The Mary Rose, Project Evaluation

Dates: 2016

Budget: £39 million

Project: The Mary Rose, Portsmouth

I worked with Cultural Consulting Network on the evaluation of Mary Rose, a £39 million, 10-year project. This was a very high profile project for the Heritage Fund given the length of the project and amount of funding it had received. It was also complex, having had two phases and being situated in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. We worked with the Project Manager and new Chief Executive of the Mary Rose Trust to develop a methodology that would bring together extant information on the visitor experience during the life of the project, draw together user consultations and primary information from the consultant teams, contractors, former and current staff and Trustees who had been involved. This included the analysis of surveys, qualitative data that had been collected, quarterly reports to the National Lottery Heritage Fund and telephone and face to face interviews with participants.

My specific role was in the design of the methodology, bringing together the extant information on the visitor experience and interviewing consultants, staff and Trustees involved in the interpretation and learning strands of the project.