Migration and Memory: exploring prehistory through oral history
Egham Museum is delighted to announce that it has received £28,300 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for an an exiting new project called Migration and Memory: Exploring Prehistory through Oral History. Celebrating the nationally important Neolithic and Bronze Age heritage of Runnymede, the project will involve interviews with archaeologists involved with the Runnymede Bridge excavations, local residents who took part and curators at the British Museum, where the majority of the finds were deposited. Through these interviews we intend to shed light onto the motivations of these first settlers in Runnymede, asking what shaped their lives and led to them calling this stretch of the Thames valley home. We aim to put a human experience and story to periods typically classified by tools rather than people.
Complementing these interviews, we will also be interviewing local people, both established residents and newcomers to Egham, to shed light on to what has motivated their decisions to live in Egham and how the town has changed since they first arrived.
Our Project Manager will then edit and compile these interviews and working with our illustrator and animator, Simon Clark, produce an exciting range of educational resources for local schools and to be screened for the community in late 2016.
Commenting on the award, Dr Matthew Smith, Curator of Egham Museum, writes,
“this is a fantastic opportunity, after we have been celebrating Magna Carta, to explore another nationally important aspect of Runnymede’s heritage and to further our reputation as a provider of high quality online learning resources for schools.”
About the Heritage Lottery Fund
From archaeology under our feet to the historic parks and buildings we love, from precious memories and collections to rare wildlife, we use National Lottery players’ money to help people across the UK explore, enjoy and protect the heritage they care about.