NEWS FROM THE GATEACRE SOCIETY (August 2008):

OUR NEW HERITAGE LECTERN

As many members will already know, the Gateacre Society's heritage information board was installed on the village green on 25th July. It is the main component of our Lottery-funded project, which aims to make as many people as possible - visitors, local residents and schoolchildren - aware of Gateacre's history and its wealth of interesting buildings and monuments.

The idea of a cast-metal 'lectern' was inspired by similar boards which we noticed in Northwich town centre about two years ago. Northwich, like Gateacre Village, is characterised by black-and-white buildings, and we thought that this was an ideal way of depicting them. The fact that the manufacturers, Photocast Products, are based in Liverpool (though they have customers all over the country) was an added bonus.

We knew that a lectern would be relatively expensive - over £3,000 - so our Hon.Treasurer Eryl Chitty set up a meeting with the National Lottery's regional manager at which the various funding options were discussed. In the end we successfully applied for an 'Awards for All' grant to cover not only the cost of the lectern but also the computer equipment which we needed to digitise, catalogue, exhibit and publish the Society's extensive collection of old photographs. (The resultant book is due to be published by Tempus - The History Press - next year).

Eryl also arranged a visit to the Photocast factory in Speke, where we discussed our requirements in detail. Our initial sketch design, based on a map of the village centre surrounded by text and pictures - was then turned into the finished product. Photocast's professional artist created line drawings from our photographs, and incorporated our historical notes and captions into the final design, which was printed onto a large sheet of film. This was then used to etch the cast-zinc inlay panel, which after painting and polishing was ready for fixing onto the aluminium lectern.

The Gateacre Society is responsible for the upkeep of the lectern, so please let us know as soon as possible if you notice that any cleaning or repair work is needed.

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