Conservation Communicators

Bristol young people collaborated with English Heritage’s Conservation in Action team to create beautiful information panels which are now being displayed in front of one of Bristol’s historic sites.

Temple Church in Bristol is a site with an exciting future and English Heritage are currently doing some essential conservation works on the site, protecting the building and making it safe for visitors to explore.

Instead of the usual construction panelling created by English Heritage staff, we worked with three young people from Bristol from May to August 2021 to create our own take on the all-important information panels. They are now being displayed in front of Temple Church during conservation works. These conservation works will be taking place for a while, meaning the site will be closed for a considerable time. Making these panels is essential in explaining these works to visitors to the site, and in helping visitors to understand the work of English Heritage.

We thoroughly researched Temple Church and details about the conservation works and made key decisions on the content, such as deciding to include a section about the history of the site. With support from the English Heritage team, we wrote the descriptions and sourced the images and created panels that will be engaging to a range of visitors to the site.

Young designer Martha Wood-Saanaoui was then commissioned to design the panels, bringing all the content together in an eye-catching and vibrant design. The panels are now on display outside Temple Church and it’s so exciting to see young people’s words and design take such a prominent position at a heritage site.

I’ve been to so many English Heritage sites, but now when I come here I think, ‘oh wow, I did that!’

Participant