Washburn Heritage and Community Centre
Building on heritage, sense of place and creation of collaborative community space is at the core of our priorities.
Washburn is a really interesting project for LEADER and a good one as it had been exceptionally well planned and researched by the local community. We are now the second largest funder in this project next to Heritage Lottery Fund.
At the back of the church there is now a large area cleared for the heritage/community centre that will join with the church. What was involved was the first excavation of a post medieval churchyard in the UK, which in the words of the community leading on this project was a minefield of a process to go through. There were 13 marked graves and they expected about 40 unmarked burials – what they actually found was 160 burials.
The project build starts in April. The centre will employ 3 people, it offers a franchised tea room, and the only appropriately equipped public building in Fewston village. It will be a venue and focus for a range of community and learning activities providing a centre for information, learning, exhibitions, concerts and community activities. It will have a partially green roof offering water retention and will encourage wildlife and ecology. An air source heat pump will provide the heating for the centre.
It has created real working relationships between the Washburn Valley villages. One of the really positive outcomes of the development of the project so far has been the way people from the different villages have worked together to progress aspects of the initiative and raise the required funds. To ensure the mutual co-operation wasn’t lost the Washburn Society was formed in October 2009 and there are already plans that the already well established Fewston Village Day will be expanded to become the Washburn Valley Festival.
