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WAAS heritage displays make a mark at the Heart of Worcestershire College’s St Dunstan building

  • 1st October 2014

If you go into the new creative learning quarter of the Heart of Worcestershire College’s new campus, just by The Hive, you’ll see the local history of the site marked in a number of ways.  We’ve been working with the college over the summer to incorporate the history of the local area in the design of the interior.

The official opening included a ribbon cutting by Samia Ghadie (Coronation Street actress) 

Last Saturday (27th September) Nick Boles, Minister of State jointly for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Education, formally re-opened the Heart of Worcestershire College’s Art & Design Department in its new premises, the former Russell & Dorrell furniture store, in Dolday Worcester.

Minister Nick Boles is pictured above with Principal Stuart Laverick and Vice Principal Nikki Williams of the Heart of Worcestershire College

Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service and The TEW Group were commissioned by the college to provide some permanent wall and table displays on which a potted history of this part of Worcester from the mediaeval period onwards are interpreted, alongside local people’s memories of the former cattle market site.

The terrace café at St Dunstan’s, open to students and the public feature 8 table displays with interpretations of life in Dolday and Worcester through the centuries, with civil and personal stories and maps.

One of the 8 table displays, here touching on the story of Cyril Cale, cattle market foreman from 1930 to 1962.

Much of the information came to light when we were preparing for the opening of The Hive in 2012, and you may remember seeing the promenade performance of Offal tales during the first week of opening, or seeing the exhibition Beyond the City walls here or in one of the county’s libraries. It has been great to have an opportunity to bring the history of the area to a wider audience in the college. So if you are going in there please have a look out.

 Elsie (pictured here) and her twin sister Josie lived in Netherton Lane in the 1920s and they share some of their memories of the cattle market on this wall display in St Dunstan’s.

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