About the Project

West Devon Borough Council developed six trails between Tavistock and Plymouth (one of which is a section of Sustrans Route 27, the Devon coast-to-coast), for walkers and cyclists, to be launched in March 2009. For more information, visit the Drake's Trail main website. Download the Drake's Trail leaflet which contains travel and other information about using the trails.

Between Septemer 2008 and March 2009 we worked with Year 9 pupils at Tavistock College to build a series of interpretational podcasts to support the trails, which have a general theme around the life and work of Sir Francis Drake.   There are twenty two podcasts in all, providing rich interpretation material with minimal physical impact on the sites.  You can download them as simple podcasts to any MP3 player, or download enhanced podcasts (with images and chapter markers) to devices capable of playing enhance podcasts, such as an iPod™ or iPhone™. You can then cue a particular audio segment based on where you are on a particular trail.  You can print your own maps from the main website, or find printed maps at Tourist Information Centres Visitor Centres, and Libraries in the area. The students have developed the content of the podcasts, and there are now 22 in all.

The project began in Septemer 08, when 15 students and a handful of staff from Tavistock College spent the day on a muddy forced march on Dartmoor doing some initial investigation along some of the trails. Soon we will visit key Drake-related sites such as Buckland Abbey.

Martin Prothero was the lead sound artist on the project. Martin is an artist exploring our human relationship with the natural world. He does this by totally immersing himself in a place: living in one location to fully experience it as an integral part of the natural ecology, not as a human visitor. Drake's Trail co-ordinator Phil Baker from West Devon has also been very involved in the project, whilst managing to run the entire trails project. Aune Head Arts' resident audio expert, Richard Povall, worked with Martin as Executive Producer to finish and edit the final podcasts from the vast wealth of material gathered by the students.

Working in concert with West Devon Borough Council, we have received over £16,000 funding from Young Roots (Heritage Lottery Fund) to make them the main project funder. Other funders are West Devon Borough Council.

xxxxxxxxxxxx

last updated 02-Apr-2009 12:44