As we wrap up our development work and start writing reports, budgets and funding applications; this new film, produced by talented friend of the project Sarah Hayes, is perfectly timed. It serves as a reminder of what the New Standard Works project is all about. In a nutshell…
Thank you everyone for your support.
As the national annual Volunteer’s Week draws to a close, we’d like to say a huge thank you for all the support we have been given as we developed the plans for the Heritage Lottery Fund application over the last few months.
The events are over, and as the project team get stuck into reports and applications, it’s good to reflect on who has been involved!
Special thanks to seven individuals who have given so freely of their time to support the development of the New Standard Works project; in fact, collectively 127 volunteer hours. They have been doing lots of ‘Making’ in the spirit of the Jewellery Quarter; making films, making artistic creations, making art (photography and animation), making conversations and making tea!
We have also been really supported by the staff at Argent College, our community project partners, Marie and Mark Haddleton and Colin Giles. Thank you everyone!
So, this is the project team signing off for a while (below left to right): Ruth Nutter (Interpretation Plan) Janine Christley (Director of Fundraising for Ruskin Mill Trust) and Suzanne Carter (Activity Plan), but we’ll keep you posted on how things are progressing. We plan to submit the HLF application in September.
What a lovely surprise we had this week when Matt Hadlington, a Jewellery Quarter resident who came on a tour of the factory during our public open day, got in touch to say that he had named his album, New Standard Works. The first track Silent Heart references the Jewellery Quarter, the New Standard Works and buildings like it in the area.
You should definitely take a listen. It’s really rather good. Lyrics below album cover image.
Matt came back a couple of weeks later to film a music video from the ground and top floor. Watch the videos here!
We have been so amazed by how this wonderful building inspires such creativity. Thank you so much for sharing Matt. A ‘fun project’, as Matt describes it, but we’d love to see you perform in the factory one day with a full band – perhaps the opening!
The quiet creak of floorboards
Of feet on metal treads
When I wake up, it’s early
And you, sleep through again
Our history is surrounded, by bricks and walls and foundrys
Slowly falling down.
It’s cold and bright, a smell of smoke
Loved ones ghostly silence
Echo’s round, and round, and round
The gaslights glow through curtains
I can’t sleep here again.
The places I grew up in,
Call me back to them.
(The streets are full of people future falling)
A silent heart, beats in time with places built to never last.
Just a few metres away from New Standard Works is the magnificent School of Jewellery. We were approached and asked if we were able to host their ‘Enamelled Mechanical Marvels’ exhibition in the factory as they had no space available. Of course, happy to help… that’s what neighbours do!
It’s wonderful that in a short space of time Ruskin Mill Trust (Argent College) and Birmingham City University (School of Jewellery) have started to foster a wonderful working partnership. One of the projects we hope to be able to work on together next year is with first year students. They will use the historic designs and products made within the factory, and the architecture to inspire their creations, culminating in a fashion show in the basement.
Over fifty people came to the exhibition and enjoyed the atmospheric venue as well as the students’ work. Sian Hindle, who organised the event for SoJ said;
“hopefully this will help to create further opportunities for both your students and ours in the future. We would like to thank you all for your support in making it happen”.
We couldn’t agree more. Thanks for the chairs the SoJ donated to the College by the way!
Below is the brochure for the exhibition for more information.
Congratulations to the students on their work.
If you were asked to describe what is made in the Jewellery Quarter, the obvious answer is of course Jewellery! But how many children know what else was, and is, made in the city which was nicknamed ‘the city of 1000 trades’?
We decided to find this out with children from St Edmunds R.C. Primary School in Springhill, Ladywood as part of a project which included a classroom session, an action-packed facilitated visit to the factory, and teacher-led work back in school over the following six weeks, inspired by what they have seen and learnt.
This was the second mini project we have done with a school as part of the development of the Heritage Lottery Fund Activity Plan. You can read all about the Nelson Primary School visit to the New Standard Works (blog) and the Busy Bees art project (blog) in previous posts.
On 13 May we decided to test a different approach to working with schools and started with a classroom session with the year 6 children; asking them to become history detectives using the loan box resources that were developed by our Activity Plan Consultant Suzanne with a volunteer at the Coffin Works, and a colleague from English Heritage a few years ago. These ‘mystery industry’ boxes are a really good starting point for investigating and discussing the important question… what other industries, besides Jewellery, was the JQ famed for?
