About
The fascinating remains of the 13th-century Greyfriars Friary and Leper Chapel at St. James Church, Dunwich, provide the inspiration for this stimulating and motivational cultural project spanning 2022 and 2023.
The project is managed by Art Branches and run in partnership with the Dunwich Greyfriars Trust and Dunwich Museum. The National Lottery Heritage Fund is kindly providing funding for which we thank all National Lottery players.
Chronicles of Greyfriars is a multifaceted project supporting new roles, health interventions, environmental heritage and mental health and wellbeing training for project-based assistants, geologists, environmental educators, artists and volunteers. Our volunteers are largely Service Users who have participated in previous projects and are on their journey of recovery with Art Branches' support. The project offers social prescriptions, run as a tailored mental health intervention to help improve wellbeing in the community and bespoke workshops for mental health improvement in targeted groups.
Pop-Up & Kids Club Events
During Spring, Summer and Autumn 2022 and 2023 there are numerous pop-up events at Greyfriars, where the focus is interpreting the rich heritage of the site to contribute to a community collective textile. We are also running watercolour and drawing workshops with different professional artists to help you illustrate your own collection of stones. Please look out for kids club events at Dunwich Museum during school holidays. Events are advertised on our Facebook page and/or the Events page on this site.
Day Workshops
Chronicles of Greyfriars also supports day-long workshops with a geologist, environmental educator and artist to explore the site’s rich heritage, focusing on geological and biological diversity. These workshops provide a day of inspiration and creativity intended to help improve wellbeing and are open to bookings from the general public as well as social prescribers.
4-Week Courses
Chronicles of Greyfriars is also available as a specialised 4-week social prescription, both in the field and online, during Winter and late Spring 2022/23, and is taking referrals from GP surgeries, healthcare settings and social prescribers. Individuals in mental health recovery may self-refer to this course. These courses engage people with the rich heritage of the site using a combination of creative and fun techniques. Free of charge, please contact us at artbranches@icloud.com for help with transport costs to access the project.
As a fantastic legacy to the success of 'Chronicles of Greyfriars', we are pleased to be able to offer bespoke environmental heritage days beyond the life of the project to booked groups (subject to availability). Please email artbranches@icloud.com for further details.
Art Branches is a not-for-profit community interest company specialising in inclusive creative projects for improving wellbeing in communities across the East of England. To find out more about Art Branches and see more of our projects, visit our main website at ArtBranches.org and the dedicated sites for our creative wellbeing workshops project, Space to Breathe, and our poetry project, Branches Abound. For the latest announcements and project stories, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
Homepage header image by Shiffard via Wikimedia Commons, cropped recoloured version here under CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
