Medical heritage, green infrastructure and community wellbeing

This project explores how we can use medical heritage to promote community health and wellbeing through engagement with local green space.

This cross-faculty collaboration between UCL History and UCL Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy brings together Dr Johanna Dale’s and Dr Antonio Sennis’s expertise in medieval history and heritage with Dr Carla Washbourne’s in public policy and green infrastructure.

They will work with Maldon Town Council and community groups in Maldon, Essex, to explore how to collaboratively transform the site of the ruins of a medieval leper hospital chapel from being a drain on local government resources into a community asset. This will be achieved by engaging with the stories, spaces and practices of medical heritage and using opportunities for being active in green space to further promote community health and wellbeing.

This pilot project, funded by the UCL Grand Challenge of Human Wellbeing small grants scheme, is anticipated as the beginning of both a longer-term relationship with the town council and community groups in Maldon and also as the initial stage of a wider cross-faculty research collaboration involving other medieval medical heritage sites.