The core exhibition of the centre is intended as an immersive experience space, bringing the visitor intimately close to the great events of 1745.
After discovering the background to the Jacobite campaigns and exploring the topography of the battlefield, you will be able to enter the camp of the Jacobite army and listen in as they consider their options. Follow the Highlanders on their march across the marsh and face the redcoat sentry, then let the fury of battle surround you as the armies clash.
The experience will be free-flowing, allowing visitors to spend time in each space, whilst providing narrative structure and moments of drama. With ambient sounds and smells, and a combination of projection, mannequins and digital technologies, the exhibition design will create an exciting and visitor-led experience. The aim is to harness the advantages of living history events and incorporate them into a permanent exhibition.
Focus spaces will be created for younger visitors, creating discrete and memorable experiences, and quiet hours will be scheduled regularly across the season to support visitors with particular needs.
The layout of the main exhibition will be designed to allow the seamless inclusion of costumed interpreters at designated stations on regularly scheduled event days. This supports the Trust’s ethos of emphasising the personal nature of the experience of battle, whilst outside spaces will facilitate the programming of outdoor living history displays too. The activity programming which supports the exhibition will continue the principles of involvement and inclusion.
From the centre, visits and views across the actual historic battlefield will be supported with interpretation which will aim to apply the knowledge gained in the immersive exhibition into the context of a living landscape of today.
PRESTONPANS 1745- 2020 