Blairgowrie & Rattray Hub Magazine Summer 2023

The team behind the innovative Cateran
Ecomuseum is delighted to have been awarded
nearly £210,000 to help local communities and
visitors to the area take rapid climate action
and transition to more regenerative ways of
living.
Thanks to the National Lottery Heritage Fund
and National Lottery players, Paths for All, the
Cairngorms National Park Authority and SSE’s
Drumderg wind farm community benefit fund,
the second phase of the Ecomuseum’s threephase
‘Museum of Rapid Transition’ programme
- which aims to encourage people to live more
sustainably by learning how stories from our
past can help guide the story of our future – is
now under way.
The funding will support the delivery of six
activity streams in different areas of the
Cateran Ecomuseum, including Blairgowrie,
Alyth, Coupar Angus, Glenisla, Kirkmichael and
Meigle, over the next 18 months.
These activities aim to reconnect local people
and those from the wider Tayside region
to this area’s natural and cultural heritage,
including cultural traditions that have practical
relevance for more regenerative ways of living
today, highlighting their role in bringing people
together to help facilitate community resilience,
and encouraging effective community
stewardship of a place.
INNOVATIVE TAYSIDE HERITAGE PROJECT
ATTRACTS £210,000 FUNDING TO ENCOURAGE
CLIMATE ACTION & BOOST REGENERATIVE WAYS OF LIVING
And it is planned that local people and visitors
- including those who are financially stretched,
families isolated by unaffordable childcare,
young people experiencing urban adversity and
farmers or estate workers who often work in
isolation – will be amongst those who benefit
from the programme.
Amongst the activities set to take place is a
three-day event based at a ‘pop-up’ Iron Age
village of yurts in the Kirkmichael area next
summer, new content exploring how heritage
can support climate action and looking at past
rapid transitions in food production and their
relevance today for two exhibitions at Alyth
Ecomuseum Hub and a project involving the
recruitment of volunteer ‘River Detectives’ who
will help collect new data on land management
practices during the agricultural and industrial
revolutions.
There will also be a programme of cycling
and walking events introducing people to the
history and heritage of the area, including a
new story-led walk in Meigle connecting place
names and prehistoric sites and a ‘school swap’
involving secondary pupils from Blairgowrie and
those in Dundee and Perth.
Meanwhile, the Ecomuseum’s programme of
active travel for leisure experiences,
co-designed with local communities and led by
local people, and aimed at encouraging more
PAGE 52 BRDT MAGAZINE - SUMMER 2023