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Photo: Councillor Stephen Castle and Eric Pickles MP with pupils from Hadleigh Junior School

Essex County Council Heritage, Culture and Arts team have been awarded a grant of £48,400 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to deliver Team Hadleigh, an ambitious project which will engage a wide range of communities with their local heritage through several interlinked projects.

In recognition of this, Eric Pickles MP awarded pupils from Hadleigh Juniors with the culture London 2012 Inspire Mark, making it part of the Cultural Olympiad.

Local schools will participate in a series of heritage activities to research and document the history of Hadleigh Country Park and London 2012 Mountain Bike site. This will then inform the work of a group of older residents who will use the schoolchildren’s research as the starting point for the creation of large scale textile heraldic banners telling the history of Hadleigh which will be displayed next year during the London 2012 Mountain Bike competition at Hadleigh Farm.

The research will also be the starting point for the creation of a new guided audio tour of Hadleigh Country Park and will inform the creation of a smart phone App and associated website which will take people around the sites. These will be available to download by July 2012.

County Councillor Jeremy Lucas, Cabinet Member for Environment and Culture said: “This is an exciting project that will showcase the local talent our county has to offer in textiles, research, oral history recording and electronic interpretation. If you would be interested in taking part in this exciting project, I welcome you to get in touch.”

Rebecca Harris, MP for Castle Point, said: “Hadleigh has a long and rich heritage. This project is a fantastic way to celebrate the writing of an exciting new page in the history of the town.”

Robyn Llewellyn, Head of Heritage Lottery Fund East of England, said: “The Olympics will provide a wonderful showcase for the community to share and celebrate Hadleigh’s local heritage treasure, and the country park will provide a stunning backdrop to the Olympic events. This is an exciting opportunity for everyone to get involved and create a lasting legacy that captures the story of Hadleigh and can be enjoyed by many generations to come.”

Team Hadleigh aims to showcase Hadleigh’s heritage to the world and inform and interpret its history for visitors during London 2012 Olympic Games, as well as develop a greater understanding of its history and heritage and promote a sense of place amongst the local community.

The project also aims to develop positive local community engagement and partnership working around this project, with young people and professional and community organisations.

Participants in the textile project will have the opportunity to create site décor (heraldic textile banners) inspired by the history of Hadleigh Country Park for the London 2012 Mountain Bike site, whilst local school children will contribute to the audio guides for visitors to Hadleigh Country Park.

For more information and to join the Wednesday afternoon textile group in Hadleigh (starting on 22nd February), please contact Andrew Ward by emailing andrew.ward@essex.gov.uk  or call 01245 244615.

The Heritage Lottery Fund uses money raised through the National Lottery to fund a wide variety of projects including archives, community history, local culture and traditions, wildlife and green spaces, archaeology and museums. We have awarded more then £300million to the East of England, including more than £50million to Essex.

Heritage Lottery Fund is always looking for new projects to fund, especially from Castle Point; and will be running a session for groups interested in applying at Hadleigh Old Fire Station in late January 2012; if you would like to attend or if you would like more information about grants, please call 01223 224870 and ask to speak to Suzie.

Team Hadleigh is part of the London 2012 Inspire Programme

 Read more about Team Hadleigh>>