The Stour Valley Landscape Partnership

The ‘View from the Tower’ virtual tour is part of the ‘Managing a Masterpiece’ project, a three-year Heritage Lottery funded programme to understand, conserve and celebrate the landscape of the Stour Valley. Pan 3Sixty were commissioned to produce a series of panoramic views from 35 church towers running the length of the valley, from the village of Great Bradley in the west to Brantham in the east.

Photographed over a 10 month period, the 360° panoramas provide a unique view of the Stour Valley landscape throughout the seasons and from vantage points not normally accessible to the general public.

The 360° panoramas were delivered in three different formats. An online version incorporated the interactive 360° panoramas into a custom-designed user interface. Using a tagged Google map, the virtual tour enabled the viewer to journey down the Stour Valley from one church panorama to the next. Information labels identified other churches and items of interest in the landscape, whilst a direction finder told the viewer if they were looking North, East, South or West.

A second version of the interactive virtual tour was delivered on a 30″ touch screen kiosk which toured to each of the churches involved in the project, spending a month or two in each church. The kiosk was branded with a custom wrap of one of the 360° panorama. will spend a month or two in each of the churches involved with the project and provide church visitors a chance to see all 35 panoramic views.

Finally, we created two sets of framed 36″ panoramic prints. One copy of each print was sent to the churches involved in the project to display on-site as they wish. The second set of prints were curated into an exhibition of 35 panoramas which was first displayed at the Suffolk County Council offices and then at St Gregory’s Church in Sudbury.