Projects

PROJECTS 

Details of some of the projects the Society is involved with
 
The Plaques Project
PLAQUES ON THE WOLD!
The Society is currently rolling out the installation of plaques on some of the buildings around the town. The first phase of this project identified 6 potential sites. One of these, Huffkins the bakery and tea shop, has already been installed and the Society is about to place four more plaques on buildings in and around Stow Square. They are the part of the first tranche of plaques following the first one placed on “The Curiosity Shop”, better known as Huffkins. 

The plaques will give a brief history of a building or place of interest and each will have a dedicated QR code to enable connection with the Society’s website where an expanded version of the plaque will provide more information on the town as a whole as well as the building or location in question. It is hoped that the plaques will add to the experience enjoyed by our community and visitors to the town. The new plaques will be placed on The Talbot, St Edward’s Hall, The Porch House and at the entrance of the Ture between the Talbot and Stow Pharmacy.
Over the coming months it is planned to add further plaques to more buildings and locations of interest in the town.

Stow Town Walks
These guided walks continue to be popular with locals and visitors alike. In fact we are getting regular requests to undertake private tours for groups which we are happy to do. We now have a small group of 8 Society members operating as guides but we are always on the lookout for anyone who wants to help out either as a guide or a helper. Income from the walks is being used to fund the plaques project. 
Heritage Zone

Following the success of its ‘Pop-Up’ museum event the Society is progressing the idea of setting up a permanent museum in Stow. In order to get things off the ground the Society is trying to set up a heritage zone within St. Edward’s Hall and discussions are underway with Gloucestershire County Council and the Library Services. More news when we are a bit further forward.

Reprinting 'Glimpses of the Past'

‘Glimpses of the Past’ is a Society publication that was first published back in 2000. 20 years on, we have now decided that it is about time it was updated. New articles have been written and the new version is going through editing and checking at the moment. It is hoped to get something published by the autumn.
Flower border at Tesco

Following a ‘Gardeners Question Time’ event held in 2019 the money raised has been allocated to providing bulbs and shrubs to decorate the border just outside of Tesco on the Fosseway. This has now been weeded and planted up by members of the Civic Society’s ‘Hit Squad’ and we are looking forward to seeing the results.
Stow wells

Every couple of years members of the Society spruce up one of the town’s much-loved treasures, the Wells. There are two major tasks to be done during these sessions. The first is to clean out both wells. This is the mucky bit of the job clearing the accumulated filth including stones, bricks, branches, leaves, paving slabs, odd bits of cutlery and coins but, thankfully, no shopping trollies. Once the wells are drained and all the debris has been cleared there is normally a couple of inches of thick smelly sludge at the bottom of the well which has to be removed by the bucket load. The other task for the day is the prickly job of clearing the banks of accumulated brambles, weeds and all manner of things that shouldn’t be there.  A job worth doing and please join in if you can.

Audio memories

In the hope of capturing some memories and stories about life in Stow the Society is investigating the recording of audio memories. This is an ongoing project and if anyone has any interesting stories or you know somebody who could help then please get in contact with us.

Neighbourhood Plan

The Society is providing resources to the Council’s Neighbourhood plan team to help create a Design Statement for Stow.

Society Archives

As you would imagine the Society holds a lot of information about the history of Stow including artefacts, old photos and postcards, letters and a variety of documents. A major project is being planned in line with the Heritage Zone to catalogue all of these archives with a view to making them more accessible.

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