Heritage Places

The Armagh City, Banbridge & Craigavon (ABC) Borough has been selected by The National Lottery Heritage Fund for inclusion in an exciting new Strategic Initiative entitled, Heritage Places. Heritage Places will represent a 10 year commitment to support the protection, enhancement and celebration of heritage as well as exploring the key linkage between heritage and place shaping/placemaking. This forms a key tenet of the Heritage Fund’s new 10 year strategy, Heritage 2033. The key principles in this strategy are:

Saving heritage: conserving and valuing heritage, for now and the future.
Protecting the environment: supporting nature recovery and environmental sustainability.
Inclusion, access, and participation: supporting greater inclusion, diversity, access, and participation in heritage.
Organisational sustainability: strengthening heritage to be adaptive and financially resilient, contributing to communities and economies.

What Is Heritage

Heritage can be defined as tangible, intangible and natural.

TANGIBLE HERITAGE:

Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough have many historic and listed buildings, state monuments, and other assets. We have five Conservation Areas within the Borough: Armagh City, Dromore, Loughgall, Lurgan and Richhill, and sixteen Areas of Townscape Character. These areas are designated as protected as they have buildings of architectural and historic merit – they form our city, townscapes and villages. There are vast discrepancies between the extent to which these assets have been maintained and looked after. Great work has done with the help of The National Heritage Lottery Fund with various schemes, in Richhill, Armagh Townscape Heritage, and Lurgan Townscape Heritage however this is just the start, there are still a considerable amount of important heritage in disrepair and considered at risk.

We have collections of local and national importance held within our museums, and libraries, with key archaeological artefacts and findings with great importance at Navan Fort. The love for archaeology can be seen in other parts of borough at a more recent dig at Kilmocholmóg in Lurgan. We currently have two UNESCO World Heritage bids in progress, and we are working towards the regeneration of Armagh Gaol.

INTANGIBLE HERITAGE:

Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough boasts a vast array of intangible heritage, the things we cannot touch or see; a list that is not exhaustive. They all uniquely contribute to our heritage. This cultural heritage is the array of storytelling, literature, arts and crafts, plays, music, songs, customs, sports, fashions, and ceremonies of this place and most importantly the people. ABC Culture celebrates the artistic and cultural fabric of Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough

NATURAL HERITAGE:

Natural heritage within the Borough is an extensive range of parks, forests, trails, and waterways. We are home to Lough Neagh which is a notable RAMSAR site and an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI), we acknowledge the current challenges it faces regarding blue-green algae and the need to rescue and conserve our natural heritage. There are a great number of other ASSI sites across our Borough that have a significant range of habitats and species. These landscapes, plants, insects and animals need to be protected and preserved for future generations to enjoy.

10 YEAR HERITAGE STRATEGY

At our starting point for Heritage Places, we are delighted to have secured an initial award of £238,798 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to develop a 10 year Heritage Strategy for the ongoing protection, maintenance, and development of the unique heritage across our Borough.

It is vital that as our Borough grows and evolves that a Strategy is in place to preserve, manage, develop, and use heritage as a positive contributor for change. Our Community and Place Plans, in tandem with our emerging Local Development Plan, place people and communities at the linchpin of successful place making.

The proposed 10 Year Heritage Strategy will enable us to develop a fully costed and prioritised plan for investment and enable a sustainable future for our heritage. This will ensure that our diverse heritage and character is protected and enhanced for the enjoyment of both current and future generations.

“Heritage can be anything from the past that people value and want to pass on to future GENERATIONS”

The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Heritage 2033, Our 10 Year Strategy

ONLINE SURVEY
The Heritage Places Survey Autumn 2024 will launch on the 14^th of October 2024 and will run for 8 weeks. We invite the residents of Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough to help us shape this exciting initiative by helping us understand:

What “heritage” means to you?
What do you value most about the Borough?
How engaged with heritage are you?
Would you like to be more involved?
How we can best support heritage projects?

We would really appreciate it if you could take some time to complete this survey. It is a great opportunity for you to provide feedback into our early research and discovery and will give us a better understanding of your views on heritage in our Borough. Please follow the link below.

ENGAGEMENT
Over the next 12 months we will be actively engaging with you – the residents, the communities, groups and various stakeholders to ensure that we encompass all types of heritage and determine their importance in our 10 year heritage strategy.

More details of how you can get involved, and planned engagement sessions will be released in the next few months.