Heritage Lottery Fund grants open up our nation’s heritage for everyone to enjoy, like the recent award to Oxford’s Churchill and Sarsden Heritage Centre.

The Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded the Churchill and Sarsden Heritage Centre a grant of £50,000. This is 89 per cent of a total project cost of £56,181 for its project to update the centre and expand learning and outreach to the local community.

The Heritage Centre occupies the chancel of the Old Church of Churchill in West Oxfordshire and the award will enable the centre to:

1. Conserve the character of the medieval Old Church and update its exhibition space.

2. Increase awareness of its three principal subject areas - Warren Hastings, first Governor General of India (1732-1818); William Smith, father of British geology (1769-1839), (both of whom were born in the village), and local heritage. It will use interactive touch screens, audio guides, a website and a print on demand publication.

3. Develop a two-year education outreach programme including classes and workshops for disability and special needs groups. The educational outreach programme will also enable volunteers to be trained to offer to schools and institutions illustrated talks on local history, thereby sharing the resources of the Heritage Centre collection.

4. Engage the local community.

David Chambers, chairman of the committee of the Old Church, said: “We are delighted to receive the Heritage Lottery Fund award. The Heritage Centre is a success story for the local community. We have 50 volunteers already helping us and many others supporting us.

“In 2002, National Heritage commended the Heritage Centre and the Wellcome Trust’s Highlights brochure recently featured the research for the Centre’s current ‘Health and Healing’ exhibition. We look forward to making our resources more attractive and relevant to visitors, Apart from an enhanced exhibition area, they will be able to extend their viewing with audio guide tours of relevant sites in the village.”

Mr Chambers said he has great hopes for the outreach education programme and oral history project, which will strengthen the local heritage archive.

“This will further involve the people of the village in the Centre. And, most importantly, we see the Heritage Centre’s exhibitions, stored data and related spin-offs becoming available to the world at large,” he added.