Cultural Heritage Projects

Cultural Heritage Projects

Find out what projects the South Downs National Park Authority is currently supporting to enable better understanding of the rich cultural heritage within the National Park.

Click on the project title below for more details about Cultural Heritage projects we are currently supporting, who we are working with to deliver the projects and how these projects meet the outcomes of our Partnership Management Plan. You can also see where in the National Park these Cultural Heritage projects are on our interactive map (indicated in orange).

For case studies and details of past Cultural Heritage projects, click here. 

• Artist in Residence for Seven Sisters Country Park

  The artist and writer Alinah Azedeh will foster new responses to Seven Sisters and the wider Sussex Heritage Coast; working collaboratively, Alinah will amplify the voices, stories and experiences of diverse groups, exploring a vision for the futures for this landscape from the perspective of nature, climate, heritage, identity and community.
  

  This project is possible thanks to funding from Arts Council England secured by the artist, and thanks to contributions of time and expertise from a range of partners.

  Partners: Writing Our Legacy, New Writing South, ONCA Gallery, A Woman’s Place, Enthum Foundation, UrbanFlo & Blast Theory.
  

  PMP outcomes: 4.1 (Conserve Heritage), 4.2 (Promote Contemporary Arts and Crafts), 5.1 (A National Park for All).

• Seaford Head Archaeology

  Seaford Head sits within an important area of chalk downland, in the South Downs National Park and Sussex Heritage Coast, and is owned and cared for by Seaford Town Council. The site includes a Scheduled Monument, comprising a later Bronze Age or Iron Age hillfort and Bronze Age bowl barrow. Scheduled Monuments are nationally important archaeological sites, protected by legislation and selected based on key principles covering characteristics including rarity, survival, condition and potential.

  The Scheduled Monument at Seaford Head has been subject to successive losses due to progressive coastal erosion, and is now on the Heritage At Risk register. A significant cliff collapse in March 2021 highlighted not only the time-critical nature of the current losses to site, but the potential archaeology that sits both within and outside the current Scheduled area.

  This project will deliver a systematic non-intrusive survey of the site, to better understand its significance and archaeological potential. It will also act as a pilot study exploring how to undertake rapid recording of a site in the time-critical context of coastal erosion (including full cost modelling), creating a replicable approach that could be applied to other sites nationally facing similar threats. The project will also inform future activities at the site to better understand and record its archaeological significance.

  Partners: Historic England, Archaeology South East, Seaford Town Council
  

  PMP outcomes: 4.1 (Conserve Heritage); 4.2 (Promote Contemporary Arts and Crafts)

• Shifting the Gaze – Micro Bursary Scheme

  Working in partnership with Writing Our Legacy, whose aim is to raise awareness of the contributions of Black and ethnically diverse writers, poets, playwrights and authors born, living or connected to Sussex and the South East, the SDNPA is supporting the delivery of 15 micro bursaries to support emerging and established writers to develop new ideas or produce new creative works inspired by the South Downs landscape.

  Bursary recipients will also receive mentoring and advisory support from New Writing South.

  For more information on this project click here.

  Partners: Writing Our Legacy
  

  PMP outcomes:4.1 (Conserve Heritage), 4.2 (Promote Contemporary Arts and Crafts), 5.1 (A National Park for All).

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