GAZEBO Youngpeopleandtheir heritage Oncea placeis understood,it comesaliveandinteresting.Onceit is interesting,it is valued. GillyDrummondreports on projectsthat involvechildrenin their localenvironment. 'I never knew the place I lived was so important.' That was the delighted remark of a young student taking part in the national pilot project for the Local Heritage Initiative, managed by the Countryside Agency and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. It was based at Woodlands Community School, Barefield, on the east side of Southampton. The 600pupil secondary school is in the centre of an estate of council housing built in 1960. The area qualified for Single Regeneration Budget funding and the school will shortly be rebuilt under a Private Finance Initiative. Once a place is understood through its social and cultural history, it comes alive and interesting. Once it is interesting, it is valued. What is needed is the opportunity to trigger that interest. The Hampshire Gardens Trust, founded in 1984, has long been concerned with the conservation of gardens and parks and improvements to school grounds as the first step towards understanding landscape and working with students, parents, staff and the local community. An imaginative School Grounds Development Plan had already been funded by the Trust for Woodlands. There were a number of serious issues: high numbers of disillusioned, unemployed young people, families under stress, 200 under-5s with insufficient pre-school provision, many older people living alone, and low level of cars in private ownership, so access to country parks was difficult. Local people, however, were keen to improve their environment and Woodlands is on the site of the historic Barefield House and Estate. This had comprised 238 acres of designed parkland and gardens, woodland and farmlands. In the 1870s, it had belonged to the owner of 'Southampton's greatest Store' and twice mayor of Southampton. Some of the woodland and landform survived. The social history of the house, built in 1834 and destroyed by fire in 1915, the estate, its owners and employees turned out to be fascinating. A brilliant history teacher, Eric Dennis, a committed community education manager, Jacqui Lea, supportive staff, an enthusiastic local history society, the Bitterne Local History Society, and the trust formed an innovative partnership for the Woodlands LHI. The aims were to involve people of all ages in a survey of their historic, cultural and natural heritage; to develop a sense of pride and ownership within the local communities through an increased understanding of local heritage and its value; and ensure that any new building and site development is sympathetic to issues of conservation and acknowledges, protects and enhances local heritage. This culminated in the report on the project Harefield, a hidden heritage: developing sense of place through comCONTEXT 71 SEPTEMBER 2001 munity learning in June 1999, long before the English Heritage Review of the Historic Environment, Power of Place, published in 2000. One of the most thought-provoking findings of the Mori poll undertaken for the EH review was that '98 per cent of people thought that all school children should be given the opportunity to find out about England's historic environment'. The Woodlands project found that local history, beginning with the memories of parents, grandparents and the local community, and then working backwards through time, was the trigger to generating interest in the documentary, pictorial and physical evidence of the local heritage and thus of the historic environment. The Hampshire Gardens Trust has built on the experience gained with the Woodlands LHI to develop the Priestlands and Young People Project. Priestlands, lying to the west of Lymington on the Solent shore, and on the edge of the New Forest, is a shared school campus with two pre-schools, infant, junior and secondary schools and a youth group. The primary aim of the project is to realise the heritage benefits of linking local enquiry into curriculum teaching. It aims to encourage young people, 3-18 years old, to identify, research, record, use and enjoy the archaeological, built, industrial, social, cultural and natural heritage of their school site and the locality. The site has a recorded history dating from 1159 and early manor banks survive. The early 19th century manor house, now the Arts and Music Centre, is a Grade II listed building. The coach house, walled gardens, and the designed landscape of lakes and woodland are juxtaposed with the 1960s school buildings, the playing fields and the sea of housing that now surrounds the historic landscape. All the evidence, together with other records and resources relevant to the locality, will be pulled together into an electronically accessible archive, the Priestlands Historic Record, the Art History RePriestlands. The Art and Music Centre in the restored 19th century ,nanor house. 21
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