Creating a unique archive of shared architectural heritage using Green Map

The challenge

In the 1800s, Chance Brothers & Co glassworks in Smethwick, Scotland, began making highly engineered lenses that lighthouses used to warn ships about dangerous locations. By 1951, over 2,500 lighthouses worldwide were fitted with a Chance lens.

The Chance Heritage Trust wanted to find a simple way of visualising these lighthouses. They also wanted to document the condition and locations of the Chance lighthouses, some of which were very remote. The Green Map Platform, built for collaboration, was just the right resource for this global project.  

What we did

Over a series of workshops delivered by community archaeology experts Digventures and the Green Map Platform team, volunteer map makers based in the UK, Australia, Europe and India were trained to map the lighthouse lenses globally.

A custom Green Map survey was developed to crowdsource information and stories about each lighthouse. With the Platform team’s bespoke guidance, a new icon set was created to help people visualise the various types of lenses and the lighthouse’s impact on local landscapes across a range of categories. 

Outcomes

• The Made In Smethwick: Lighthouses Around the World Green Map hosts 552 sites! It involved 35 contributors and provides a fascinating insight into the development of navigation technology, global trade routes and our shared heritage.

• Now the most comprehensive map of Chance Brother lenses in the world, Made In Smethwick: Lighthouses Around the World has become a unique archive and database that can be used to inform the development of a range of projects that consider the future of these beloved local landmarks in the age of climate change and the history of Scotland’s innovators and exploiters. 

• Volunteers were key to the delivery of the project. Although their time zones differed,  the Green Map Platform team could work flexibly with this group and DigVentures to build the skills and capacity needed to create this richly detailed map. 

• During the project, volunteers shared their passion for lighthouses with the team and made unique contributions, providing talks, digging through history and documenting the gems. This interaction built relationships kept people interested in hearing more and contributed brilliantly to the project’s outcomes.

What we learned

“The map has given us an amazing insight into a unique and global heritage. Having all this information about lenses in one place means that we can work out how to benefit from this heritage into the future”.