Heritage Updates from around the Cranborne Chase & West Wiltshire Downs AONB

At the HEAP implementation group several partners provided relevant updates of work they are currently engaged in. Please email EmmaRouse@cranbornechase.org.uk if you would like more information.

• The Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs AONB is waiting to hear about their bid to the HLF for a Landscape Partnership Bid for the Cranborne Chase area. They are also gearing up for the biannual woodfair at the Larmer Tree on the 8th and 9th October.
• Gold Hill Museum will be reopening this month
• Claire Ryley, Julian Richards and the CBA are working on a HLF bid entitled ‘What’s under your School?’ This will feed information back into the HERs, and will be a model of best practice.
• The Wiltshire Historic Environment Record has been upgraded to improved GIS systems and a funding application has been submitted to English Heritage to create a Wiltshire wide Historic Landscape Characterisation
• Work is ongoing with the Dorset County Monument Management Scheme, with examples being completed in the AONB at for example Cranborne Castle. This particular piece of work was a nominee for the Dorset Archaeological Awards
• South Wiltshire & Salisbury Museum are submitting a HLF bid to create a new Archaeology of Wessex gallery, and have several relevant forthcoming exhbitions including exploring the Archaeology of the Cranborne Chase.
• The Dig It Project at the Priest's House Wimborne was a deserving winner of the 2011 Dorset Archaeology Awards
• Wiltshire museums are exploring a joint project on Wiltshire and WW1 ready for 2014.
• The Wiltshire Building Records 'Historic Farmstead Project' is well underway.