Roots to Routes digital trail

Greater Creative presents Roots to Routes; taking inspiration from the roots of our land’s history we bring you a range of walking routes you can navigate across Blackwell Parish in Derbyshire.

This app features many stories, facts and hyperlocal knowledge we’ve collated about Blackwell Parish’s roots. It shares them whilst you explore the walking trails we’ve developed with local residents, and truly takes you on a journey into our area’s rich industrial past. This app makes use of GPS to show you places of interest close to your current location. 

Wooden sculptures project

As part of Greater Creatives focus on heritage, a competition was set up which asked for sculpture designs from residents in the parish. The winning designs, one for each village/hamlet, were turned into exciting wood sculptures by talented wood artist Andrew Frost and were installed along the old pit trails. The sculptures have a strong link to our parish heritage and serve as a reminder that we should celebrate our environment and its rich history.

Voices of Blackwell Parish

Voices of Blackwell Parish is all about preserving our local heritage. It’s predominately an oral history project, where residents were interviewed and shared their tales of life in the parish. We contracted consulted with the community to find out what mattered to them. One of the key findings in this consultation was that residents who had lived here through the ex-industrial heydays felt that all of the local history was invisible and would be lost. The pit wheels in the parish were the only reminders (as well as the falling down social clubs). 

Some of these stories marking the heritage of the parish were made into wonderful short animations by the fabulous Kino Bino Animation Studios based in Leicester. The first four animations: Welfare; The Miners Song; Locomotive Life; and Canaries Down the Pit can be viewed on the link below.

Interpretation boards

Co-designed and created interpretation panels and frames that commemorate our parish’s past.

It’s been such a collective effort to get these created and has taken us all lots of time to co-create together. One board had 18 edits of information due to local residents sharing more detailed information! It has been a considered process to commemorate our Parish History.