Example of a local graveyard brochure
Introduction
We are working on a new grassroots historic graveyard trail project and are seeking volunteers to get involved. If you have previously participated in Historic Graves survey training and would like to develop a local trail in your home parish please contact us at the next link (Google Form). Deadline for submissions is 18 April 2025 and applicants must have at least one graveyard in the Historic Graves dataset.
>>https://forms.gle/u6NLsYgAEdxZic698<<
A slide show about the potential role of the project in heritage tourism can be viewed here. A short overview of our project is given in this video.
The New Trails
There are two main elements to each local trail, the first is based in one historic graveyard providing information on eight points of interest. The second element then is a trail within your local town, village or parish, also limited to eight points of interest, one of which is the local historic graveyard.
So a total of 16 points of interest will be researched, written and published to handy digital brochures.
The idea behind the trail is to provide concise and interesting stories of our local heritage while also building links with the visitors to our historic sites. To connect these local trails to form a larger network of heritage tourism sites.
An example of the trails can be viewed here. This consists of an overarching destinations page on the Historic Graves webpage, a brochure for the trail in the village of Ardmore (link), and a corresponding brochure for the graveyard trail (link).
You will see from the examples that we limit the story text to no more than 100 words so some skill and practice is required. We are aiming for good quality, interesting stories which will be easier to achieve for groups who already have a lot of research completed.
So discuss this with your neighbours and friends who participated in the surveys with you and if interested let us know in the next two weeks. We aim to start publishing and testing the trail brochures from mid May onwards.
A training guide will be provided to all participants and a small number of online training sessions will be held from early May onwards.
Background
This project is part of an EU Horizon funded www.secretourproject.eu aiming to develop new ways of supporting grassroots heritage groups. We encourage participation as we feel the trails will put our local historic graveyard surveys and stories on the map to the benefit of local communities. We will be testing various approaches to building links with visitors, gathering tourism intelligence and hopefully working out new ways to support local heritage.
Please note - this is a research project. We are not building a national trail but researching how it might be done and scaled up from our test cases. We will follow good practice and, as with all our surveys, consult widely with partners in the local and statutory authorities.
Summary
