The Steps of Brixham

The Steps of Brixham Research Wanted

Brixham Arts & Theatre Society continue their role as arts mentors and creative supporters in Brixham and the surrounding area with the commissioning of a new brixhamwalks.org website.

BATS Director, Cecilia Kean, explains, “There have been several efforts made by different groups in the town to portray the heritage of Brixham in various formats, such as The Pirate’s Trail, with points around the town that can be clicked on by smart phones to tell stories, the heritage aspects of the town with the BrixFest walk map and app and information boards around the harbour telling the stories of the trawler development, the fishing fleet and various buildings.

BATS Board started with an initial concept of portraying the art and architecture of the town on a map that could be online.  After being introduced to Dave Barter of Nautomaps at a Brixham Chamber of Commerce meeting, we discovered it was possible to make an interactive map where the participant could move around the town and stories, songs and bits of video would pop up. Different levels or themes could also be selected.

As a result we decided to focus on an initial design exploring the Steps of Brixham. The town is pretty unique with the variety and number of flights of steps, some private and others still in use, and a variety of scales of difficulty to walk up and down them. Their history is fascinating.

We are in the process of collating together photographs and stories of the steps at various points in their history and the people who lived and worked on them.  We are indebted to John Holden of Brixham in Pictures for his support. There have been some wonderful stories and photos collected so far.

We would appeal for anyone who has old photos or tales about their memories of the steps or any old stories passed to them by their families to get in touch with BATS at ceciliakean@outlook.com or on the Brixham Arts & Theatre Society FaceBook page so we could look at possibly adding them to the final map. 

Once we have the initial mapping for the Steps done we plan to add other layers to the website, such as the architecture and the arts of Brixham, and work with other groups to add their information on the pirate trail, the heritage of the fishing industry, Shoalstone Pool, the archaeology…the list could be endless.

There will also be provision made for people to send us their memories and pictures at a later date when the map is finished so it can become a long lasting memory board for the town.

Eventually there could be a real resource for Brixham that would be interactive so anyone could log on and use it, whether a local wanting to research their family or house history or a visitor seeking a fitness walk around the town (and they would certainly keep fit on some of the steps!).”