Aims of the project

Our bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund included the following statement of what we intended to deliver:

“We aim to interest and inspire the public and local residents in our fascinating locality by creating resources which deal with the development and past activities of the hamlets of Bowlish and Darshill.

There is almost unanimous local support for the project following two years of extensive consultation. The delivery of the project involves working with volunteers and other societies to research relevant documents, conduct architectural and archaeological surveys and undertake a series of biodiversity studies of sites in the localities.

The publicly accessible outputs will include: a printed summary; a searchable website (includes published pamphlet, methodology followed and photo archive); a public-realm Heritage Trail around the hamlets which will link with the existing trail in central Shepton Mallet.

Additionally, we will mount a series of engagement and learning events and activities targeted at increasing awareness of the heritage of our hamlets in communities and schools both in the locality and the county beyond. We will monitor the progress of our project and the impact it is having at relevant times through the use of usage and output data gathering and qualitative and quantitative surveys.”

The totality of this website is the realisation of this aim.