English Heritaqe is working to give everyone the chance to enjoy, understand and feel a part of England’s heritage (Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage, October 2003).

People care passionately about their own heritage and their neighbourhood landmarks, streets, parks and houses. English Heritage values and protects all the different strands of the heritage that make up this country’s historic environment and promotes our shared heritage to the widest possible audience.

The historic environment is a resource from which everyone can benefit and is a fundamental tool for regeneration, sustaining community pride, supporting small businesses, creating a sense of belonging and educating the next generation.

It is English Heritage Policy to:

• Provide and encourage opportunities for all to access, understand and enjoy the historic environment 
• Value and share an inclusive interpretation of England’s heritage. 
• Use the historic environment to contribute to positive change in the lives of individuals and communities. 
• Adopt good practice in providing access to the historic environment and actively engage with partners to encourage others to do likewise. 
• Ensure all our activities as an organisation take into account the widest possible range of needs.  

English Heritage in action - some examples:

English Heritage seeks to understand the diversity of this country's heritage and promote a more inclusive past.

English Heritage values the heritage of the different cultures that have been woven into our shared history over hundreds of years. The contribution these stories have made to England’s heritage are celebrated by exploring personal experience and community identity and sharing that with the nation.

1. My Heritage invites you to contact us and tell us which places, buildings, local sites or landmarks mean the most to you in terms of your cultural heritage and why. These need not be well-known, just important to you. A sample of your responses will be shared on the English Heritage web site. Please email us at myheritage@english-heritage.org.uk.
2. English Heritage has pledged £135,000 and worked with the Maharajah Duleep Singh Centenary Trust to develop a national Anglo-Sikh Heritage Trail. The project highlights 150 years of Anglo-Sikh history at key sites around the UK. From Spring 2004 it will bring that heritage to a wider audience and new generations through its website.
3. Memory Block was a community art project looking at what history means to people in Liverpool. 100 people in 10 community groups, including the Yemeni-Arabic Club, the Chinese Elderly Luncheon Club, Somali Women’s Group and the Marybone Youth Centre, explored ideas about memory, place and identity in series of art workshops. Each filled a clear perspex box with photographs, objects, sound or sculpture to represent their memories. This artwork formed two major city-centre exhibitions in Liverpool. The boxes have now been returned to the groups, who were assisted in putting on exhibitions in their own community centres.
4. The Blue Plaques Scheme aims to commemorate the link between exceptional people from all walks of life and the buildings they inhabited. The expansion of the scheme is engaging new audiences with their heritage. Plaques currently exist in London, Liverpool & Merseyside and Birmingham but funding for the scheme has increased, allowing for greater expansion across the country from 2004. Recent plaques include Charles Coward, rescuer of prisoners from Auschwitz, Ted Kid Lewis, boxer, Paul Robeson, singer and actor, and Ruth First and Joe Slovo, South African freedom fighters. 

The historic environment strengthens communities

England’s heritage is a vital resource that can be used to regenerate areas in ways that sustain communities. Many of our areas grant schemes, focus on areas in economic decline and use the repair of that area’s unique historic environment to revive businesses and homes and improve quality of life for the local population. We believe that regeneration is about more than straightforward economic success. We celebrate and respect the existing cultural identity of an area and give schemes long-term commitment.

Since 1995 English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund have given more than £1 million to a conservation scheme in Brick Lane, London, the centre of Europe’s biggest Bengali community. With partnership funding, the money has aided major structural repairs to roofs, masonry, windows and shop fronts, making the buildings sound and weather-tight as well as assisting the prosperity of local businesses, creating accommodation for families and improving the entire streetscape.

Since regeneration began in the area, Brick Lane has become a focus for festivals and cultural events in London’s Bengali community. This year’s Bengali New Year attracted more than 50,000 people from across the country.

Over the 10 years since we first started targeting our grant schemes in historic areas in need of regeneration, we have offered £69m to 545 projects in communities across the country.

English Heritage wants excellent access solutions, not just acceptable access solutions.

English Heritage is the lead advisory body on providing access to historic buildings. We believe access should be celebrated with modern, high quality design which is also sensitive to the special interest of important historic buildings.

