Community and Landscape: Transforming Access to the Heritage of the Poltimore Estate

Poltimore House is one of Devon's most recognisable historic buildings, gaining popular celebrity from its appearance on BBC2's series 'Restoration'. Following 30 years of neglect, this Grade II* listed country house of Tudor origins became a dilapidated shell, although it is now the focus of major restoration efforts under the direction of the Poltimore House Trust (PHT), with funding from English Heritage.

The building's iconic local status and the PHT's ongoing restoration and research efforts, combined with the PI and CI's expertise, offer a unique opportunity widen access to archaeological and historical understandings of Poltimore House as the centrepiece of a 'polite landscape', a grand residence set in parkland and gardens, that in the 20th century was re-used as a school and then a hospital. The commencement of Poltimore House's restoration in 2009 presents an ideal moment for the project to capitalise on the building's high public profile and add value to the on-going building conservation programme. The project will illuminate the rich history of Poltimore's once closed and 'elite' landscape and open it up as a community heritage resource. The principal focus of interest will be the Poltimore landscape between the 16th and 20th centuries, although the estate shows evidence of human activity ranging from prehistoric settlements to a Cold War Headquarters of the Royal Observer Corps. Through an interactive web-site allowing users to engage with the research processes involved in understanding this landscape, allied to outreach events and innovative ways of presenting the house and its grounds, the project will promote public engagement with this resource and lay the foundations for its future educational use.

A crucial aspect of the project is that the processes of garden and landscape research (rather than purely its results) will be opened up to wider audiences. Through the website and outreach programme, members of the public and schoolchildren will be able to explore 'above-ground' archaeology such as earthworks and hedgerows, and interact with historical research processes including using maps and estate records. While the Trust is only currently able to open the house for occasional open days, the project will make the experience of exploring and understanding the site's grounds freely available through a virtual environment, including, for instance, images and panoramic video footage of the house and its grounds, input from schoolchildren and visitors on their experiences of the site, and expert commentary on the estate. Crucially, this will transform the PHT's capacity to present and utilise the Poltimore estate as a cultural and historical resource.

Academic researchers within universities have too often worked in isolation from heritage organisations and charitable trusts; this project will enhance working relationships between the two sectors through knowledge exchange. It is led by a partnership between a non-academic body (PHT), an organisation responsible for the management of the house and fully committed to community and educational outreach, and an interdisciplinary team of University researchers led by an archaeologist (Dr Oliver Creighton, specialist in medieval and Tudor elite landscapes) and an historian (Dr Henry French, whose expertise is in early modern rural society). The project has potential to make a significant difference outside academia by making widely available knowledge of the research processes involved in interpreting local historic landscapes; by promoting community pride in the landscape; and by providing an historic landscape case study of wider generic public interest. In economic and cultural terms, the project will also add new value to the Poltimore House Trust's re-launch of the house as a key regional focus for creativity and the arts, creating new opportunities for promoting the groundsand gardens as sustainable educational assets.

The project's outcomes are designed to transform the experiences and attitudes of groups within the community as well as across the heritage and local government sectors. The beneficiaries of the project fall into five main categories (in addition to the academic beneficiaries detailed in the preceding section).

1. Members of the community, living in the immediate locality of Poltimore, the city of Exeter and the surrounding region, will benefit from increased accessibility to knowledge about the site and heightened awareness of its importance as an historical asset. This will foster engagement with the PHT's ongoing educational and charitable objectives.

2. Schoolchildren will benefit from increased access to the educational resource of an historic landscape on their doorstep. Through the project's strong links to local schools (including Broadclyst Community Primary School and Uffculme Secondary School), schoolchildren will be able to engage with the histories of the Poltimore estate, for instance through on-site workshops and school visits, as part of the National Curriculum. These activities will feed into advanced projects at A-Level and ICT History activities linked to the heritage of Poltimore.

3. Further beneficiaries would be members of the local societies and volunteer groups with which the project will liaise (including Devon Archaeological Society, the Exeter and Devon Institution and Friends of Poltimore House). Open days and outreach/training activities will disseminate research and professional skills (including giving guided tours and teaching skills of interpretation in the field) that will develop the capacity of these groups to study and engage with other historic landscapes in the region.

4. More generally, this research will provide a resource and case-study to the wider constituency of members of the general public within the UK who are passionately interested in the historic landscape. The freely available nature of the research outputs and the highly interactive nature of the website ensures that the project can inspire similar community-led research elsewhere through a local (but universally applicable) case study.

5. The project will have direct relevance to policy makers, planners and decision-makers, particularly in the local government sector (Exeter City Council and East Devon District Council). For instance, increased knowledge of the archaeological character of Poltimore's surroundings and heightened awareness of the historic landscape's importance will be relevant to decisions made in the planning process, and the project will inform PHT's future management and development of the landscape around the house.

The project's evaluation mechanisms will ensure delivery of these benefits to the stakeholders while the publicity generated by the project will ensure maximum impact for the PHT's longer-term development objectives (coinciding with PHT's 10th anniversary, and the commencement of the house's restoration). The project's outcomes will have immediate short-term benefits over the two-year lifetime of the Fellowship, but it will also lay the foundations for a sustainable future for the Poltimore estate as a community heritage resource. The project will provide vital resources and expertise, transforming the PHT's ability to run Poltimore House's grounds and estate as an educational facility, through greatly increased expertise in educational outreach.

The project's management structure is designed to ensure that these groups and stakeholders benefit from, and can shape, the outcomes, and representatives from the key local government and educational sectors are accordingly represented on it. In addition, the project is embedded within the University of Exeter's School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HUSS), which has extensive experience of KT partnerships.