Welcome to Kirkham Treasures
Help Celebrate Kirkham’s Heritage and Preserve it for Future Generations.
Kirkham Treasures has been planned to reveal the past and preserve heritage, while also seeking to develop a cultural vision for the town.
A successful grant application to Historic England has resulted in the development of a High Street Action Zone pilot project for Kirkham and includes the development of a cultural consortium. Focusing attention on Kirkham’s rich heritage and its historic High Street, providing a wide range of exciting opportunities to help gather information and create artwork that will celebrate the town’s past.
There is a fantastic range of opportunities for all ages to get involved and they include.
• Telling stories, to sharing memories and photographs.
• Learning how to undertake a piece of historical research.
• Writing a story and seeing it published online.
• Younger children can draw treasures maps.
• Families can create artwork for Kirkham’s window Heritage Treasure Trail, planned to take place during the Easter holidays.
• Help create artwork for Kirkham town centre.
• Undertake a piece of research and publish it here.
• Download Kirkham Through Time a map created by pupils at Kirkham Grammar School with history by Andrew Walmsley
• Take on the Kirkham Treasures Quest for a chance to win a great prize. If you complete the quest you can submit your entry here.
Those feeling more adventurous may want to try their hand at fused glass or make a tunnel book. For a full list of all the activities see the Get Involved page.
The resulting artwork from many of the activities mentioned will inform the creation of the final artwork, that will eventually animate Kirkham’s high Street.
Detail and guidelines are all provided, please note that some activities must be booked online.
Let’s make history and work towards creating a positive future!
This project forms the first phase of Kirkham’s High Street Heritage Action Zone project which is funded by Historic England.
We have already been busy in Kirkham getting creative. Artists Andy and Sharon Shaw, along with local school children and members of the public, created a wonderful trail of silhouettes around Kirkham during the Easter holidays and Mark Herrington has put together this wonderful video showcasing the fantastic work.
Let’s Create Together
Artist Alex Blakey has been commissioned by Kirkham Cultural Consortium, to work collaboratively with the local community and create artwork that will animate the high street. To find how to get involved or just watch how the artwork develops, you can see a range of activities on the Get Involved Page, with downloadable fact sheets and read Alex’s regular updates on the blog page.
We Need Your Help!
To ensure the success of this project we need your help! You can help create a rich archive of Kirkham by sending in your photographs and memories of the town. Most of Kirkham’s past, images, memories, and stories are held in the public domain by people like you, old photographs and documents tucked away in cupboards long forgotten. We would like to bring them together for future generations to enjoy and use them to inspire the development of cultural vision for the town.
Kirkham Cultural Consortium
This newly formed organisation has the role of delivering the project and developing a cultural vision for the future. If you are interested in becoming a member, have an interest in heritage, culture or the arts and can commit time and take on some responsibility, contact the Cultural Producer, Helen Juste, at helen.juste@positiveplacemakers.org.uk, for further information.
