News Headstone Manor & Museum Awarded Diversity Matters Grant for New Community-Led Exhibition Project

Headstone Manor & Museum is delighted to announce that it has been awarded £2,000 through Museum Development London’s Diversity Matters Grant Programme to support a new community engagement project, Rewriting the Rooms.

The project aims to help us better understand who may be underrepresented in our audiences and collections, and to explore ways we can work more closely with Harrow's diverse communities to shape the future of our exhibitions.

Rewriting the Rooms

Headstone Manor tells the story of Harrow's past through a series of historic room displays, each representing a different period in the Manor's history. While these spaces were last refreshed in 2017, Rewriting the Rooms offers an exciting opportunity to rethink how we present the stories of Harrow today.

Using current Census data as a starting point, the project asks an important question: what would Headstone Manor look like if it were interpreted through the experiences of a modern Harrow family?

Through collaboration with community groups, we will explore how culture, faith, migration, family life and identity are reflected in the objects people use every day, and how these stories can sit alongside the history already told within the Manor.

Working with Harrow Communities

At the heart of the project is a commitment to co-curation. We will be inviting community groups from across Harrow to work alongside museum staff to reinterpret spaces within the house and develop new displays.

Participating groups will have the opportunity to:

• Explore objects from the museum's collections
• Select items that connect with their own stories and experiences
• Contribute interpretive text and personal perspectives
• Donate contemporary objects or photographs that represent their communities
• Help shape new ways of presenting Harrow's history

The project will use four display spaces across Headstone Manor, each offering opportunities to explore themes including race, religion, resilience, community and belonging.

One display area within the historic kitchen includes an open pantry cupboard, providing a space to showcase food packaging, utensils, recipe books and other objects that reflect the importance of food in cultural identity. Another display in the entrance hall will explore ideas of welcome and hospitality, highlighting the traditions and customs that make a house feel like home.

A New Approach to Interpretation

Rather than simply telling stories about communities, Rewriting the Rooms will give communities the opportunity to tell their own stories.

Lead representatives from participating groups will guide the interpretation process, supported by museum staff through collection visits, workshops and individual sessions. Together we will explore how historic spaces can be reimagined through contemporary experiences, creating displays that encourage visitors to consider how Harrow has evolved over time.

The project will also support the museum's contemporary collecting ambitions by encouraging donations of objects, photographs and oral histories that better reflect the borough's communities today.

Get Involved

We are currently looking for Harrow-based community, faith, cultural, youth and social groups interested in taking part in Rewriting the Rooms.

If your group would like to help shape a future exhibition and share its stories, we'd love to hear from you.

To express your interest, please contact the Collections Team at collectiong@headstonemanor.org