The children worked in groups, examining a selection of objects, extracts and photographs; answering questions about them in order to work out that the ‘mystery’ trades or factories featured in the boxes (on loan from the museums) are in fact coffin furniture (Newman Brothers), steel pens (Pen Museum) and silverware (JW Evans). Below are the contents of the ‘mystery boxes’.
The second part of the project was a visit to the New Standard Works on 16 May. Having learnt a few lessons from the Nelson Primary trip we decided to keep the class in one place and do a range of different activities at the factory rather than combining a visit with another museum, or a walking tour of the area. This allowed the children more time to complete each exercise and longer exploring the factory and finding out about its future plans.
The children were challenged to be building history detectives, searching for shadows of the past in the architecture, examining documents and adverts, and gathering clues as to which businesses operated from the factory in 1884. They also had a go at designing their own hallmark and understanding the role of the Assay Office.
We asked them to write down any questions they had about the factory; what do they want to know about the building and its history? Their questions included:
These will feed into planning any future educational sessions.
The children also added their own ideas for the future of the building to the honeycomb wall – including a couple of comments about needing to buy air fresheners for the basement!
We are going to be invited back into the school to see the children’s project work, inspired by their visit, at the end of the Summer term.
On 21 April New Standard Works hosted a ‘Blue Sky Thinking’ event about how museums in the Jewellery Quarter and heritage projects in the area might improve access to heritage for people who are Deaf, Disabled and on the Autistic Spectrum. We brought together 25 attendees, representing a great mix of organisations or projects from the heritage and disability worlds as well as individuals with expertise and determination to support initiatives which improve accessibility in the city.
We started looking at the challenges for the area, and these comments were really poignant…
“The Jewellery Quarter is a no-go area for the Disabled community.”
“I had to drive up yesterday and plan where I was going to park and what the paths were like before I came today.”
“Allow me to explore by myself, like everyone else.”
“There is a lack of BSL translation in social media or various websites. Deaf people do not want to go through pages of pages of text. BSL video is much quicker and a shorter time to spend using the website. This would encourage Deaf customers to visit the JQ.”
While the workshop was a starting point to explore the development of a separate collaborative access to heritage project in the future, one of the main focusses at the event was to help Ruskin Mill Trust develop its plans for access at the factory. As a blank canvas there is the opportunity to get access right first time! In fact, by the end of the workshop we were thinking about how we would aim to make the New Standard Works THE most accessible heritage ‘venue’ in Birmingham and the ‘epicentre’ for the area; the project team came away inspired for the New Standard Works to set a new standard in access to heritage!
It was a fantastic event and Tony and Sarah from Access Birmingham wrote a really encouraging blog after the event which you can read HERE.
In this post, we’d like to share what we have learnt which may inspire other venues to think differently about access. The advice and suggestions given are informing the Interpretation Plan, Activity Plan, and the architectural designs for the New Standard Works building.
So, how do we make New Standard Works as accessible as possible from day one?
Visual, interactive, pictures for children
Positive attitudes – encourage people to come
Information – accurate and full
People are welcomed to be themselves
Physical level access, loop systems lighting, good wayfinding
“Allow me to explore independently”
Changing Places toilet (with hoist) Only 2 in the whole of Birmingham – JQ will become a magnet
Disabled WC
Think about the colour scheme – contracting on doorways etc
Think about lighting – not florescent as it could trigger a sensory reaction for some
Better to have one main entrance for everyone so you are not creating a two-tiered entrance
Sensory trails in the building
Virtual tours using sphere share
How do you enhance the experience for Visually Impaired people?
Think about accessible events and programming them across the JQ rather than being in competition to each other. There could be something similar to ‘First Friday’ in Digbeth each month with a rotating venue.
Deaf-led tours, with Deaf volunteers
BSL tours via use of app
Can all staff have basic BSL level 1 – just to answer basic queries e.g. toilets, directions, especially reception staff
Need to be able to go whenever you want, same as everyone else.
Set times or dates for BSL interpreted tours not popular. Equality. Flexibility and choice.
Offer work experience to deaf people in venues, develop self-confidence, as well as benefiting deaf visitors.
Birmingham Rep consult on publicity each year – is it accessible? OK but much better is deaf lead programme and publicity – inclusion more important than access.
Think beyond deaf – dual sensor loss. e.g. usher syndrome. Use lighting on flow as guidelines to follow round exhibits.
