St Mawgan Church Heritage

Six centuries of stories, open to everyone.

St Mawgan-in-Pydar is a medieval church in Cornwall, home to bells cast around 1407 and the best preserved lantern cross in the county. As part of a National Lottery Heritage Fund project, we built a website that shares its stories with visitors and the community, and that everyone can use.

The challenge

The church had centuries of history to share, from medieval bench ends to a churchyard full of stories, but no single place to tell them. As a publicly funded heritage project, the website had to be genuinely accessible to everyone, and simple enough for a volunteer team to keep up to date themselves. [Add a line in the client’s own words about what they hoped the website would do.]

What we did

Why: Heritage belongs to everyone, so accessibility was the starting point rather than a box to tick at the end. We designed every page to meet WCAG 2.2 AA, the current international standard.

How: Two features bring the history to life. An interactive timeline walks visitors through the church’s story across the centuries, and a churchyard trail with a map guides them to ten points of interest, including some notable graves. Dedicated sections cover the bench ends, the bells, clock and tower, the lantern cross and the church’s place on Cornwall’s pilgrim routes. Off screen, we designed two printed guides, one for the churchyard trail and one on pilgrimage, so visitors can carry the stories with them as they explore.

When: We built it on WordPress so the church team can add and update content themselves. Before launch, the site was independently audited by the Digital Accessibility Centre and passed against WCAG 2.2 AA.

The result

St Mawgan-in-Pydar now has a home online that does justice to its history, works for every visitor regardless of ability, and is run by the people who know the church best. The printed guides carry the same stories into the churchyard and along the pilgrim way. [Add a real outcome if you have one, e.g. visitor feedback or trail use.]

• Passed an independent WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility audit
• An interactive timeline of the church’s history
• A mapped churchyard trail, online and in print
• A printed pilgrimage guide
• Run day to day by the church team