Lottery grant to aid learning about Kilsyth's woodlands

Wildside Adventures Ltd is delighted to announce receipt of a National Lottery Heritage grant of £49,200 for the Kilsyth Village Workshop Heritage Project.
The Village Workshop is being created thanks to a grant from the National LotteryThe Village Workshop is being created thanks to a grant from the National Lottery
The Village Workshop is being created thanks to a grant from the National Lottery

Thanks to National Lottery players, local people will be able to work with woodland and green woodwork specialists to create a resource and training facility – the “Village Workshop” – for the wider community.

Participants including young people from Cumbernauld College and Kilsyth Kids Club, will learn a wide range of green woodworking skills, from the traditional to the specialist, and learn about the lives of wood colliers and charcoal burners once busy in our woodlands.

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Under the #historyinthemaking hashtag, the volunteers will plan their own creative multimedia exhibitions in which they will connect with core local histories and promote them in their own voices.

A programme of events, song writing, storytelling and blogging/vlogging will be among the creative vehicles for the volunteers to convey their unique experience of building the Village Workshop (including working with heavy horses to move timbers!) and to inform local people that this new resource can be booked for their own activities.

Volunteers will have a chance to design and build traditional furnishings and resources of their choice to exhibit these rare skills and can choose from a range of themes including “Using Music to Communicate Heritage” and “Sustainability and Traditional Working Practices in Woodlands”.

Finally, the volunteers will organise and stage a Woodland Heritage Event on completion of the build programme, during which they will be able to showcase their skills, launch the film and perform traditional working songs along with the project’s in-house music specialist and rapper “Crpntr”.

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Wildside Adventures is committed to helping the volunteers develop a sense of personal empowerment as well as an increased connectedness to nature and woodland through this project.

They will meet and connect with a wide variety of community participants, which we hope will strengthen the sense of community in the local area.

Judi Legg, CEO of Wildside Adventures, said: “We are so excited to have received this award, and that more young and local people will be able to join us at the Kilsyth Woodland Centre and get involved in a very practical way with the dynamic history of Scotland’s Woodlands.

“Many, many thanks to Heritage Lottery Fund and everyone who has contributed. If local people want to get involved please do get in touch by calling 07926 169765, emailing [email protected] or judi @wildside.scot.

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Lucy Casot, head of HLF Scotland, added: “Kilsyth Village Workshop Initiative: #historyinthemaking is a great project as it shows clearly how local heritage can be a catalyst for lots of different activities.

“HLF is pleased to support Wildside Adventures Ltd in its plans to engage children and young people in the natural heritage on their own doorstep, and thanks to National Lottery players, enable the participants to learn about their natural environment.”