If there’s an entrance from Vittoria St into cafe, set it back into building (take floor back) so that ramp is possible. If this does not have wheel chair access, side entrance will be seen as ‘secondary’ not main entrance, as Vittoria St is the one most publicly visible, busiest street.
Request for ‘closed off’ areas, autistic friendly – in cafe, at far end? (Adam). Could this be created in snug / heritage lounge as well as / or in cafe?
Think of lighting of spaces generally as well as creative for exhibits / displays.
Really keen that the Standard Works is FULLY accessible, with access from street level
Volunteers/staff working at NSW are going to need key skills – there could be a pool of volunteers with access skills and abilities/disabilities
Video access/flashing lights for safety
Train staff across the JQ so there is a uniformity of experience, and people have the confidence that there is going to be that good experience elsewhere.
People from different groups should be involved at the beginning, including different people from different neurotypes
Advertise what there is – targeted marketing
How do things connect to the rest of the Jewellery Quarter – have to think wider than one building.
Interactive and different formats
Provide detailed information for people to pre-plan visits: Location; Distance; Transport options; Noise levels and loops; Pavements – what is the journey to the venue like? Parking; Do you have quiet times? Guide dog facilities? Lifts? Carer concessions?
Visuals / Photos – to help people with anxiety and children to understand where they are going
Use an obvious ‘Access info’ button on home page of website. Big, easy to see button
Under ‘access’ button give options for contacting – e.g. type talk. want to be able to make contact immediately – online chat takes too long, not popular
All agreed being able to see BSL video to give programme info etc was ideal. Want to see programme etc as easily as everyone else
Would like to see deaf person signing the info ideally, not a hearing person
It’s possible to communicate instantly with venues using online video chat service – some agencies run these relay services, so when you make a query, you get a live video response instantly.
During this project we wanted to create a visual display which shows our potential funders that we have generated not only a lot of interest, but also support, for the project.
We’ve said before how inspired the rooftop bees idea has made us (and lots of the people we have spoken to!), so we’ve produced our own honeycomb wall!
This represents just over half of the estimated 480 people that have been to physically visit the building since we started working on the Heritage Lottery Fund 2nd stage application in February.
We have engaged with approximately 1770 people in total if you count everyone who has come to an event we have run in the community (blog), face to face meetings, or through survey work carried out by UCB Students (blog).
Here are a selection of the comments made by the general public and local residents. See how far you get down the list before you get the overall picture…
The New Standard Works should be given project money because their work is caring for the community bringing people together; helping to save the history of Birmingham
New life in the Jewellery Quarter. Young people bringing creativity and BUZZ!
A worthwhile project, much needed space in the city
Great open space. Would be fantastic to maintain Victorian features
Beautiful building: can’t wait to see it brought back to life
Fabulous building! So pleased it’s having a new lease of life. Well done everyone
Save our heritage for the next generation
Be the future of the jewellery Quarter
Nothing ‘standard’ about the plans for this building! Absolutely inspiring!
Incredible potential. They sky is the limit – good luck!
Amazing venue – I’m sure you’ll have lots of success
A beautiful building. Thanks for keeping it alive!
A fantastic opportunity. A much needed addition to the Jewellery Quarter bringing the community together where there is a rapidly growing new community.
Can’t wait to enjoy the bakery and rooftop garden (and bee colony)
Good luck with your funding. It would be amazing to see it finished!
Amazing atmospheric venue. Look forward to it being used.
Lovely spaces. Great History and now a future! Create!
This building will cause a BUZZ
Nice features retained from industrial past
Great venue. Wishing New Standard Works a very happy sustainable future
Fantastic place, full of character and history. Loads of potential!
Such as fantastic space! Can’t wait to see the transformation. Good luck
Great ideas. Very inspired. Good luck
A building with such character and sense of history!
Brum has many secrets. Let’s bring them out and show the world.
So great this building will live again!
A fantastic piece of industrial history – looking forward to its restoration
The building is singing with possibility! Happy to see it being used
A great multi-faceted project combining our rich history with modern life. Great for the local community
This is the best future possible to conserve an amazing space and help turn it into useable space!!
Fantastic project. We’d love to help. Roof top garden is inspired
FABULOUS! The Quarter is desperate for a place/space like this!! Inspiring on many levels
A fantastic way of combining education with heritage and community
Great chance to preserve local history
We can not wait until this building is completed
What an incredible space! Look forward to seeing it grow and give the JQ the community space it needs
Nice to have this building in use and serving local community too!
