Case Study: Winchelsea, East Sussex

Winchelsea is a picturesque Sussex village with a long and colourful history, set in wonderful landscape.

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Need for the project

Winchelsea suffers from its proximity to Rye and its lack of accessible interpretation that would offer a particular draw and make it more than just another quaint village. As such visitors spend only a brief period in Winchelsea and leave without truly appreciating the uniqueness of the place, or adding much in the way of economic benefit to the local businesses. At present Winchelsea offers an hour stop off, with many visitors then being drawn to the more developed destination of Rye.

In addition despite its spectacular history, many people’s understanding of the history of Winchelsea consists of romantic myths about smugglers and the like. This is a shame: the real history is far more interesting. It may also be a threat to Winchelsea’s heritage.

The purpose of the ‘Uncover Winchelsea’ project is to help uncover more of its history and gain for residents and visitors an insight that is not available from looking at the monuments or in traditional guidebooks. The aim is to promote a wider and deeper appreciation of Winchelsea’s history outside of academic circles and help to build the greater public awareness of its unique heritage. By doing so it also creates a product in Winchelsea that should ensure visitors spend at least half a day, thereby encouraging further use of local businesses and overnight stays.

Planning the Project

The question was; how to make the history and uniqueness of Winchelsea accessible, and importantly attractive to the visitor audience?

Initial work had been undertaken by Tourism South East and the High Weald AONB unit to broaden the visitor offer to Winchelsea by concentrating on providing information on countryside activities, and creating the Winchelsea map and guide. This provided a base starting point form which to build from.

The local Winchelsea tourism group consisting of local businesses, local residents, representatives from, Rother District Council, Action in Rural Sussex, High Weald AONB, and East Sussex County Council worked with the Hidden Britain development officer to take these actions to the next level.

In recent years, knowledge about medieval Winchelsea has been consolidated and critically re-assessed by archaeologists and historians. In particular, a lot more is known about how historic Winchelsea looked. In the normal course of events, work of this sort tends to stay hidden in academic texts, which are not accessible to most people.

Many ideas were brainstormed, but the most exciting idea involved handheld electronic guides (also called personal digital assistants or PDAs). These devices have been used for some time in museums and other visitor attractions --- although only to show what could already be seen. In Winchelsea, the idea is to use these ‘E-Guides’ to show what was there in the past. It was also determined that more information and interpretation material needed to be developed in conjunction with the e-guide in order to furnish Winchelsea as a holistic destination.

With the support of the Hidden Britain project officer the management group set out an action plan and began looking for funding. Financial support was secured from LHI and Intereg IIIa with over £40,000 of funding secured.

Project Outputs :

Develop a 30 point tour of Winchelsea viewed on a hand-held PDA

New mapboards at key locations around the town

New interpretation boards at the key viewpoints

A redesigned website at www.winchelsea.net

Accompanying history leaflet

Postcard books detailing the reconstructions

Implementing the Project

The project was originated by the Winchelsea Archaeological Society (WAS) but has been taken forward as a partnership between a wide range of local organisations including the Winchelsea Archaeological Society, St Thomas’s Church, Winchelsea Community Office, Winchelsea Digital Photography Club, Winchelsea Literary Society, Winchelsea Methodist Chapel, the National Trust, the Winchelsea Town Plan and local businesses.

Most of the partners have specific roles. The project is being managed by the Winchelsea Community Office, which is voluntary organisation providing a range of facilities and services to the community, including IT facilities and education. The WAS is responsible for producing the content of the E-Guide and is working closely with Archaeologists on the reconstruction. The audio commentary will be produced with the assistance of the Winchelsea Literary Society. The Digital Photography Club is taking many of the photographs to be used in the E-Guide. The Methodist Chapel will be staging a reconstruction of one of the events included in the E-Guide: John Wesley’s last open air sermon, which took place in Winchelsea in 1790.

Local volunteers have worked on not only the research and content writing for the guide but also on the more technical aspects. They have also worked to help design the boards, leaflet, postcard books and website. The website itself is a local site with both visitor and resident information and is managed locally through an editorial board of webmasters.

Local Benefits:

The benefits of course, as with any tourism project will in the main be to local businesses, but in this case the knock-on effects can really deliver benefits for those living in the area as well. Increased visitor usage can have a revitalising effect, and can encourage investment. It has been noted that Winchelsea has so far been unable to get a fair share of benefits from increased income that visitors bring, and this project should go some way towards solving that. The plan is not to flood Winchelsea with people, but by increasing the time and interest visitors show in the village, increase the economic benefit within the local community.

The level of community input and support should not be overlooked, local people have been involved throughout the project, and have all given their views and input. The project has been completely managed on a local level, with many organisations working together in partnership. Those involved in the project have gained key skills in tourism, IT and project management. As such this project has delivered real community benefit and will only continue to do so as the initiative develops in the future. The project also brings increased knowledge of their own history and heritage to the people of Winchelsea.