Legacy venues

Team Hadleigh Heritage Project

The Team Hadleigh project will engage a wide range of communities with their local heritage through several interlinked projects.

Schools Programme

Children and young people from local schools will participate in a series of heritage activities to research and document the history of the Hadleigh Country Park and Hadleigh Castle. This research phase of the project, undertaken by school children with the support of the Hadleigh Community Archive Project and other partners will inform further strands of work. The schoolchildren will explore the Castle and Country Park and Mountain Biking sites, take part in intergenerational sharing events and access original documents at the Essex Record Office.

A New Textile Group

Older residents will then use this research as the starting point for the creation of large scale textile heraldic banners/pennons. Facilitated by a lead artist, the group will meet weekly at the Hadleigh Old Fire Station to create textile heraldic banners/pennons based on Hadleigh’s rich heritage. These works will be displayed in a public site during both the Olympic Torch Relay and the 2012 Mountain bike event, as well as at other local events.

Guided Audio Tour

The research will also be the starting point for a new guided audio tour of Hadleigh Country Park. Capturing the voices of local school children and members of the Community Archive Project via downloadable podcasts, they will be asked to tell their story of their area and heritage. The participating school children will take part in oral history training before interviewing community members and specialists about the area. The tour will guide visitors around the country park as well as the Castle and 2012 site.

To ensure the audio tour is as accessible as possible it will be available in several formats both as a downloadable MP3 and via audio wands which will be available to hire from Hadleigh Library (for a 6-month period).

Team Hadleigh App and website

An app and accompanying Team Hadleigh website will also be created which will feature not only the audio trail but will also have mapping, video and photo capabilities. The app will aim to tell the story of the town, Castle, Country Park and history of mountain biking and BMX sports and serve as a valuable tool for visitors to the mountain bike event in 2012, taking them around the Country Park and highlighting key heritage and cultural sites nearby as well as places of interest including transport links and local amenities.

By creating an app for the project, it is hoped that both the local community and visitors to the Country Park will be engaged with the heritage of Hadleigh in an exciting and innovative way. The creation of the app and accompanying website will also ensure a lasting legacy for the project, capturing how the area embraced the 2012 games and will be able to be enjoyed well beyond the 2012 mountain bike event.

Video Postcards

Finally, working in partnership with Video Booth Systems, we will invite 2012 ticket holders to capture their experiences of the 2-day Mountain biking event by recording their memories in the video booth for future generations to see. Using this Video Booth, ticket holders will be able to use the interactive touch screen to send their own ‘Video Postcard’ to family and friends as well as contributing to the recently formed Hadleigh Community Archive Project. All sound and video work produced as part of this project will be archived at the Sound and Video archive based at the Essex Record Archive.