The story of Love Oswestry  

Can people fall in love with their history and heritage in today’s world? Oswestry, a historic market town on the English-Welsh Border may have found some answers. 

Oswestry’s “Cultural Consortium” invented a winter festival for 2021 simply called Love Oswestry. Love Oswestry, grew from Historic England’s programme about places using heritage and culture to engage people and businesses, with a cultural programme as a key element.

Emerging from covid lockdowns in 2021, Love Oswestry starting in driving rain on a bleak February Saturday. Miraculously, the rain cleared for our now famous lantern parade. Last month saw our 4th edition. Growing bigger and better every year with hundreds of people taking part and learning more about the inspiring and surprising history of their town.

We’ve also developed the Love Oswestry brand to become a focus for event and place marketing in the town. And we introduced a “summer of art” programme which leads us into the Heritage Open days period. Artist’s residencies, drama workshops, art on the streets and much more have grown out of our original ideas. We’ve also involved our new communities from Bulgaria and Ukraine.

Recognition has followed. Oswestry’s tourism ambassadors have received a King’s award – royal approval is always welcome! And our town is seen as being amongst the top 10 market towns in England.

We are keen learn from Europe, to build on what we have achieved. Some of our projects have been inspired by European examples, for example the cultural impact smaller and more rural places can have and the special nature of border towns like us. 

We also want to share our story with Europe. Showing how we engaged young people who have truly engaged with the tales of the town and are really Loving Oswestry.

Love Oswestry developed out of a “High Street Heritage Action Zone (HSHAZ)” funded by Historic England. This aimed to revitalise historic places, using their heritage in ways that engage local people and local business. A cultural programme was a key element, arranged by a “Cultural Consortium” which each HSHAZ needed to establish. But this wasn’t easy as the programme took place during the covid pandemic.

In Oswestry, in the gaps between lockdowns, its Cultural Consortium asked local people (through a stall set up in the town’s weekly market) what they would like to see in the town.This resulted in 3 wishes!

• Creating a specific and all-embracing event for the town to celebrate its culture and heritage. That idea grew into our first ever Love Oswestry programme.
• A new approach to communications. Both for social media and exciting ways of refreshing more traditional forms – such as community noticeboards, information points in the town. People want to know what’s going on and when.
• Building a better cultural system. Practical capacity building for members of the Cultural Consortium, allowing them to work together, learning by doing through the creation of an event to promote the town’s heritage. Better and stronger programming.

Where did it all go right? Love Oswestry 2021 involved Oswestry’s Library, Museum, Heritage Railway, Tourism Information Office, local business, performers, story tellers and history groups. It successfully linked today's urban community to their ancient past. Local cultural organisation Designs in Mind coordinated a beautiful Lantern Parade, led by young people, as part of a spectacular festival finale. In spite of the weather and very considerable logistical issues, more than 500 people took part in activities or events. 

The confidence that successful event gave us, together with the things we learnt, gave us a strong platform on which to build. Since 2022, Love Oswestry has grown into a year-round programme. We introduced a “summer of art” programme which is inspired by the annual theme of the September Heritage Open days programme. Artist’s residencies, drama workshops, art on the streets and much more have grown out of our original festival. Love Oswestry has also become a kind of pied piper for artists, gathering new people to join us and find a platform for their ideas to flourish. 

Pam brought drama workshops for young people, inspired by her contacts from RSC in Stratford who helped co-create performances which tell the stories of the town. Young people taking part enthusiastically gobbled up the stories of Oswestry’s history. Mark from the Town Museum has spoken spoke movingly about Gilbert and Gordon and the world’s largest collection of gay love letters. Holly, a young artist, worked with us to bring ARTefact alive – a dynamic artist in residence programme. It involved the town museum and archives to show Oswestry’s history and present though its people and its places. Joseph joined our group. His portrait of Oswestry’s lovely traffic warden “Car Park Jackie” takes pride of place at the Town Hall. Joseph now shares his creativity in town through the pOSibility machine - a pop-up arts studio, and also through the recent Villages project where different artists tell the tales of 5 surrounding villages. And Paul has brought the town’s Memorial Hall back to life as a vibrant creative hub, also sharing the culture of our new communities from Bulgaria and Ukraine. 

What does success look like? 

Love Oswestry Festival has grown each year as the group becomes more confident. They source high quality deliverers to provide workshops, activities, and experiences for all ages from young people to adults. Numbers have steadily grown each year and this year over 3,000 people took part or came to see the fun. The artists and performers love it too. 

Another key and successful feature that has served us well has been a full evaluation after each major event. This has then fed into the design of the following year’s activity – for example focussing on missing audiences or underrepresented genres. And, talking to local people who attend the events, we have been given really good ideas about the type of events which people think would be popular or are missing.

Organisationally, from a core of 10 people, we now have around 30 passionate Oswestry creatives and heritage enthusiasts joining our regular “cultural gatherings” We have also reduced the average age of members, bringing in talented and dynamic cultural professionals in their 30s and 40s who have also given our more senior members a creativity boost! 

We’ve also developed the Love Oswestry brand to become a focus for event and place marketing in the town, supporting the marketing of the September Heritage Open Days (HODs) programme. 

We think that our Oswestry story demonstrates some key things around people, places and heritage - 

• that given the chance, people really appreciate learning more about the history of the place they live in
• the importance of creating positive narratives about connections between past and present to encourage a stronger sense of connection
• that young people are very open to their heritage if given imaginative opportunities to learn
• that rural areas and smaller towns can develop amazing heritage and cultural projects if given the support and they can often have a greater visibility then in much larger cities.

Oswestry’s is now seen as being amongst the top 10 market towns in England. And our tourism ambassadors have received a King’s award. So, we have royal approval!  This year, we are connecting to the Heritage Open Days theme of Architecture : reshaping the cultural architecture of a historic town.

But maybe the last word should go to a young mum who talked about one of our storytelling sessions in the library. In the context of young people with lower literacy levels: “Fiona was able to shape the story to them, and ultimately give them a positive, live, storytelling experience that they had probably never had before.”

That’s why we are keen to share our story and continue to grow it. And why we Love Oswestry. 

Our European Dimension is about 2 things. Sharing and learning. What can we learn and what can we share.

We are delighted to share our methodology and experience with places like us that are passionate about heritage and creativity. How we can make heritage and culture more dynamic and relevant in a difficult modern world where institutions and history can be under attack. We want to share the experience of Love Oswestry in creating the kind of positive narrative that in today’s Europe we seem to be struggling to find. This can give people a stronger sense of trust in the place they live in and the people they meet. We also believe we have some good examples of how to engage more diverse audiences and to support those who have found it difficult to access events.

In terms of learning, we know that there is much to learn from Europe. Already we have been inspired by a project from Holland (The Tower: Leeuwarden 2008) to create our villages project. And, as a border town, we are also inspired by the story of GO Borderless, the Slovenian/Italian European Capital of Culture for 2025 which is exploring some exciting but also challenging aspects of cross border history. Also in mainland Europe, there is sometimes a greater appreciation of the role of smaller towns and cities as drivers of culture and heritage. Smaller places can often be more successful in making things happen more quickly and with greater visibility.

If we succeed in gaining support to build on our current model, we are keen to develop the idea of a “House of Culture” which we have seen versions of in various places in Europe. A creative hub for artists, and a place of discovery and magic for people in the town.