English Heritage aims to understand and provide for the varied needs of visitors to our properties and to set good practice for intellectual and physical access. We are exploring new ways of providing suitable access for the wide range of property types and locations under our management.

• The English Heritage guide Easy Access to Historic Properties is intended to help owners find solutions to the access problems of their historic buildings. First published in 1995, the guide has been revised to reflect evolving good practice, and to provide guidance on the implementation in 2004 of new duties under the Disability Discrimination Act. Copies of the revised guide will be available from Spring 2004.
• English Heritage was delighted to win the Civic Trust Access Award in 2002 for our new contemporary visitor centre at Whitby Abbey in North Yorkshire. The world class centre managed to demonstrate how good modern architecture could enhance the ruins of the medieval abbey and provide access for all. Innovative displays and the use of a variety of media enables visitors to explore the abbey and its history, while new routes and landscaping have provided access to the whole site.

For full information on English Heritage sites which have particular facilities for visitors with disabilities call English Heritage Customer Services on 0870 333 1181 for our free Access Guide. Also available in Braille, large print, on tape, disc or via the web on www.english-heritage.org.uk

The historic environment is a resource for education:

English Heritage aims to reach out to new audiences and help everyone enjoy and participate in their historic environment through education, events and outreach programmes.

• Twelve students with learning and behavioural difficulties from a Portchester secondary school followed a module for an ADSAN award, (Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network), at Portchester Castle. The students focused on presenting a study of a historical building or archaeological site and took part in a practical workshop on traditional repair techniques.
• English Heritage worked with parents at Carisbrooke Castle on a family learning programme, looking at ways to enhance a child’s visit and build their interest in the local historic environment. There are currently projects running at Osborne House and in Ryde.

EH runs 30-40 similar schemes each year and provided 479,000 free educational visits for schoolchildren in 2002/03. A new Education and Outreach Department will take forward these and other initiatives aimed at engaging young people with the historic environment.

English Heritage encourages access for all to the historic environment.

In 2003, English Heritage appointed a new Outreach Team as part of the Education and Outreach Department, with the aim of actively engaging new audiences by overcoming the barriers which have traditionally prevented some people from learning from, enjoying and valuing the historic environment. A series of outreach projects across the country will target excluded groups by working with communities to share their sense of place, their perceptions of their environment and their aspirations for its future. It is hoped that the projects will produce examples of good practice that can be followed elsewhere.

Thousands of usually hidden attractions open their doors for four days of free access every year in September, as part of Heritage Open Days, England’s biggest and most popular voluntary cultural event. The event is funded by English Heritage and co-ordinated by the Civic Trust. In 2003 it attracted over 800,000 people to more than 2,500 properties and events across England, including factories, castles, windmills and tunnels. The Outreach Team will be working with communities to attract new organisers and participants from wider ethnic, social and cultural backgrounds.

English Heritage secures public access wherever possible for buildings that receive our grant aid. The level of access depends on the size of the grant or the circumstances of the case and varies from visits by appointment to unrestricted access.

English Heritage works with and learns from other agencies, organisations and individuals.

English Heritage is working with the Black Environment Network on a project to expand ethnic participation in the built and natural environment. The project will highlight concerns about participation, stimulate heritage organisations to engage with ethnic groups and develop and provide training and advisory services.
 
We have been working in partnership with the RNIB and other organisations on a pilot project to provide panels that use large text, Braille and tactile plans at our free sites. These will explain their history and layout as well as directions to the site from the car park and the nature of pathways and other surfaces. Following feed-back from expert advisory groups and members of the public, the scheme will be extended across the country and will increase enjoyment of such sites as Roman and Iron-Age hill forts, ruined castles and priories and stone circles.

Who are we?

English Heritage is a public body with responsibility for protecting and promoting the historic built environment in England.

• We give grants towards repair and regeneration, provide conservation advice and education services, identify buildings and landscapes for protection and are the Government’s lead advisor on the historic environment.
• We have more than 400 historic sites in our guardianship, including Stonehenge, Hadrian’s Wall and Dover Castle.

This leaflet is available in large print by contacting English Heritage Customer Services on 0870 333 1181. If you would like more information on any of these initiatives or similar schemes, please contact English Heritage Customer Services on 0870 333 1181.