About the project

The Archbishop of York's Palace at Southwell is a secular heritage, music and horticultural project to restore, reinterpret and open up The Archbishop of York's Palace in Southwell.

The consultancy's role

Alix Slater Consultancy & Training developed and wrote the Activity and Business Plans working in close partnership with the in-house, part time staff, to secure £1.3 million from the HLF. There were four major challenges: balancing the use of a listed building by the public with income generation, meeting the needs of internal and external stakeholders and building new audiences and volunteers at a site that is difficult to reach by public transport with a very small team.

The Business Plan included income generation from themed and music events, community room hire, weddings, film opportunities, and festivals. The 5 year Activity Plan built on past successes extending their learning and outreach work both on-site in the Great Hall and the new Education Garden and through outreach. This included a new outdoor theatre programme, family fun day during August, trails for families, arts and crafts activities at calendar events and extending the school offer. The project also enabled the Cathedral to provide assisted travel to children's centres and schools who would not normally be able to visit.

Project Evaluation

The Archbishop of York's Palace Project restored the Great Chamber, Ruins and created an Education Garden in a previously unused part of the site, installed interpretation and delivered a five year Activity Plan. Activities included new history workshops, storytelling, conferences and drama workshops for schools, family activities including a themed family fun day, half term Roman workshop and more and different activities for adults. Restoration of the garden also enabled the introduction of live theatre during the summer.

The consultancy worked with staff and volunteers throughout the delivery of the Activity Plan capturing data through visitor and volunteer surveys, feedback forms, Epos and financial data. They had quarterly meetings and the consultancy produced quarterly reports to ensure they continually reflected on the findings and used the data in forward planning, adapting and refining activities.

When it came to preparing the summative report for The National Lottery Heritage Fund they had a photographic record and full set of data. The consultancy conducted interviews with the consultant team, staff and volunteers at this point to add a layer of qualitative data and reflect on what had gone particularly well, less well, lessons learnt for future projects and if there had been any unexpected outcomes. One of those highlighted was the success of the Education Garden which is used by visiting groups and the community. The report was well received by the Heritage Fund and one of the aspects staff had enjoyed most was the feedback meetings, reflecting on their progress each quarter.