Virtual St Stephen’s and Living Heritage
A meeting held at the Palace of Westminster, Tuesday 25 February 2014, at 12.30.
Present: Adrian Brown (chair), Tim Ayers, Claire Batley, Mark Collins, Louise
Hampson, David Prior, Mari Takayanagi, Rob Truelove, Mary Jane Tsang, Melanie
Unwin, et al
1. Virtual St Stephen’s (VSS) and Living Heritage
Data Housing: Living Heritage team is happy to link out to VSS web server, for data.
Structure within Living Heritage: Living Heritage proposed a nested structure for St
Stephen’s pages, to be equivalent to Big Ben and Westminster Hall. Living Heritage
team agreed to adopt the three virtual reconstructions of VSS as headings. There
was discussion of how the writing of content should be distributed.
ACTION: TA to propose nested structure, including headings and possible authorship,
for discussion at Living Heritage’s next quarterly meeting (late April/early May). AB
to propose dates for meeting.
Contextual materials. These could include contents of hotspots in VSS.
Periodization within Living Heritage. There was discussion of how to extend the
content beyond 1941. It was agreed that this would not be a problem (post-war tiles
and stained glass to be incorporated into structure proposal).
Gender and Ethnicity. It was agreed to incorporate a variety of case studies in the
hotspots and/or the structure proposal: suffragettes (C20); Georgiana (C18);
necromancy (C15), Katherine of Aragon (C16), women suppliers in middle ages (C14).
ACTION: TA and others to compile lists of potential hotspots, for discussion with
Living Heritage team.
Hotspots, Aural Components. There was discussion of how best to recruit
parliamentarians to perform debates: descendants of original participants (Spencer
Perceval, or his assassin?); digitization of Sheridan’s speeches (University of Leeds).
ACTION: John Cooper and Paul Seaward?
Aural components to be dda compliant.
ACTION: LH to ensure that there are subititles for all spoken words; and transcripts
of music.
Block Model. It was agreed that this was desirable. How would this work within
Living Heritage? Perhaps make this the timeline?
ACTION: LH and AM to make a recommendation, for TA to include in the proposal.
LH to investigate BBC fly through (Guy Fawkes programme).
Focus Group. It was agreed that the Living Heritage team would act as a focus group
for discussion of VSS, as it develops.
2. News Items. TA and LH offered packages of information from the website and
blog. There are a number of opportunities for placement of these: carousel on LH
home page; commons press office (Anneka); the works of art section; opportunities
to retweet.
ACTION: EB to pursue retweeting. JG to contact press office and works of art section.
3. Exhibition.
ACTION: TA to submit proposal to Westminster Hall Advisory Group (WHAG): contact
Mark Sandford
FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITY
4. Education Opportunities. There was discussion of apps, and limitations on their
use. For this, we would need to contact the Public Engagement team.
5. Augmented Reality (AR). To enhance interpretation of the exterior, for example.
Again, contact Public Engagement Team (Tom O’Leary).
6. English Heritage. DP was pleased that we are talking to them about displaying the
exhibition boards and VSS; the reconstructed ‘clerk’s room’ will not be affected.