Lovely to see an old building being restored in an exciting way.
A wonderful space with lots of history in its cracks and creases. Enjoy smoothing them out!
Breathe new life into me!
Fabulous building! Terrific community outreach ideas and great enthusiasm keeping the Quarter alive
I will definitely come back when it has been refurbished! Good luck!
A great space that brings / will bring life to the heart of the community.
This building should be allowed to grow and live as it is the embodiment of exactly what is special about the JQ! Fund it!
This project has the potential to transform the dynamic of the Jewellery Quarter. Can’t wait to see it flourish!
I’d love to see New Standard Works’ history come to life again!
An excellent enterprise – a useful space for the local community to enjoy too!
This building is fascinating. This should be saved and a lot of other buildings like this.
I am so excited about the potential of this space, this project and the young people who will work here. I will be back to use the space and taste the goods!
Just what Hockley/Birmingham needs. More please!
I have been so inspired from today. I really cannot wait to this this start. Refreshing!
Great that these buildings will be used in a creative way and not just sold for unimaginative residential properties.
Share culture, share history, share food, share love – everything in one place – Awesome!
New Standard Works are doing great work in making positive contribution to the society
Love, love, love seeing our local historic buildings back to life. Fully supportive!
On 7 May we invited the general public into the New Standard Works; promoting it as a rare opportunity to explore a grade II listed Victorian Jewellery Manufactury.
97 people, including 9 children, joined us for the experience which included a tour of the three empty floors by Janine, historical background and a discussion about future interpretation by Ruth, and a chance to comment on the plans.
This lively film produced by Sarah Hayes using images taken by photographer Anne-Marie Hayes really sums up the spirit of the day! A huge thank you to the dynamic heritage Hayes twins for volunteering their creative skills for the project.
Just under a third of our visitors travelled less than a mile to see us, and 45% of people were visiting the area for the day from across Birmingham. It was wonderful to see a few people that we had met at the Ladywood Community Day the month before.
Ruth Nutter, our Interpretation Planner for the project, took the opportunity to test out some interpretative heritage themes, ideas and interactives with visitors.
and in the basement… the talented Annette was showing a spectacular light projection to test how another type of interpretative approach would work well in the building. See Blog HERE.
For the children we also piloted some ‘treasure hunt’ activities during the tour including the Joseph Smith Collection Trail (last silverware manufactury) and a ‘Spot the…architectural details’ as a way to help them look closer at the building.
These were Christine, Sarah, Anne-Marie, Annette and Paula (left to right). Lovely ladies whom we were very lucky to have supporting the event and helping to create such an enthusiastic and positive atmosphere.
Thanks also to the fabulous Jo from Argent College for giving everyone such a warm welcome.
Here is the poster for the event, just to keep everything in one place!
The New Standard Works has welcomed a wide range of people in through the doors as part of our engagement and consultation process in developing funding applications to the Big Lottery and Heritage Lottery. In April and May we have hosted two events aimed at people living and working in the Jewellery Quarter; to gather feedback, ideas and support for the project, and also to give people living and working locally a feel for the future when the factory, which had stood empty for over 20 years, is brought back into use.
If the project gets the funding it requires to make change happen, it will be a community facility right on the doorstep, welcoming local people back in again and again…as customers, visitors and (we hope) volunteers!
A murder mystery evening with Fizzog Productions, preceded by an informal and fast-paced networking opportunity for JQ business people and residents was our first event; held on the evening of 14 April. This was organised and subsidised by the JQBID.
What an appropriate and atmospheric venue the NSW provided for the drama and intrigue.
This was the first evening event held in the building and it gave us a flavour of what the cafe might feel like as people enjoyed their food supplied by the Eight Foot Grocer and drinks provided by the Coffin Works’ portable bar. It also gave us a taste of running a night time soiree in the building. Both felt amazingly historic and industrial and we all agreed; that needs to be retained as part of the cafe’s USP moving forward.
An excellent evening with a real ‘buzz’ about it! Being told stories in the safe by candlelight went down really well.
Our second event was to host the JQNF open meeting and AGM on 17 May. We led 50 local residents on a tour of the building; sharing ideas and plans, especially in relation to the ‘heritage lounge’ and gathering feedback and messages of support. It was great to see that almost half of the group had been following progress on the building over the last couple of years.
To have the backing and excitement of this group of residents is really important; as with all resident forums, the role of the group would be to speak loudly if they didn’t like something happening in the area! We were really encouraged by all the positive things they had to say.
