WHAT HERITAGE?

WHAT GO WEST MEAN BY 'HERITAGE'

We live in a world of ‘things’, things left behind by people who have gone before us.  Even if it was only yesterday, an hour or a minute ago ‘a thing’, whatever it is, will change, it has its own unique history. 

In Go West we are interested in the history of 'places'.  Many 'things' make up the story of a 'place'; the Go West Heritage Knights believe that there are stories in the very stones of a 'place.' By discovering the stories in the things we see in a place it becomes possible to start to build the story of that place over time.

Of course its not as simple as that, places are complex and most have developed over many centuries in highly complex ways. Unravelling their stories? Well, that is the work of the heritage detective! 

HERITAGE DETECTIVES

Go West heritage detectives, like all detectives, develop special skills.  They use them to solve mysteries. Whether the mystery is a crime or a conundrum true detectives will carry out an investigation into the mystery. 

▪ They will thoroughly examine the evidence, the scene of the crime.

▪ They will talk to local people, send off for reports on things they do not fully understand.

▪ They will analyse all the information and evaluate their findings. 

▪ When they think they have the answers they will come to a conclusion.

▪ But does their evidence stack up?  Will it hold up under the scrutiny of others?

DETECTIVE"S QUESTS

Quests provide heritage detectives with opportunities to investigate stories and solve mysteries and conundrums, often in places that are special to them.

PLACES AND QUESTS FPR HERITAGE DETECTIVES

The Go West Heritage Knights create heritage quests for parishes. Parishes have clear boundaries.  Inside a parish boundary there may be towns, villages, hamlets industrial land, farmland, woodland, wetland, rivers and streams.  They offer many stories and over the centuries the stones have seen many things!  Heritage Quests provide heritage detectives with opportunities to investigate these stories. Find out about the different sorts of Heritage Quest.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT PARISHES

The division of land into easily managed units called parishes dates from Saxon times - the system was completed by the Normans.  Each parish focussed on a church - the parish church.  From 597 to the 1534 all the churches in the land held allegiance to the Church of Rome, everyone in England was a baptised Christian and everyone had to belong to a parish. After the Reformation Queen Elizabeth 1 built on the parish system and increased its powers.  As the population grew and society became for complex so did the role of the parish vestry but increasingly not everyone was a baptised member of the Church of England and to participate in local and national government this was a necessary qualification.  By Victorian times toleration was growing and by 1883 there was universal male suffrage; a new type of local government was needed. New Civil Parishes were established by the Local Government Act of 1894.  ‘Ecclesiastical’ parishes have not gone away so beware the boundaries are not always the same!

TOOLS FOR HERITAGE DETECTIVES

The Go West Heritage Knights have developed some detectives tools to help new heritage detectives in their investigative work.