The Sensory Trail

Just behind the Dragon which symbolises the end of "Bishop Jocelin's Dragon Hunt" will be the setting to our Sensory Trail.

The idea of the Sensory Trail is to enable children and vulnerable adults to enjoy the Palace as much as the other visitors. I came into the project when ideas were about to be finalised so I didn't have a massive say on any of the design ideas. However, this didn't stop me planning. I looked into how people with learning difficulties explore the area around them; I found this site particularly useful for inspiration.

We knew that we wanted to keep the trail relatively simple - emphasising the sensory surroundings the Palace already has to offer. So the first thing Sophie and Amanda did was to look into some herbs and flowers we could plant for maximum sensory effect.

I particularly concentrated on sound, the ending point, the seasons and nature. I considered the idea of music so adding a drum or a rainwheel to the middle of the trail but we decided that we wanted it to be centered around reflection and peace. However, there is the possibility of adding windchimes to the tree at the end point.

In terms of nature, I am planning to talk to James next Wednesday about getting in some school groups for the day to make some bird feeders and bat boxes - this will work on sight and sound. I also considered the idea of making some wooden animals maybe in the shape of snakes for kids to climb on and carve markings into them so they have an interesting texture; however with a tight budget we have decided on wooden stepping stones for kids to climb over and hop from one to the other instead.

We also considered getting in some mirrors and making a maze but through some research, we found that mirrors can be very confusing, especially to people suffering with impaired vision.

I discovered that seasons were difficult to incorporate into a trail, I wanted to make an area which could be dedicated to different seasons so we could make an Easter egg hunt during Spring or make collages from autumnal leaves or write letters to Santa at Christmas but it didn't seem feasible in an open air space. However, just through carefully selecting the right plants the trail should have a lot to offer all year round. 

We met with Angela who designed our final plans - she did nine sketches of the area with our ideas in mind and this is hopefully how it should look:

With our budget in mind, we are actually only going to do the top half of the design; the green crescent shapes are going to be filled with scented herbs and colourful plants which will flower at different times throughout the year so the trail is always outlined with colour. We decided that we liked the idea of a final resting point so we hope to have a chair which circles a tree. The pole maze is where our wooden stepping stones shall be and the blackboards we are going to make portable so guests can take them round the trail recording what they can see, hear and feel.

We carefully considered the blackboards and how we would signpost the trail. The Palace didn't want another paper based trail as they already have the "dragon hunt" so the idea of the blackboards was popular. They are going to be created from the same wood as the stepping stones which will be varnished so white board pens can be used to write on them and then simply wiped away at the end of the trail. We looked into the idea of braille but discovered that only 2% of visually impaired people use it we abandoned that idea. However we are going to look into signposts with buttons so when pressed something is read aloud.

Our budget stands at £7,200 and so far we have spent £450 on the designs of the trail and Angela has quoted £1000 to mark out the beds for the plants and buy the seeds/bulbs (we are going to see if we can cut this down by seeing what the Palace already has in terms of seeds and bulbs). This leaves £5,750 which will be used on the woodwork. This will be done by Adam who is yet to give us a quote for the blackboards, stepping stones and the chair at the end of the trail.

Okay, so what next?

Currently, the ending point to the trail where the chair and herb beds will be looks like this:

I met with Amanda today to discuss a day for the area to be cleared in order for the building work to commence. The clearing day will be on Wednesday December 5th. The plan is to email a local school to get some willing volunteers to help us. This particular school specialises in special needs education so this will be an excellent opportunity for them as well as for us. The school have already said that twelve students aged between sixteen and nineteen want to be involved with the Palace so I just have to see if they are available for the decided day. My plans are to email them with information about the project and what they can help us with - what they need to bring etc. I have also emailed James to see if we can borrow some of his sacred gardening equipment and to see whether we can build some bird feeders and bat boxes as well.

The next job is to make some risk assessments which will be a new experience for me, find parking arrangements for the school and to meet with the big management team to get the definite okay for our plans before we start the big work.

The project is finally beginning to take place, I will keep regularly updating the blog so progress can be seen!