An interactive display at Acomb Explore Centre and a programme of pop-ups and walkshops have encouraged residents to share memories and identify places of importance. Feedback highlights strong interest in local history, alongside concerns about the protection and maintenance of heritage, access to open space, and how community voices are heard.

In the coming months, the project will deliver a series of heritage workshops, support new Heritage Ambassadors, and continue creative engagement through artist-led activities. Together, these next steps will help ensure that local heritage is shaped and sustained by the communities it represents.

The post Our Place: Acomb and Westfield – Early Findings and Next Steps first appeared on York Civic Trust.

We have just launched Our Place: Acomb and Westfield, a new heritage outreach project inviting local people to explore, celebrate, and care for what makes their neighbourhood unique. The project launches in the Trust’s 80th year and Our Place: Acomb and Westfield is funded with the help of the National Lottery Heritage Fund. It begins on the 18 February and is based at Acomb Explore Library.

Working with residents, the project will uncover hidden gems, local memories, and untold stories, helping to build a stronger sense of place, pride, and connection across the communities of Acomb and Westfield. The project responds to evidence showing that fewer people in the area feel a strong sense of belonging compared to the city average, and that local heritage is often overlooked in wider narratives of York.

Acomb Explore Library

The project is based at Acomb Explore Library, where an interactive installation will be in place from February to August. The Trust invites residents to head to the library to share memories, nominate meaningful places, and highlight the buildings, spaces, and stories they feel deserve more recognition and care. The display will ask a variety of questions during its installation, starting with which buildings and places are important to the area’s residents.

Alongside the installation, there will be a programme of free community events throughout spring and summer, including creative workshops, guided ‘walkshops’, pop-up activities and community celebrations focused on local places and green spaces.

Heritage Grants

Later in the year, York Civic Trust will fund community-led heritage grants for projects in Acomb and Westfield that emerge as important during the first phase of the project. The initiative will also support the development of local heritage ambassadors, helping residents care for places they value beyond the life of the project.

Acomb and Westfield residents can take part in the project by heading to Acomb Explore Library from 18th February to share their views. They can also find out about upcoming workshops and events here:

The post York Civic Trust launches Our Place: Acomb and Westfield first appeared on York Civic Trust.

In a year when York will celebrate its past with the international Viking Festival, the Roman Festival in May, and the 900th anniversary of St William of York at York Minster, not all residents may feel these moments reflect their own sense of history. For many people, history is not only about Romans, Vikings, or medieval saints. It is about the places that shape everyday life – where they grew up, where they walk, shop, meet friends, or raise families.

Even though they live within the boundaries of the City of York, some residents may feel that “historic York” exists somewhere else, while the places they call home are rarely recognised as part of the city’s story. Many of York’s suburbs were, often for centuries, independent villages and even like Acomb in a different county. This long history and modern incorporation into York have an impact on people’s identity and even status within the city.

This year, York Civic Trust marks its 80th anniversary. Founded just after the Second World War, at a time of enormous change for the city, the Trust has long celebrated York’s rich past. But it has also focused on how York continues to evolve, and how people experience the city today.

While York’s international reputation brings clear benefits, particularly to the visitor economy, it does not always reflect the full and more complex picture of the city’s local history.

To address this, York Civic Trust is launching a new project, Our Place (made possible by the National Lottery Heritage Fund), working with communities to better understand the places, spaces, and structures that matter most to local people – especially in areas that are less visible in the city’s traditional heritage narratives.

We are beginning in Acomb and Westfield. The project launched on February 18 at the newly refurbished Explore Acomb Library (well worth a visit), and over the summer a programme of creative workshops, walks, and pop-up activities will invite residents to explore what makes these areas special.

Alongside places such as Tang Hall and Clifton, Acomb and Westfield are currently under-represented in the city’s Historic Environment Record and Local Heritage List. This does not reflect the depth of history and heritage that exists there.

All of us spend our lives interacting with places and spaces that, over time, become part of who we are. They shape how we move around, how we feel about where we live, and sometimes even our sense of wellbeing and identity. When these places change – or disappear – the impact can be deeply felt.

The routes we walk to school, the shops we visit, or the green spaces where we walk our dogs may be shared by thousands of people and have been used for generations. In York, alleyways and ginnels that look like modern shortcuts can, in fact, have been in use for over a thousand years. Areas of woodland or open space often have roots stretching back centuries, with names such as Batchelor Hill, Fishponds Wood, or Quaker Wood hinting at rich and layered pasts.

Even buildings that may be overlooked or unloved today can hold powerful meaning. They may once have housed important events, formed busy parades of shops, well-used pubs, or simply are the part of the everyday backdrop to community life.

York Civic Trust is keen to hear from anyone with views on what matters to them in Acomb and Westfield – particularly from those who might not usually think of heritage as something “for them”.

For this project, heritage means the things that still exist in our landscape today. They may only be 50 years old, but they can carry deep personal and collective significance for those who live and work nearby.

While Acomb’s medieval buildings and village green may appear more obviously historic, the inter-war and modern Chapelfields, Lowfield, and Foxwood estates are just as important to their communities and deserve recognition as part of York’s living history.

We would encourage anyone who would like to nominate a building, green space, ginnel, alley, or even a lamp post that matters to them to get involved – either by visiting Explore Acomb Library and adding your vote to our new display, or by going online:

Andrew Morrison,
Chief Executive, York Civic Trust

The post Acomb’s untold history – the places that make it special first appeared on York Civic Trust.