Approach to Beaulieu – May 2006

21/05/2006 - 2006-2010 The Talking Walls - Beaulieu Abbey, 2012-2020 Current MPhil/PhD - University of Winchester, All - no comments

John Pemberton, XXXX
Tel: xxxx  Fax: xxxx
Email: xxxx
21st May 2006

Mrs Mary Montagu-Scott
c/o Beaulieu Estate
John Montagu Building
Beaulieu
Hampshire SO42 7ZN
Dear Mrs Montagu-Scott,

I am writing to ask if you are interested in us developing, without cost to Beaulieu, a 3D computer based tour of Beaulieu Abbey. On a computer screen you would be able to walk among the abbey buildings as they were before they were demolished in the Dissolution, look up, left or right, at their interiors or exteriors, while listening to audio information about what inhabiting them was like.

The computer programs could:

Form a carry-around guide for visitors to the abbey, by the programs being made available on a handheld computer, like an Apple iPod. The guides could be rented by visitors leaving their credit card as deposit in the way audio tours now are at some museums and ancient monuments,

Whilst in a visitor centre, visitors could use a touch screen to retrieve the information,

Visitors could purchase a CD containing the programs to use on their computers at home.

I am the owner of Ipley Manor, previously owned by the monks of Beaulieu Abbey from 1316 and then the Beaulieu Estate up to 1897. I have researched the history of Ipley, with the able assistance of your archivist Susan Tomkins, which has inevitably meant researching the history of Beaulieu Abbey, and I have been fascinated by what being in such a magnificent abbey before the Dissolution would have felt like. Computer graphics, only in the last few years, now enables us to see this.

Having a background in computing, now semi-retired, I have become enlivened by a company called Talking Walls in Romsey who have developed the computer software to present just such a 3D ‘walk-though’ of buildings.

I have recently been occupied with the South East England Development Agency in advising technology companies, and this has made me aware that there is funding available for this type of project from a number of potential sources. Hence it becomes possible to fund the development without needing Beaulieu to dip into its pocket.

If you would like me with Deborah Wilson of Talking Walls to visit and show you what such a guide looks like, and to discuss it further, please contact me to arrange a date.

Yours sincerely,

John Pemberton