the Pershore Big Heritage Quest because they think it does.  They believe that land ownership and patronage have contributed to the distinctiveness of much loved places in and around Pershore.  They hope that their heritage quest will at least introduce a new generation to the story of their place through what they can still see around them.  This is a project that welcomes everyone: the aim is to pull together, join up and record in new ways information that will be of interest to anyone seeking the story of place now and in the future.

 JANUARY 2014

Six months into the Pershore Big Heritage Quest and the end is in sight!  

On June 30th representatives from each of the participating schools in and around Pershore will come together in the Council Chamber of Wychavon District Council to present their finding to the Heritage Knights. In the afternoon, at a special ceremony in Pershore Abbey the children will be knighted and join the Fellowship of Arthur’s Heritage Knights in recognition of all their hard work.

For a whole school year the young heritage detectives will have been exploring their parishes to discover what if anything Arthur, a time traveller from 1204 might recognise if he visited their parish today. They will have made wonder cards and put them on timelines to discover more about the story of their parish over the centuries.  The information they collect will contribute to a Time Traveller’s Guide for Arthur and future time travellers to help them find their way around the Pershore area in the early 21st century.

As the children listen to each other they will become aware of similarities and the differences in their stories. They will discover how historic land ownership and patronage have contributed to the distinctiveness of their villages.  They will consider what will be important to them in the communities they live in in the future. An exhibition of their work will be on public display in Pershore Library during July.  

The Time Traveller’s Guide will be launched online to coincide with Pershore Heritage Open Day on September 13th.  It will be accompanied by a mobile phone app and quest for families and visitors to the Pershore area who, like Arthur want to use their detective skills to discover how it was that two abbots once shared Pershore Marke

January - June 2013 was a time of preparation 

Volunteers were busy with research, creation of materials for the Treasures Box, creation of bunting and other material for the launch of the Big Quest.

On July 3 we launched the The Pershore Big Heritage Quest in Pershore Abbey

Ambassadors from schools around Pershore were made heritage detectives and commissioned to lead the quest for information in their local parishes. 

In August for the Pershore Plum Festival we prepared:

The Quest for the Pershore Plum and put it online.  At the Plum Fayre on August Bank we created the The Pershore PlumLine.

InSeptember for the Heritage Open Days we prepared:

The Quest for the Story of Pershore Abbey 

In October there was some welcome news.

Young heritage detectiveswere starting to quest! 

Older contributors were sharing their stories over “Tea and Cakes with the Heritage Knights” in Stoulton Village Hall.

In November 

We held a Detectives’ Workshop in Defford. Young heritage detectives from Defford First School made a surprise and wonder-full discovery, they found the word‘Westminster’ on a wooden cross and asked why!  The Heritage Knights are now 

in contact with the Keeper of the Muniments at Westminster Abbey.

We were delighted when Kevin Crossley-Holland received an honorary degree from the University of Worcester for his services to literature.  The world of castles and knights; bishops, priests and churches; abbots, monks and monasteries; lords of the manor and their estates are so beautifully brought to life in the ‘Arthur’ trilogy by this distinguished writer and poet we call our friend.

More Tea and Cakes with the Heritage Knights. 

In December.   More great news! 

Elmley Castle sent us a series of photos recording their introduction to the exciting story of Elmley and its Castle.

More Tea and Cakes with the Heritage Knights.

Olly from Pershore High School agrees to make the phone app.

They knew about timelines and wonder cards and 

they had discovered that the picture carried by a group of medieval time travellers was in fact Pershore Abbey before the great fire of 1223. So they were ready to Go Questing in their local parishes.