National Lottery Heritage Project

 

Green Heritage Skills for a Sustainable, Low Carbon Future; Greenspace Heritage for Community Wellbeing

Our heritage project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, took place between 2023 and 2025. The project involved a number of elements that enabled the completion of the low carbon retrofit of The Changing Rooms, raising awareness and local expertise of natural building techniques and heritage crafts, and taking a deeper look at the history of the greenspace at Sudley Estate, of which virtually nothing was documented.

The project achieved the following outcomes:

  • 34 local volunteers were trained by Hempcrete Cymru in the use of the traditional, ecological, natural building material, Hempcrete

  • One local business, Hammond Hemp Homes, resulted directly from the project meaning there is now a local contractor with this expertise which didn’t exist before - in a circular local economy, this new enterprise was also contracted to finish the building in a traditional lime render

  • One of the volunteer hempcreters went on to do her own self-build using hempcrete, which was featured in Grand Designs

  • Talks and tours were held, and information was shared locally, with community, design professionals, environmental groups and politicians/stakeholders to raise awareness of this material, such a brilliant alternative to other carbon heavy cladding options

  • 16 workshops were held with artist Laura Naylor, where over 500 beautiful, handmade botanical tiles were produced in the garden, by 197 local people of all ages and abilities - as well as teaching an ‘at risk’ heritage craft these workshops produced decorations for The Changing Rooms which bring together the garden and community with the building

  • Green roof workshops were held with Sow The City to explore different options for making a biodiverse living roof on the flat roof of the building - the roof was prepared with the necessary infrastructure for this to take place at a future date, for added insulation and creation of biodiversity

  • A heritage project, the History Detectives, brought together local volunteers and community members, learning to use archive materials and discovering and documenting oral histories and heritage information, about the walled garden and the greenspace at Sudley

  • Signage was created (using the old football benches found in the derelict building) to document some of the outcomes of the heritage project and to allow park users and passers by to find out more about the project and the history of the site