Stourhead Sensory Trail
 Sensory
Trust worked with the National Trust to design a trail to improve
the visitor experience at the gardens of the Stourhead Estate in
Wiltshire.
The brief was to design a trail to guide visitors through the garden
using touch, smell, sight and hearing. Because Stourhead estate
is a heritage landscape, it was important that the trail should
not impact on the landscape. For that reason it was designed to
rely solely on a printed guide and map, with no signage within the
gardens.
The trail guide was to be enjoyed by a wide range of users: children,
parents, groups or individuals. For this reason Sensory Trust used
the Ekarv method of writing readable text. We also tried to strike
a balance between imparting information and allowing the visitor
to explore. The last thing we wanted was for visitors to follow
the trail with their noses buried in the guide. The guide should
enrich the visitor experience, not act as a barrier to it.
 We
tested the guide during its development, offering a draft version
to visitors to Stourhead, and asking them to comment on its use.
We changed many elements of the guide in response to the feedback
we received from these users.
We used sensory mapping to locate areas of richness and interviewed
key garden staff. The second phase of the project was to deliver
a ‘guide to the guide’. This set out the process by
which other similar properties will be able to create their own
guides. For this reason, we tried to keep the development process
as straightforward as possible in order that it was easily replicable.
Note: Stourhead won an internal 'Access for All
Award' for the Sensory Trail.
See also
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