Opening Doors: Learning in the Historic Environment

Section F · Organisational and financial issues

F 4 · Guides and room stewards

Guides (people charged with taking visitors round properties and explaining them) and room stewards (whose prime function is to staff rooms, though they may also act as interpreters) play a crucial part in the interpretation of historic properties. These are the people whom the visitor actually sees: for most visitors they are the human face of the site and are regarded with respect by the public. We have discovered many remarkable examples of good practice, but this is a field where there is scope for new ideas and for more attention by properties to the quality of training for their guides and room stewards.

High quality guiding

The better the training, inevitably the higher the standard of what is offered. At best, the importance of guides and room stewards is fully recognised. The volunteers or employees are well trained and are regarded as key to the visitors’ experience. At Southwark Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s, guides are expected to undertake an extended training before they are unleashed on the public. In recent years the Royal Collection has given considerable thought to training the guides who work at Buckingham Palace, Clarence House and Windsor Castle. Knebworth House in Hertfordshire, a privately-owned country house, pays its guides, on the principle that some financial recognition is appropriate for such an important position. At the National Museum of Ireland, many of whose collections are sited in a seventeenth century barracks, visitors are given the opportunity to assess their surroundings and to consider questions they might wish to ask, before the tour takes place. At the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, guides are given a year-long training by members of staff before they begin their tours for visitors.

Some of the best examples of best practice derive from museums, in London and elsewhere. The inspiration for this style of training is American, for example the extremely high quality courses for guides organised at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. At a number of museums (Tate, Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Wallace Collection) volunteers work both as guides for schools and as teachers for school groups, after a year’s training undertaken by education staff and curators. Learning
communication skills and establishing good relations with the public are seen as crucial.

A particularly interesting development is the employment at industrial sites, such as Big Pit in Wales, of former employees, such as ex-miners. This remarkable opportunity to gain a close knowledge of the former working of such sites is of course finite.

‘Heritage houses’

One of the most positive approaches to guiding and to the experience of visiting historic houses and other properties has been taken by the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA). Over the past few years, the WEA has organised a series of classes called Heritage Houses. Intended primarily for people involved in the interpretation of historic buildings, these courses consist of ten weekly sessions, based at a particular historic building. The individual sessions study the family and architectural history of the house, its furniture and paintings and other contents, its structure and its surroundings, and costs of construction. The aim is not only to instruct students about that particular property but to give an insight into the many different ways in which it is possible to think about a historic building. Many of these sessions are organised in collaboration with the National Trust and use their houses. While the Trust is keen to be involved, there is a physical access problem over organising such events in rural properties, particularly in the evenings.

Fountains Abbey, West Yorkshire

A group of sixty staff and volunteers who serve as guides at Fountains Abbey have formed their own learning group, initially with the aim of learning as much as possible about the abbey and its history, to answer visitors’ questions. Experts regularly give talks to the group, and some members have become so knowledgeable that they have embarked on primary research, or have begun Open University degrees or extramural training programmes. Research among visitors to Fountains Abbey shows that they benefit from the resulting quality of interaction between visitor and volunteer – and that knowledgeable and enthusiastic guides are a very significant factor in the level of visitor satisfaction. Many who have visited Fountains have said that the quality of the guides gives them a positive view of the organisation and increases the likelihood of their making a return visit to a Trust property.

The holistic approach

One of the key aspects of these courses is that they take a holistic approach to the country house. Art and architectural history are not used as convenient short-hand statements of cultural importance. Instead, the courses explore the extraordinary breadth of information available about the past and the present which can be offered by a country house, church or archaeological site. What remains to be done is to make this richness of information accessible through formal and informal learning to a broad audience.

Guiding needs guiding

While customer care has become an important objective, and it is usual for the visitor to be given a pleasant welcome, the standard of interpretation offered by guides and room stewards is mixed, and on many occasions of decidedly low quality. Many guides show only a limited understanding of what they are talking about and in some properties inaccurate information is regularly offered. The interests and needs of visitors are seldom considered other than at the most superficial level. Too often, it seems that the main purpose of the guided tour is to serve as a means of supervising visitors.

Room stewards

In addition the room stewards who are on duty in many country houses, whether privately owned or National Trust properties, tend to be of a certain type: older, middle class and in many cases tending to be authoritarian. At National Trust properties, the infrequency of the room stewards’ visits to the sites, the lack of pay, the rota which moves them rapidly from one spot to another so that often they are unable to master information about the contents of the rooms, their unwillingness in many cases to realise that visitors may not wish to be bombarded with facts, can make their contribution, while useful to management, less than positive for the public. For younger or less socially confident visitors, room stewards can be intimidating. The impression made on many visitors is not necessarily favourable. What is needed here is a much stronger emphasis on proper training. There may be scope for enlarging the possibilities for shared training between properties, as well as for learning from such properties as Down House or Fountains Abbey.

Enjoying a warm, but not intrusive, welcome is a crucial element in an enjoyable visit. Guides need to be trained not only to communicate information but to acquire high standards of customer care.

Institute of Tourist Guiding

One way forward may be provided by the Institute of Tourist Guiding. This is the ‘national setting and qualification body’ for tourist guiding in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It was set up in 2002 following widespread consultation including the English Tourism Council and the Tourist Guiding Foundation, and with the approval of the DCMS and the Department for Trade and Industry. The Institute’s remit is eventually to set up a national training framework for all sectors of tourist guiding, from on-site guiding to the regional guiding represented by the Blue Badge. The Institute points out that there are currently no legal requirements for training, before anyone works as a tourist guide. It seeks to establish a link between Institute-accredited training courses and a professional stamp of approval which will be generally recognised. The Institute co-ordinates information about the various training courses on offer: Blue Badge, City of London/Corporation of London tourist guide course, and the NVQ Level 2, 3 and 4 Travel Services courses offered at colleges around the country. The Institute has the potential to create links with sites within the historic environment and to set up further training programmes for guides.

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