If the walls of your church could speak what stories would they tell?
Church buildings are often among the oldest buildings in a community. They are a repository for community history as well as the place where people have worshipped for centuries. They have many stories to tell.
GoWest was set up to harness the history and the heritage of church buildings in the Worcestershire countryside and use it in ways that benefit the local community. As you explore this web site and our sister site heritage detectives.org you will see examples of the way GoWest volunteers have deepened their own understanding of the part churches have played in the history of their community and set about sharing their discoveries with others. They are developing aTime Traveller Guide for visitors to use when they visit Worcestershire and the borderlands of England and Wales.
We do this through the use of story. Story offers us:
Churches that get involved with GoWest are asked to:
There are many reasons why people of all ages like to visit church buildings and we hope that the information in our Time Traveller Guide will offer information that will help tourists and visitors to make discoveries that will be significant to them, whatever their interest.
If you would like your church included please contact us and we will send you the necessary paperwork.
In 2005 GoWest was awarded £50K from the National Heritage Lottery Fund to run a 'Stories from the Stones' pilot. A major outcome of this pilot was the installation of blue Listening Posts in six churches up the valley of the River Teme between Worcester and Tenbury Wells. Cotheridge church was one of the six churches engaged in the project. Each local community was tasked to uncover and outline its story. The HLF money paid for a professional script writer and voice overs so that visitors could be introduced to the story of the church and its community in sound.
Local churches are welcome to engage with GoWest activities.
Young heritage detectives with their teacher's families and friends visit parish churches as part of their heritage quests, they may visit your church. We hope that you will welcome them and help them as they look around your church for evidence that Arthur might recognise in your church building. Arthur is a 13th century time travelling knight looking for things he might still recognise.
The detectives will be looking at walls, windows, fonts, memorials, effigies and gravestones as well as searching for signs and symbols. When they find something that interests them they will call it a wonder point and start to ask questions about it. Their simplest question will be how old is this? Will you be ready to answer?
When they have the answers they will use the information to make a wonder card ready to attach to their Parish Timeline. All the information they discover will be collected and put into a new digital Parish Chest for use by the parish and their school in the future.
Do you have a time line for your church?
Coming shortly on this web site,
The Heritage Knights will take you step by step through the process of creating a church timeline. The material you discover will be of special interest to anyone who visits a church building as part of the Heritage Open Days which takes place each year in September.