"There’s so much more to Cerne Abbas than just the giant - impressive though that is.

Cerne Abbas is a very lively and vibrant village. The Historical Society, which is driving this project, has roughly a hundred members, and any talk we arrange brings about 60 or 70.

We had done a lot of preparatory work towards this project for over a year, because in a village context, we obviously want to take everybody with us so that they are in sympathy with what we’re doing. There is almost inevitably a core group of workers but there are a lot of people who are able to contribute.

Early on we had a consultative meeting in the church with an exhibition of everything we intended to do, and asked people to add Post-It notes to the exhibition boards with any comments and other ideas they had. Then we contacted everyone who had left their name and details and talked it through.

We have three main locations for the exhibitions and information: St Mary’s Church, the old bus shelter in the market Square at the heart of the village & the Abbot's Porch, which is part of the remains of Cerne Abbey.

Inside the church we plan three elements: display boards about the history of the church and the village; some acrylic signs around the church which will explain, for example, the role of the font in the life of the church; and a guide book to the church.

The exhibition boards will be made by a joiner who lives in the village, and the work on refurbishing the old bus shelter will be carried out by an experienced bricklayer who similarly has always lived in the village.

Our LHI project is seeding a number of other local ventures, since there are various special interest groups and one piece of activity stimulates another.
Some of the things we wanted to do we couldn’t afford, but because LHI is prepared to look at more than one application our local school is now applying for its own project.

Our school, which is the oldest one extant in Dorset, built in 1844, is closing down and a new school is being built in the village. So we wanted to capture the history and ethos of the old school, and take it across to the new one. We’re also looking for funding for a long-term tree planting project.

We couldn’t have done any of this without funding, and the LHI has been particularly helpful in enabling us to do it."