Projects Covid-19 Commemoration
A digital reflection on creativity, community and resilience in Harrow during the pandemic.
On 19th March 2020 Headstone Manor & Museum (HMM) and Harrow Arts Centre (HAC) closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside many other cultural institutions around the country. The subsequent lockdowns and tiered restrictions significantly reduced access to creative and cultural activity, impeding vital outlets supporting community health, wellbeing and social connection.
Venue hire for activities such as classes, workshops, performances and weddings ceased entirely, and both sites, local small businesses and the wider artistic economy were severely disrupted throughout 2020 and 2021. Normal operations did not resume until July 2021 at HMM, and September 2021 at HAC.
Now six years on, we are looking back at the initiatives delivered in response to these trying times, to form part of a digital archive. We hope you will join us in celebrating the creativity, resilience and strength of the community that was displayed.
The team across both venues recognised the heightened need to proactively engage regular audiences while reaching those at greatest risk of isolation. Digital and outdoor programming became central to accessible community engagement.
Overview
Headstone Manor and Museum,#HeadstoneAtHome
Headstone Manor & Museum launched the #HeadstoneAtHome programme, delivering regular online talks, family workshops, virtual exhibitions and digital community events themed around occasions such as VE Day, Diwali, South Asian Heritage Month and International Women’s Day
To address digital exclusion, the museum partnered with Watford Recycling Arts Project (WRAP) to distribute physical workshop materials to families and delivered in-person outreach during permitted opening periods.
The museum also initiated a collecting project to document the impact of the pandemic on local communities, preserving memories and experiences for future generations.
On Our Doorsteps
This project aimed to capture a little part of life in lockdown by taking pictures of households on their doorsteps/gardens. We worked with a local photographer Jenny’s Tiny Shoots, who captured these images for us. Participants were also asked to be holding something that had meant something to them over the lockdown period, which led to all sorts of things like bikes, plants and even hamsters! Over two weeks we photographed 24 households and Headstone Manor.
View the online exhibition here.
Craft Challenges, #HeadstoneFromHome
As part of the #HeadstoneFromHome project, a range of craft tutorials and educational activities were made available online for audiences to engage with. These crafts largely encouraged outdoor activities, such as:
- How to DIY Kite
- How to Street Party Hats
Explore some of these craft tutorials on our YouTube channel here.
Headstone Manor Newsletters
HMM’s beloved mascot, Bill the Duck, kept everyone up to date with weekly newsletters, sharing:
- News and updates from across both sites
- Ways for the community to get involved remotely
Young Creators
The museum’s Young Creators (ages 16-24) exemplified resilience and creativity. During lockdown, they produced artwork inspired by Eliza Brightwen’s shell grotto, which was later displayed in the Community Cupboard. They created an exhibition of inspirational naturalists and conservationists from around the world for the Manor Gardens. Perhaps most innovatively, they researched Headstone’s history and designed escape rooms to share these stories with friends and families.
COVID-19 in Harrow, A Call for Stories
The project was developed to document and preserve the lived experiences of people in Harrow during the COVID-19 pandemic. It invited residents to share digital materials such as photographs, social media posts, written reflections, and creative work, capturing how the crisis affected their daily lives, emotions, and communities. The project aimed to strengthen the museum’s collection, engage new audiences, and support collective healing.
The project was revisited this year building on its initial success to gather further reflections from the community. This second phase captured how experiences, perspectives, and emotions had evolved over time, adding depth to the collection and ensuring a more comprehensive record of the pandemic’s ongoing impact on people in Harrow.
Project 2021
When venues reopened, Harrow Arts Centre ran a celebratory exhibition with photographer June Cadogan from 3 December 2021 – 14 January 2022, aptly named “Project 2021”.
This project:
- Documented the stories of local families and individuals as they navigated the pandemic
- Captured both photographed and written records
- Recognised the changes society endured during lockdown
- Highlighted the ways in which our community adapted, connected and supported one another
#HACFromHome Videos
Alongside practical outdoor initiatives, the #HACFromHome project released a series of videos created by the central team to uplift audiences remotely. These videos:
- Shared creative prompts
- Offered wellbeing-focused content
- Supported connection, creativity and positive use of time at home
Creative Quarantine Exhibition
During September and October 2020, Harrow Arts Centre curated the Creative Quarantine Exhibition, inviting the whole community of Harrow to creatively explore life in lockdown – from rainbows in windows to home schooling, virtual date nights and weekly claps for nurses.
The aim was to capture these experiences in an artistic way.
Harrow Arts Centre, #HACFromHome
Similarly, Harrow Arts Centre launched its own #HACFromHome programme in April 2020, commissioning artists and cultural organisations through an open call to deliver online and outdoor performances, workshops and activities on a pay-what-you-can basis.
This programme supported local communities while providing essential income opportunities for artists and freelancers. It included:
- Audio walks
- Doorstep concerts
- A community arts project (*Creative Quarantine*)
- Online workshops
- Comedy shows and musical performances
- Outreach with care homes and food banks
When permitted, the Harrow Arts Centre site also became operational to diversify income streams, successfully securing regular filming and broadcast bookings as a base for the BBC and ITV.
School Engagement
While school visits were severely impacted, the team saw new and creative opportunities. They developed new sessions, created teacher resources, ran events through Teams, and organised competitions. When restrictions eased briefly in autumn 2020, The Great Barn was transformed into a COVID-secure teaching space, welcoming students back to in-person learning in the museum environment.
A new Key Stage 1 session based on farming at Headstone was created. Downloadable resources included a literacy pack featuring Harrow’s famous character Daniel Dancer and a History Mystery object homework game. In November 2020, ninety pupils from St John Fisher transformed into virtual tour guides for Takeover Day, guiding visitors through mini-animations, tweets, and Zoom calls. The Harrow Landscape schools competition attracted over 100 entries.
You can explore some of the online resources on our Online Learning page.
Most remarkably, the Loan Box service, which delivers museum artifacts directly to classrooms, recorded 2,890 uses in just the few months it could operate in 2020/21, and achieved its best-ever year in 2021/22 with over 6,500 uses. When schools couldn’t come to the museum, the museum went to them.