Just a very short post: today I received the total numbers for the people who participated in our Mapping Medieval Chester Festival in Chester at the end of August. The grand total is 1172 (very exact!). It’s brilliant news that so many people came along to the day’s events, and I think it really shows the level of local interest in Chester’s medieval heritage. Thanks to everyone for coming!
We’ve just received some more photos of the Mapping Medieval Chester Festival, taken by the professional photographer employed by the Grosvenor Museum. Some of my favourite pictures are those showing families enjoying the events and activities. For privacy / child protection reasons we can’t put those up here, but these new pictures give a glimpse into many different aspects of the day. It’s particularly nice for me to see what was going on at locations I didn’t manage to get to myself – there was just so much happening! Thanks again to the Grosvenor Museum and all those involved.
The project team handle medieval artefacts in the special exhibition at the Grosvenor Museum
It’s now a week since the Mapping Medieval Chester Festival, a week in which I’ve been reflecting on what I learned. It really was a fantastic event and I was very touched by how enthusiastic Cestrians were to hear about some of their forebears. (more…)
The medieval city tour in progress
I’m now back in Swansea after a fantastic weekend in Chester for the Mapping Medieval Chester Festival, organised in partnership with the Grosvenor Museum, Chester. It was a wonderful event, with activities across the city, all inspired by our project research. Our project team enjoyed taking part in various aspects of the day, and meeting local people from Chester and the surrounding area, many of whom had their own particular knowledge of the city and its history to share with us.
Saturday’s Festival included a wide variety of activities and events: displays and special interactive exhibitions at the Grosvenor Museum, Living History at St John’s Church, medieval tours of the cathedral and special access to the medieval Water Tower, a literary tour of the city based on medieval texts, calligraphy workshops for adults and children, a presentation on the project website and opportunities to look at local history resources in the library. We’re hugely grateful to the Grosvenor Museum (and Sue Hughes especially) for organising the whole day, and to St John’s Church, Chester Cathedral, Chester Library and the Chester Archives for hosting and contributing to events. Please read on for a report on the day and some photos…
As well as our academic colloquium on the theme of ‘Mapping the Medieval City’, we’ll also be holding a public event in Chester. The ‘Mapping Medieval Chester Festival’, organised in partnership with the Grosvenor Museum, will be held on Saturday 29 August 2009 (Bank Holiday weekend). The Festival will celebrate the launch of the project website, and will include a wide variety of interesting and fun activities designed to bring the medieval city to life. We’re hoping to involve lots of local people, as well as visitors to the city.
Come and join us and discover more about Chester in the medieval period! You can come along to a calligraphy workshop and learn to write Gothic script, meet medieval pilgrims at St John’s Church, take a medieval-focused tour of the cathedral, explore the medieval Water Tower, join a literary tour of the city with project researchers – and much more! Some activities require booking in advance.
You can find further information about the day here. We hope to see you there!