HLF has been supporting and investing projects in Preston for nearly two decades.
As part of Preston Guild 2012 we have offered 15 groups grants up to £10,000 each to enable them to run projects which contribute to activities throughout the Guild year of 2012 by celebrating or exploring an aspect of Preston’s history and heritage.
Each of the projects supported is outlined below, and we will be profiling their activities as they progress throughout the year.
Title: Montserrations Life in Preston
Applicant: Preston Monserraat and Friends Association
Grant: £9,100
Migrants from the Caribbean island of Monserrat who settled in Preston will collect their stories together on DVD and in leaflets. They will run a handicraft workshop to produce a range of traditional items such as earrings, necklaces and straw hats that will feature in local exhibitions and during the Guild 2012 procession.
Title: The Guild Key Social Media Project
Applicant: Preston College
Grant: £10,000
Preston College students will explore the history of Guild celebrations from their medieval origins to the 20th century relating them to contemporary events. They will use the information to create three games: one for mobile phones, one online and one in the form of a walking treasure hunt to take place during Guild Week.
Title: Red Scar and Grimsargh History
Applicant: Preston City Council Cemetery and Crematorium
Grant: £5,900
The city’s crematorium at Red Scar is 50 years old in 2012 and the council and Grimsargh Parish Council will explore the history of the area from the 1700s onwards creating a series of guided walks that will be launched at special events in February and September next year. View images of the project in the slideshow on the right – Photos by Nigel Hillier.
Title: Foxton Lives – an Archive
Applicant: They Eat Culture
Grant: £9,500
Homeless and socially excluded people who have been supported by the Foxton Centre will be telling their stories covering the period of the previous three Guilds, in 1952, 1972 and 1992. Using artefacts, recordings, film and photography they will create a record of hitherto undocumented local lives.
Title: Preston – Our Heritage in 2032
Applicant: University of Central Lancashire
Grant: £9,400
Architecture students from the University of Central Lancashire, working with secondary school pupils, will explore how the Guild has influenced the city’s development over hundreds of years and how this has been reflected in Preston’s architecture. They will suggest how the city could be transformed before the 2032 Guild by producing six temporary art installations to be exhibited a sites around Preston.
Title: Preston Gildia
Applicant: CVS Preston
Grant: £10,000
People who have settled in Preston during the past 20 years, especially from Eastern Europe, will not have experienced a Guild before. Now they can learn about the three previous events thanks to a group of young people who will produce a 30-minute documentary and book created from the recorded memories, pictures and home movies of older members of the community.
Title: Preston Guild Our Guild – the Memories of Preston’s African & Caribbean Community
Applicant: Preston Black History Group
Grant: £9,600
The involvement of Preston’s African and Caribbean residents in the last two Guilds will be recorded – and their memories of next year’s events saved – in this multimedia project. DVD and audio versions plus British Sign Language and Urdu translations will be available through Lancashire Records Office, the Harris Museum and the Museum of Lancashire.
Title: My Dad Made Cars
Applicant: Weeding Cane
Grant: £7,200
The men who worked in Preston’s bygone heavy manufacturing industries, building cars, planes and trains, will have the chance to tell their stories. Their recorded memories will be saved at the North West Sound Archives, in the form of a booklet, and through a specially written play involving some of the workers themselves and planned to take place at the BACEE Sports & Social Club during the Guild celebrations.
Title: Preston People Panorama Stories
Applicant: Dovetail
Grant: £9,800
Groups of present day Prestonians such as residents, firefighters, teachers and businesses, will be pictured using the technique of panoramic photography seen in historic Guild photographs dating back to Victorian times. One hundred modern panoramas together with accounts by writers and local historians will feature in an exhibition at the Museum of Lancashire from July to October.
Title: Winckley Square – Futures Past
Applicant: Preston City Council Development Directorate/Winckley Square CIC
Grant: £7,700
A programme of artistic events, plus a ‘pop-up’ Victorian pie shop and café, and children’s drama performances will combine to tell the story of Preston’s historic Winckley Square. The two-day event, including talks and walking tours, will also feed into longer term plans for the Square’s future restoration and regeneration.
Title: The East Preston ‘Preston Guild Fuschia Project’
Applicant: Friends of Ribbleton Library Group
Grant: £9,700
A feature of the 1972 Guild was the specially bred Preston Guild Fuschia and this will now be revived with local people creating original artwork based on the flower and gaining propagation and planting skills. Community groups will plant them around the city, two mosaics will be created and children will make fuschia costumes and lanterns to take part in the Guild’s torchlight procession.
Title: Hot Pot an’ All – Heritage Cookbook for Preston
Applicant: Community Gateway Association
Grant: £7,000
‘Lost’ Lancashire recipes from the time of past Guilds will be gathered into a new Heritage Cookbook. Residents from Community Gateway Association properties will be asked to contribute their culinary tips going back 40 years with stories behind the recipes. An audio version will also be broadcast to listeners of Preston FM radio.