Views from Convalescent Hill

Views from Convalescent Hill is a research and community project exploring the heritage of wellbeing, rest and care in Felixstowe.

This project will bring together local residents, Felixstowe Museum, F.O.P.W.A (Felixstowe Old People’s Welfare Association) and Suffolk Archives to create a living digital archive, an exhibition and include a lively events programme.

Through oral testimony and research drawn from archives, historical objects and Felixstowe residents, we aim to uncover and celebrate the heritage, stories and memories of Felixstowe as a Victorian spa town and a place for convalescence, whilst considering what ‘health’ means to people today.

This project draws upon several pieces of the town’s social and cultural history that form a unique and complex picture of Felixstowe as a place that has long supported and fostered mental and physical recovery.
Starting points for this research:

The history of Felixstowe as a renowned Victorian Spa Town
The existence of convalescent homes such as the Bartlet and Barnardo's children’s home
The experiences of Felixstowe residents who worked at or were patients at St Audry’s hospital, in nearby Melton.

Get Involved: If you have memories you would like to share or to get involved, please contact us: natalie@pierprojects.org. or head over the project’s digital archive launching soon: https://www.vfch-archive.co.uk/

Full details of the programme over the Summer will be announced shortly.

Views from Convalescent Hill is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery players, we have been able to support this project. We are also grateful for the support of East Suffolk District Council’s Enabling Communities Fund and to our partners; Felixstowe Museum, Suffolk Archives and FOPWA, without whom this project would not be possible.

Welcome to our Artist-in-Residence!

We are delighted to introduce our new artist-in-residence for 2023-24 is Dana Olărescu.

After an open call for applications, Dana has been selected to work alongside Felixstowe Museum, The Hold, Pier Projects - and hopefully, you - as part of ‘Views from Convalescent Hill’.

Dana will share her deep interest in community health, experience of working collaboratively with local groups, and personal experience of health-based therapies having grown up by the sea in Romania.

“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work on this incredible project which will allow me to research Felixstowe’s health-based heritage individually and learn about alternative histories from community members. It will be a privilege to inquire whether heritage can help us re-imagine approaches to contemporary health care.”

Dana is a socially-engaged artist working across performance, installation and social design. Find our more about her work here.

Welcome to our Oral History Volunteers

On the 3rd November we hosted an oral history training day at Felixstowe Museum led by Suffolk Archives where six local residents learned more about methodologies and techniques in conducting oral history interviews. We are excited by the prospect of capturing the incredible knowledge that exists in Felixstowe and look forward to listening to future stories which will be deposited at Suffolk Archives in Ipswich. Thank you to all involved.