Meet at the Blue Fountains of Browns Cafe for the Shrewbert Trail Illustration by Lucia Para
Saturday 17 June 2023 - 11am prompt!
Meet us at the Blue Fountains outside Browns Café, Culver Parade, Sandown PO36 8QA
• Collect your Story Trail and Explore!
• Make your own Wild Map with artist Lucia Para
• Big Draw with The Common Space Bring a picnic and wear comfy shoes!
How to get here: Walk along the seafront, Beryl-it, Bike-it, Bus-it (Dinosaur Isle is the nearest stop), or park at Dinosaur Isle car park (PO36 8QA).
Irises, Wildheart Domes, Poplars and the Browns Pavilion...find them in Shrewbert Tale & Trail at Browns Biosphere in the Bays Day
The Common Space is proud to announce that not just one but THREE and FREE wild new Story Trail adventure days or ‘Biosphere in the Bay Days’ have been lined up this summer, giving local families new ways to explore the wild fringes, urban icons, wetlands, and shores around Sandown Bay.
Discover Browns and beyond, Sandown Battery and Branstone Farm through the tales/tails of pipits, ivy bees and more wildlife mates! And that’s not all! Each of these art, nature and literacy-led events will give us a chance to have our say on an upcoming, exciting new project, ‘Biosphere in the Bays’… what do we want or need to help us all create, conserve, and of course, celebrate wilder places in Sandown and Ventnor Bays?
Sandown Bay’s Story Trails are free booklets specially designed by Isle of Wight writers and illustrators through The Common Space in partnership with the National Literacy Trust. Each booklet is very different, making use of language and images or QR barcodes and YouTube recordings, ID guides and activities but each illuminating a bit of our Island Biosphere’s natural, human, and built heritage.
At each of this summer’s Biosphere in the Bay Days, the plan is to head off to explore with your new sparkling new story trail. Bring a picnic for when you’re done, come back to join the artists who brought these familiar places to new life on the page for hands-on arts workshops, Vox Pops and Big Draws too!
Richard Grogan, AONB Manager, said, ‘the Isle of Wight AONB Partnership are pleased to be supporting these events with the Arts Council England. The Isle of Wight UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve is not just a badge but a call for change to encourage our communities to connect and engage with the natural, cultural and built environment. In a post-COVID world these connections are more important than ever, but we need to know what the community thinks. Please pop along and give your views on how we can continue to make the Isle of Wight Biosphere an increasingly environmentally friendly place to live, work and play.’