Thank you to all the local people who attended these events and also to the 134 residents who were surveyed by University College Birmingham students as part of their module of work supporting us. The subject of a future post.
Throughout all our events, the staff at Argent College on the first floor have been brilliant, looking after us, staying late and coming in at the weekend to help if needed. We involved the staff and students in a focus group, led by Ruth. This is the subject of our next blog.
Over the past few months, since the 15 February, to be precise, we have been working in partnership with University College Birmingham, based in the Jewellery Quarter, on their applied marketing module; the Ruskin Mill Land Trust being the client, and three different business enterprise streams at the New Standard Works being the focus of attention.
Having worked with Sian and Jeff (lecturers) before on other modules of work in the area; Suzanne approached the college to see if they could help with market research to support the fundraising efforts of the RMLT; in return we offered a ‘live’ project in which students could hone their newly acquired skills, and have a real experience of surveys, data analysis, recommendations and clients; a win win situation! We were delighted when we ended up working with 70 students on the project, and a huge thank you to Gillian, Faiza (also lecturers), Sian and Jeff, and all the students for supporting us on this project.
Back in February, Janine, RMLT’s Director of Fundraising, and Suzanne, Activity Plan Consultant, briefed the students on the project, and gave them a tour of the factory. That was week 2 of their module. The students worked in groups over the next 14 weeks, collecting and using their own research, to come up with some fantastic recommendations around the future cafe, commercial facilities to hire, the visitor centre/heritage lounge and programme of history and heritage-related activities. In week 16, Janine and Suzanne were back at UCB watching the student presentations, pleased with the understanding and knowledge gained by many of the groups. We were particularly impressed by one group, who not only did their survey work, but also held two focus groups; one with the JQBID Ambassadors, the other with students from the School of Jewellery, and even mocked up a menu for the cafe – called The Hive! Great stuff.
Collectively the students carried out survey work with almost 1000 people, and have shared the raw data with the project team so we can also crunch our own data with a much bigger sample size than we could have hoped to gather on our own.
We’re not going to bore you with statistics and graphs, but the students have gathered such useful information, we just wanted to emphasise the point!
One of the questions we asked students to include in all the surveys was about which buildings in the JQ were the most iconic. We wanted this information to feed into our Interpretation Planning. The 16 choices we gave were:
The clear leader was the Chamberlain Clock (no. 7) in the very heart of the Jewellery Quarter; when giving reasons about their choice, the most common reasons people gave were: that it stands out, is representative, is beautiful, is noticeable and has become a symbol for the area.
There was a very astute comment from one group; if this is the most iconic feature of the JQ then there should be information about its history in the ‘heritage lounge’, as visitors to the area are bound to ask about it! Noted. The JQ’s own Marie Haddleton has already kindly donated a large picture of the Chamberlain Clock for the Heritage Lounge, so we are part way there!
It is difficult to evaluate changes in perception of an area over time. The Jewellery Quarter is going through an exciting period of transformation; rejuvenation and regeneration. New business are moving into the quarter each month, new planning application are under scrutiny weekly and dereliction is visibly being tackled in Legge Lane as we speak. Many more of the empty industrial buildings will find new uses though HLF-funded schemes such as this (if successful) and the Townscape Heritage Project (pending start date) in the next few years.
To help us track change over time students asked those they surveyed to describe the Jewellery Quarter in three words. OK, so not robust or scientific, in any shape or form, especially because the same people most likely won’t have been asked during both surveys, but can you spot a difference in these two word clouds below (the larger the word, the more times it was mentioned)?
The first was created using data from UCB survey work in 2014, around two years ago and using the same methodology as the current survey work.
The same words remain prevalent; old, historic, interesting, quiet, boring – but in the 2016 wordcloud the ‘industrial’, ‘rundown’ and ’empty’ are no longer visible; replaced with ‘busy’, ‘nice’, ‘shopping’, beautiful, ‘expensive’ and ‘unique’ as more frequently used words.
I wonder if in two years time it will be a slightly different picture again…
We did our own little bit of survey work with the students (68 responses) to see what they gained from working on the project:
We will be keeping in touch with the students and welcoming them back to the building when work is underway on the next phase of refurbishment.
Suzanne will also be following up with 47% of the students who left their email address to find out about volunteering opportunities on heritage projects in the JQ that they might get involved with. Another great result.
