DECEMBER 2007
It has taken just two years for volunteers working on the Stories from the Stones project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and Worcestershire County Council, to create a unique series of interrelated visitor activities for the Teme Valley in Worcestershire.

Visitors who follow the More to Explore in the Teme Valley "Food and Heritage Trail" will be directed to farm shops and food outlets between Worcester and Tenbury Wells.  An audio commentary, the Stories from the Stones Car Journey, which accompanies the trail, traces the story of this beautiful and largely undiscovered agricultural area. It breaks the route into easy stages with stops at viewpoints and parish churches and includes oral history memories and interviews with local people about the area today.

Visitors are invited to go inside the churches and switch on the Stories from the Stones Listening Posts to to unlock the story of the local parish and its church in sound. Churches with listening posts can be found in the parishes of Cotheridge, Broadwas, Martley, Shelsley Walsh, Stockton-on-Teme and Lindridge.  Entry is free but donations are welcome.

Short circular Parish Heritage Walks, again with audio commentaries, take the local story out from the church into the local area. Families can become Heritage Detectives and attempt a Parish Heritage Quest along the way.  If they succeed they will be eligible to become Heritage Knights. School children from Broadwas, Martley and Lindridge Primary Schools were created the first Teme Valley Heritage Knights in a costumed ceremony in Worcester Cathedral last summer.

The Go West Teme Valley Project which manages the Stories from the Stones programme is rooted in the Chaplaincy for Agriculture and Rural Life, an ecumenical charity, covering the Diocese of Worcester.  The Chaplain, the Reverend Robert Barlow, who is also the project Chairman, said recently:

"Anyone interested can follow our ongoing progress through the project web site where walks and quest as pdfs, audio commentaries as mp3s plus ongoing research will be published. Stories from the Stones was set up as a pilot : we set out to see if we could uncover and use the long history of church and countryside and the heritage of our church buildings, many of which date from Norman times, to contribute to the well-being of  the countryside at a time of great social and economic change."

" It has been an amazing journey, so many people have come forward to help: local people, school children and their teachers, university staff and students, they have all contributed their skills and experience.  It is not over yet. This is just  the end of the beginning, now we have to make it work for visitors and build on the experiences we have been collecting."