Commonwealth Legacy - Aston Heritage Trail

Aston is home to many historical heritage sites and famous for Aston Hall and Park.  Other well recognised landmarks include Aston Villa football grounds, Aston University, old Aston Library building, Church buildings, Spaghetti Junction, Aston reservoir, King Edward school, picturesque parks and range of canals and walkways. 

The Heritage Trail project was set up in February 2022 with supported by Commonwealth Legacy Fund, the project provided lots of exciting prospects for local communities to connect with these sites and introduced families to use local heritage, landmarks and amenities such as Aston Park and Halls to enjoy walks, days out, take picnics with family.  They learnt about different religion through the beautiful religious places such as churches, mosques, gurdwara, temples built social interactions and connecting interfaith communities. 

The Heritage trail allowed local people to not only visit the beautiful and intriguing heritage landmarks but also engaged them in physical activities such as walking, exercising, and helped with socialising with other families in the community, it will help with cohesion as the project attracted people from a range of ethnic minority groups and supported the newly arrived families to build a strong network.

Groups attended Aston Park, Perry Locks Canal trail for walks with Canal and River Trust, visited Aston Hall and Museum, former Aston Library, Aston Fire Station, Aston reservoir as well the women navigated their way into the city centre to visit the New Library, Birmingham Museum, participated in Soul City Arts Heritage programme.

The project was led by a Heritage Project Coordinator and worked to train two volunteers in leading the trails.  They received first aid training, risk assessment, route planning, communication skills, gather information and presentation skills.