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Ingestre Orangery

  • Christine Harding

The Orangery is a Grade II listed building (list entry 1259815) within the grounds of Ingestre Hall, Staffordshire. It forms part of a group of 17th, 18th and 19th century buildings set within an Arcadian landscape at Ingestre. In summer 2020 I began volunteering, and casually working at the Orangery to help the small charity which manages the site through project phase. Currently, the Orangery has funding from the Heritage Lottery fund and is in the process of discovering how they will operate once the project ends. My role has been to assist the project manager as operational staff; helping with events and family activities, catering Sunday teas, planning and collecting evaluation, and giving critical advice on exhibition and curatorial endeavours. This year we hosted a variety of events, having to adapt quickly and carefully to national and local lockdowns.

In September 2020 we conducted a weekend of Wellbeing events complete with Yoga and Meditation Workshops. I taught a Mindfulness Photography Course to several adult students.
We also hosted a variety of family activities, such as nature and scavenger hunt children trails, pipe-cleaner bird feeders, and Halloween crafts, which means lots of materiels prep to help out my brilliant colleague Katie.

The map pictured above is a hand drawn watercolour piece I created which was digitised and reproduced for our Halloween half-term event.
Through out this autumn, we trialed bookable Sunday Teas each weekend. We partner with our village baker, The Little Ingestre Bakery to support the local community. In addition to operational work, like serving drinks and cleaning the venue, I am also site photographer and designated chalk board designer.
Perhaps our trickiest undertaking at the Orangery is how we can use this beautiful listed space for exhibitions and displays. In October 2020 we hosted a small community exhibition encouraging local artists to share small works. This exhibition was a trial to guage interest and fill a gap in our programming. I installed this modest show, and am heavily involved in the creation of an art advisory team to improve our place in the local arts community as well as help us better approach grant applications with Arts Council England as well as other related creative activites.

In 2021, we hope to help facillitate the arts locally and host several artistic events on site as well as grow our digital influence and network around Stafford. It's an exciting time to be involved!
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