Project wins Heritage Lottery Fund support

Waterlooville Community Forum, in partnership with The Spring Arts & Heritage Centre, have received £44,400 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for an exciting project,: ’Waterloo to Waterlooville 200 years in Waterlooville.’

Led by volunteers from the local community and supported by staff from The Spring Arts & Heritage Centre, Hampshire Libraries and Havant Borough Council, the project focuses on researching and recording the heritage of Waterlooville over the last 200 years, sharing and celebrating it with the wider community.

Waterlooville is so named because soldiers returning from the Battle of Waterloo stopped there at an inn on a crossroads, which was renamed The Heroes of Waterloo. The Waterloo Bicentenary offers an ideal opportunity to mark 200 years of Waterlooville, engage the interest of local people and chart the development and history of Waterlooville from 1815 to 2015. Children and adults will learn about the history of their town by researching and recording it in a number of ways, Waterlooville 200using the resources available at The Spring Arts & Heritage Centre and Waterlooville Library to produce a lasting legacy in the form of: a time-line pop-up banner exhibition for display in public and community spaces, and for use by schools and groups in the future to learn about their town's history; a town trail documenting the development of shops and business in the town, guiding more people into more areas of the town. There will be commemorative mugs for Waterlooville school children and the opportunity to design a town flag to reflect the town's history and promote a civic identity.

There will be plenty of opportunity for local people to get involved with the project, volunteering to help with researching and recording the history, creating artwork for the time-line and trail, promoting and publicising events, manning information points, helping with administrative tasks and supporting others at workshops and activities. Saturday June 20 will be a day of celebration in the town with a whole host of events and activities celebrating Waterlooville and commemorating Waterloo, including costumed volunteer soldiers recreating the return from Waterloo and a specially commissioned open air theatre production based on the history of Waterlooville. During the two weeks leading up to this, there will be a series of talks and events at Waterlooville Library and The Spring Arts & Heritage Centre, commemorating Waterloo and celebrating Waterlooville, culminating on Sunday June 21 with Waterlooville churches coming together for In Praise of Waterlooville, a songs of praise style event, open to all.

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