I first encountered the heritage project at Barts when they were developing their early funding application. The coverage and approach of the Sharing Historic Barts project with its focus on linking the important conservation work with a wide ranging and integrated health and wellbeing programme made it stand out for me straight away. The success of the development stage and the submission of the larger grant application for the main project was an important milestone in bringing the North Wing of the historic hospital back into a good state of repair and setting it up to be a centre of wellbeing excellence. When I was later invited to join the engagement advisory panel I was delighted.
The Sharing Historic Barts project provides, in my view, an unparalleled opportunity to consider, in an holistic way, the key aspects of how heritage and wellbeing relate: through volunteering, visiting, sharing, healing, place belonging, and experiencing environment. The project addresses a range of issues, usually not considered together, that provides for the local community (the culture mile), patients and their visitors, cultural visitors to the site, and staff as well as volunteers.
The panel is a refreshingly open exchange of views and ideas and I love the balance of membership from the hospital staff to art practitioners to heritage professionals and academics. The evaluation of the project is threaded through this work and the evaluators are always there with the rest of the team ensuring it is a continuous process of investigation and not something done after the event. There is honesty about what is working and what is not and a real appetite to learn from everyone around the table. I come out of each panel full of admiration for the work of Barts Heritage and their on-going efforts to make the best opportunities for people emerge from their extraordinary assets.
From the beginning, the project has aimed to enable the heritage of these assets to create a bridge between the hospital and the public and ensure it can become a long-lasting place of discovery and inspiration.
I genuinely see this as a pioneering project that will provide unparalleled opportunities to support and improve the wellbeing of individuals and communities, utilising and demonstrating the power of heritage to enhance wellbeing in multiple and sustained ways.
