Paston Footprints Project Timeline

Aim

Paston Footprints is about enticing and empowering people to explore their connections with 300 years plus of Paston letters, lives and legends.

Origins

In 2014, Dr Rob Knee (Chair of PHS) and Dr Karen Smyth (for UEA) agreed to begin the process of an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for financial support for a substantial project. Awarded a HLF Development grant for 2015–2017, major public consultations were undertaken with the help of five leading partners: the Paston Heritage Society, University of East Anglia, Community Action Norfolk, the Norfolk Record Office and University of Brunel. In this public scoping exercise (of 24 organisations, 10 community hubs and 357 individuals), involving focus groups, community surveys, and a cross-sector symposium, four key desires emerged time and time again:

Our mission emerged to be:

Funder and governing structure

In 2017, a final bid of close to 80,000 words and 22 partner letters of support were submitted and we were awarded £374,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund, with Co-Directors as Dr Karen Smyth (UEA) and Dr Rob Knee (PHS). Our collaborative partners, all who have played roles for various durations on our steering committee, were named as the Norfolk Record Office, Community Action Norfolk, Diocese of Norwich, University of Brunel and later Essex, and Hungate Medieval Art.

2018: 600th year festival and getting the Paston story known

This year marked the 600th anniversary of the first Paston letter. This was celebrated with an exhibition at St Peter's Church, Hungate in Norwich and a series of talks, performances and events in the city and across Norfolk. We reached an audience of over 7,500 people during this year. The Norwich Castle Museum put on an exhibition 'The Paston Treasure', in partnership with the University of Yale, seen by over 40,000 people. Our development research was consulted in their creation of a summer activity programme. Our drama director, Dr Holly Maples, secures funding from Arts Council England and creates three immersive productions, with audiences taking part in performances at Mannington Hall, Oxnead Hall and Norwich Castle Museum.

2019: widening access to the letters, community action and education

This second stage saw festival days, events and symposiums at Mannington Hall, North Walsham Church and Great Yarmouth. Work begins on the 3D reconstructions of Paston buildings, the digitisation of the Norfolk Record Office's 17th century collection of Paston Letters and creation of the editions database. Work with the 10 Paston Footprints' community hubs continues. The creation of a Teachers Conference for early January 2020 is developed from the 'Mantle of the Expert' educational resource produced for the project.

2020: digital focus

The Covid pandemic leads to the expansion of the web site thisispaston.co.uk, to provide an extensive range of educational materials to support schools and home learning. Animations of Paston characters (which have proven highly popular with all age groups) are added. Social media communications are developed.

2021: Walks, Women and Wellbeing

The 8 Paston Footprints' Heritage Walks and 2 cycle rides are established in partnership with Norfolk County Council Trails, with information displays, waymarking, audio trails, creative and children's activities for each walk. A second web site pastonfootprints.co.uk is established to support the experiential walks programme.
With the continued pandemic, our digital hub community grows with a major social media campaign to un-silence Paston women's voices and write them back into history. Each Paston woman now has a web page of their own. A photography competition is launched, to encourage people to capture the spirit of Paston Country and share on social media. This helps to start our experiential partnership programme, with prizes donated by other cultural, creative and wellbeing groups to support our Paston Walks. Partnerships to develop experiential tourism and wellbeing emphasis in the future begin.
A final exhibition 'Finding Paston Footprints' is staged at the Norfolk Record Office with a series of 13 talks, 4 workshops and two six-week online training courses, one on 17th century palaeography and the other on late 16th to early 18th century title deeds, featuring Paston documents and other Norfolk archives.

2022: Wellbeing Development

Supported by a UEA PVC Impact fund, a focus on reaching new demographics with our heritage trail walks focused on the wellbeing sector. In addition, a new walk, in North Walsham, supported by a North Norfolk District Council HAZ grant was created, with an associated cultural programme of events.

2023: Creative Access Research

New research is shared by Rob Knee and Peter Stibbons in a series of public talks. In addition, Karen Smyth is leading on research partnerships with 3rd sector health organisations, with a focus on how people with disabilities often have a unique lens to interpret heritage spaces, through their embodied, sensory experiences and situated knowledge. This collaboration is offering a fresh way to tell the stories of the Pastons' rich cultural heritage.

Partnerships Legacy

The Footprints project reaches the end of the first chapter. In the course of 4 years, over 40 organisations have been involved in collaborative work with many hundreds of individuals supporting the project and many thousands engaging with the project in many different ways. A project of the people by the people.

Project Team

Dr Rob Knee, Co-Director of Paston Footprints

Chair of the Paston Heritage Society – Project management, Hubs, Walks, HAZ and talks co-ordinator, researcher, re-enactor, script author, display creation, evaluation.

Dr Karen Smyth, Co-Director of Paston Footprints

Associate Professor in Medieval Literature – Project and budget management, Walks, creative-wellbeing activities, NRO exhibition and evaluation co-ordinator, pastonfootprints.co.uk co-creator, tutoring of volunteers, display creation.

Holly Maples, Drama director

Senior Lecturer in Drama, University of Essex - Drama producer, actress, audio drama tour guides producer and actor, training of re-enactors and school children, creative productions by East 15 students. Also director of Collisions Theatre.

Emily Parker, Marketing director

Marketing, communications, pastonfootprints.co.uk co-creator, walk activities co-ordinator

Peter Stibbons, Digital Director

Paston Heritage SocietyTrustee – www.thisispaston.co.uk creator, editions database creator, animations co-ordinator, video production, drone and photography co-ordinator.

Tim Lenton

Paston Heritage Society Trustee - editorial consultant, www.thisispaston.co.uk

Partnership Mission

The Paston Footprints' mission has been to enable people to identify and have a sense of belonging with the Paston heritage, to promote community pride and facilitate a wide demographic of people to be active in telling the Paston story has resulted in a unique and wide-ranging project. This partnership emphasis has brought together the heritage, academic, educational, creative, community, well-being, business and tourism sectors across Norfolk and beyond. Paston Footprints belongs to and has only been possible with a wide range of expert partnerships.

Major Partners

We are grateful for the sharing of expertise and support from:

Eleven Hubs:

Designers:

Brissco - waymarking discs
Rocket Design - Paston Country map and North Walsham display
Starfish Design, Nick Stone - display boards, waymark design, booklets, posters, banners, NRO and Hungate exhibition design.

University of East Anglia services:

Research and Innovation Services (especially Polly, Hannah and Phil); Finance Office; Human Resources; Ruth Selwyn-Crome (Events and Engagement Assistant); Chris Blincoe (Impact Relationships Manager) Matt Champion (Project Manager, 2018–19); Dr Rebecca Pinner (Senior Lecturer in Literature); student volunteers from the Schools of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, History and Business Studies. Also, the Medical Humanities network at the university and UEA Virtual Past.

A special thank you to some outstanding individual volunteers and freelancers:

Other collaborators

Thanks and acknowledgements for advice, assistance and event activities also to:

Expert talks/workshops by:

Web entries for thisispaston.co.uk and www.pastonfootprints.co.uk:

Iterative Research and Design

We are also very grateful to the large number of volunteers, who remain anonymous, who have in focus groups and through individual feedback helped us to develop, test and improve our outputs. Some have been students, community members from the Paston hubs, people attending our events or online friends from this country and further afield.

Funders:

We are grateful to the following organisations who have generously given us financial and project support:

Future possibilities:

The DNA of Paston Footprints is that it opens up the Paston story to help people, from all kinds of walks in life, to discover, connect with and take part in the Paston story. We are always open to new partnerships and suggestions. Please contact us at any time.