Heritage Lottery Fund – Project Update for St Michael’s Tower – Tower of Learning Project

Heritage Lottery Funded

It was 18th June 2008 when we heard that the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) had approved our St Michael’s Tower project and had given us a grant award of £199,000. We were absolutely delighted as 4 years of hard work had paid off.

Gloucester Civic Trust, when we first did a survey on the Tower in 2004, we made it our mission to save the building; to have it removed from the Buildings at Risk Register; make it breathe once more with the sound of people and activity and regenerate part of Gloucester’s city centre.

Since the HLF award in 2008, Gloucester Civic Trust has been busy setting the project in motion.

We’ve been busy putting all aspects of the project together:

  • Working with the architect Quattro Design drawing up plans
  • Working with English Heritage on Conservation plans for the building
  • Working with our landlords Gloucester City Council to regenerate the building
  • Working with local communities and young people planning an events programme that’s accessible to all – so all can have fun learning about Gloucester

The project has many facets which include:

  • Designing a new interactive web site
  • Designing new literature
  • Creating 6 audio trails – some of the best in the UK using the state of the art GPS navigation system
  • Planning an exciting heritage arts programme
  • Working with young people on our community filming project.
Filming in Gloucester Park Filming in Gloucester Park Filming in Gloucester Park Inside the renovated St Michaels Tower St Michaels Tower exterior Meeting in the Tower New Tower Blinds New Tower Blinds

The filming project is proving very successful. We’ve been working with young people from Gloucester Sea Cadets; the children of the travellers from Pool Meadow, and children from local schools, all working together in unison making a community film. It’s fun; people are learning new media skills – but most of all learning things about Gloucester’s past. People are also making new friends. Most of the filming is done at weekends or in school holidays. This is a long term project and one which will add to our Gloucester Civic Trust archives. We’ve also made 2 short educational films one on St Oswald’s Priory and the other one on Llanthony Priory – the first of many. All films will be on show to the public in St Michael’s Tower.

We’ve also been filming life stories of elderly people who’ve shared their memories with us. Their families have hunted out old photographs and some have even gone to the Gloucester Archives looking up family history – something they would not normally do.

We’ve had our post card collection digitally conserved thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund. Our postcards are quite rare dating back to the early 1900’s, depicting scenes of a bygone Gloucester. Already we’ve been able to use the digital images in our community films; for our tour guides training; and we are looking at how we may use the collection for selling postcards, prints and stationery to help make our Tower project sustainable.

So much activity going on since June 2008 and the Tower isn’t even open yet!

However, we’re pleased to say that the contractor, C J Bayliss, has almost completed the work. There are just one or two things yet to be done and of course our beautiful stained glass window is soon to be cleaned. This is quite a specialist task and will take between 2-3 weeks.

The Tower looks magnificent inside. C J Baylis has done a great job. Their men took a real interest in the history of the Tower.

Where possible we’ve used local suppliers. It’s vital we support our local economy in such times.

Now we feel we have to concentrate on the outside of St Michael’s Tower.

We met with Cllr Paul James, The Leader of the Council, recently (June 09) to see if all the street furniture around the Tower can be spruced up.

We had a grant of £500 from the Gloucester in Bloom Team to provide 2 planters for the new Tower entrance. In addition we had £300 from the city centre community partnership for shrubs and flowers. We’ve also secured a street pavement licence for some quality bistro style tables and chairs for outside the Tower. We feel it important that St Michael’s Tower looks attractive both inside and out so that it’s appealing to everyone and an asset to the street scene.

We’d also like to say thank you to the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group here in Gloucester for their £1,400 support to provide an educational screen for use with school children and to help facilitate our volunteer training.

Everyone has been so supportive both residents and our local business community – even though economically times are hard.

Since we commenced our extensive public consultation process in 2007 in support of our Hertitage Lottery Bid, we've had quite a few people sign up to become Friends of St Michael's Tower. Each year our Friends pay a subscription which has helped support our project. Their support is much appreciated and it demonstrates just how much the Tower is loved and cared for and that people want to see it used once more.

It's good for people to feel part of the project.

We hope that when the Tower opens we shall have a lot more Friends signing up.

Your financial contributions are well spent. 100% of your money is spent directly on the Tower project. None of it goes on admin and we're all volunteers who run the Tower so nothing is spent on wages.

Most of all however, we must say a HUGE thank you to our car park team. Our car park team has been fund raising every Saturday since 2 August 2008. Each Saturday they man a car park on the former college site in Brunswick Road. Cars park up for £2 no matter how long they stay. Our team are there in all kinds of weather. They braved the icy cold wind and snow in December and January; they’ve got soaked to the skin – and yet they don’t give in – yes they are still there each Saturday raising funds for our St Michael’s Tower Project.

They all deserve a medal for sure. It just goes to show how dedicated we are towards the St Michael’s Tower Project.

When the window cleaner has finished early July, we shall then move in all our audio video equipment – which will certainly give the Tower that 'wow' factor.

The Tower is an innovative way of delivering heritage in Gloucester –it’s fun and factual.

It’s been great working with the Officers of the City Council and the Museum staff – as they’ve helped us along the way. It’s been one big team effort.

We’ve secured quite a lot of free advertising to promote our events in the Tower with Marketing Gloucester and Gloucester City Council.

We thank all the supporters of the Tower project whose confidence in our ideas helped us to prove its worth to others. Donations were received from organisations, companies and kind individuals and we were always supported by the City Council. A "Friends of the Tower" group was set up and we are receiving subscriptions from many for the third year running. We are so grateful to them all.

We’d also like to thank BBC Radio Gloucestershire and our local community radio Gloucester FM for the airtime they give us to promote St Michael’s Tower.

The most wonderful news now is that English Heritage is going to remove St Michael’s Tower from the Buildings at Risk Register.

Thanks must go to the Heritage Lottery Fund for having faith in us; believing in our project and also believing in Gloucester Civic Trust that we could and are delivering this fantastic project.

We know St Michael’s Tower will evolve – and we’re already making plans for the future. We’re looking at having a professional film made “The Story of Gloucester” which will be shown in the Tower to school parties, residents and visitors. We’ve nothing quite like it in the County.

Please keep looking at our website for our latest events and to see what’s on.