Totnes Heritage Trust teams up with the Plymouth Business School

The Totnes Heritage Trust has teamed up with the Plymouth Business School

in finding ways in which the public can benefit from its acquisition of historic

papers relating to the restoration and reordering of St Mary’s Church in the

Victorian times.

The Trust working in partnership with the Totnes with Bridgetown Parochial

Church Council, is engaged on the St Mary’s Church, Totnes, restoration and

reordering project. The project includes a substantial element of heritage

engagement and audience development.

The Trust was successful in its application to the Plymouth Business School

for the appointment of a intern under the auspices of school’s iMayflower

Virtual Internship Scheme. The opportunity arose out of the need for the

Totnes Heritage Trust to develop a strategy and action plan for the

presentation and public access to the important historic documents in its

possession.

Zoe Shearman, the trustee leading this part of the project, says “The trust

acquired a case of papers relating to the reordering of St Mary's Church by

the famous architect, Mr Gilbert Scott, between 1866 and 1876. It would very

much like to use the documents to not only illustrate aspects of the church’s

history but to draw parallels and comparisons with the current reordering

project. It is also very keen to build learning opportunities into the project and

to reach new partners, such as the Totnes Image Bank, the Totnes Museum

and U3A.”

The Totnes Heritage Trust, working with the appointed intern, Richard, plan to

develop a strategy and action plan for the future delivery of a heritage

engagement project that includes:

- Cataloguing and making accessible the Scott papers

- Engagement with and skills development of young people, initially through

social media online platforms 

- Digitisation and development of online archive

- Conservation and presentation of significant items for exhibition 

- Touchscreen presence at St Mary’s Church

- Designing outreach activities for community groups

Richard has commenced his work with the Trust and has reviewed and

summarised the Restoration Committee Minutes from 8 May 1866 to 12

September 1875. As this part of the St Mary’s project develops the Trust will

reveal further the nuggets of information it comes across and its plans for

public access