Oliver Cromwell's House, Ely
Visitor attraction within Cromwell's historic family home
We are extremely grateful to the Maltings for the creative and inspiring design concept they have developed with us.
Tracey Harding
(Manager - Oliver Cromwell's House Visitor Attraction)
Oliver Cromwell's House is the historic family home of the Cromwell family, where he last enjoyed a normal life before his infamous rise to be Lord Protector. His journey from relatively humble beginnings to being the "King in all but name" is inexorably linked with the English Civil War and the march of the New Model Army. The house has become a much used Tourist Information Centre and visitor attraction. Despite the rich and remarkable history that is linked to house, the visitor attraction was somewhat low key, was looking dated and failed to offer an immersive and powerful interpretation of events. Our brief was a challenging one – to fully refurbish and reinvent the Civil War room interpretation, but not allow it to make the rest of the visitor experience look out of place. Lost revenue during closure was an issue, so the whole installation also had to take place within 5 days across a school half-term break.
The initial brief called for a complete replacement of showcases within the Civil War room. However we felt that this was an unnecessary allocation of funds and suggested that a far greater proportion of the budget should be spent on re-writing the interpretive material and creating visual experiences. Our proposal was to simply up-cycle the existing showcases with new graphics, a new paint scheme and modern, efficient LED lighting throughout. This released a lot of resources to create a much more dramatic and fresh delivery of the stories to be told. We proposed creating audio visual interpretation featuring a newly filmed Civil War battle story (Our thanks to the English Civil War Society), a graphic timeline of Civil War events, a children's dressing up area within a soldier's camp, extensive illustrated wall vinyls, up-cycling of several existing children's interactives with new graphics and a bespoke 'gun barrel' voting device. Cromwell was a famously divisive character, and visitors would be presented with a musket ball upon entry and asked to vote for him as 'Hero or 'Villain'. Our proposals were so well received that additional funding was found to sprinkle a little magic across two other rooms and the main entrance to the building. Our visual language was developed to be modern yet timeless, allowing it to sit comfortably with the original areas of the visitor journey through the rooms that were to remain untouched. A particularly effective intervention was in the last room - the addition of 'ghost' writing in the haunted bedroom - where script begins to be written across the headboard as the dramatic narration builds to its ghostly climax.
The final scope of work was agreed, and we developed all resources with our specialist team members over a period of 6 months. We were ever mindful of the need to coordinate multiple installations and works during the 5 day half-term closure of the house. It was a very smooth and successful installation, on time and on budget, and we handed the museum back for reopening on the following Monday - ensuring as little revenue was lost as possible. Visitor numbers and positive feedback grew over the following weeks, culminating in the official relaunch of the house by Earl Charles Spencer, himself a noted Civil War and Cromwell historian.
Maltings are members of the following professional organisations: Association for Heritage Interpretation, Group for Education in Museums, and Association of Illustrators.
