Historic England launches ‘High Street Tales’ podcast

Historic England has launched a podcast series called ‘High Street Tales’ as part of a new cultural programme.

The £7.4m cultural programme is part of the £95m High Streets Heritage Action Zones initiative, which is currently working across 68 English high streets.

Alongside the national cultural programme, the 68 High Streets Heritage Action Zones will each receive substantial grants from Historic England for their ‘cultural consortia’ of local arts organisations to curate and create locally-developed cultural offerings for their high streets over the coming three years.

As part of the programme, eight contemporary writers have worked with their local communities to explore the everyday magic of high streets, creating seven new short stories, or ‘High Street Tales’.

The tales have been published as an ebook which features an introduction by writer Andy Miller (author of ‘The Year of Reading Books Dangerously’), and is available via the Historic England website.

The stories draw on local legend and memory to capture the everyday magic of the high street.

The eight writers have also narrated each of their stories for a podcast series which will be released over the coming weeks, with the first episode launched today.

A preview trailer of ‘Future of the High Street’; a series of 10 new films organised by a range of major regional UK arts organisations and created by contemporary filmmakers in collaboration with young creatives has also been released.

https://youtu.be/7wPhu-lB1LM

‘Our historic high streets sit at the heart of our communities and form an important part of our local identity,’ said heritage minister, Nigel Huddleston.

‘I am pleased that the cultural programme, starting with this exciting “High Street Tales” project, will play a part in bringing our high streets to life, encouraging people to reconnect with the heritage we have on our doorsteps as we look to build back better from the pandemic.’

Responding to the announcement of the programme, the chair of the Local Government Association’s culture, tourism and sport board, Cllr Gerald Vernon-Jackson said: ‘This funding is positive and will help to support the revitalisation of our high streets as part of our national recovery from Covid-19.

‘This is an exciting programme that will celebrate the role and importance of high streets in our towns and encourage residents to love where they live.’

Photo Credit – PIX1861 (Pixabay)