The 'Genius' project — Culture River

The ‘Genius’ Project

Project managing experience design transformation to deepen engagement, drive growth, and tell the full story of Stourhead’s landscape legacy.

A man stands within a proscenium arch depicting a classical painting at Stourhead. — PROJECT OVERVIEW

**CLIENT:** Stourhead, Wiltshire / National Trust
**ROLE:** Project Manager
**TIMELINE:** July 2017 - July 2018
**BUDGET:** £375,000
**PROJECT TYPE:** experience design / component development / construction

Outcomes and achievements

Visitor Experience Award

Stourhead won the National Trust’s Visitor Experience Award for Everyday Excellence (2018), celebrating the quality of our ‘Genius’ experience design.
New interactive exhibition

The new permanent, interactive exhibition explored Stourhead’s history with dress-up stations, magnetic architecture, and digital games.
New outdoor story hub

The new story hub invited to walk inside the painting that inspired the landscape garden and explore the history of Stourhead.
Visitor Reception gets a glow-up

A full refresh for visitor reception, including story interpretation on floor-to-ceiling vinyls, signage, and uniforms.
On budget, on time

Despite ambitious scope, the ‘Genius’ Project delivered all outputs within the £375,000 budget and tight one-year timeline.

THE BRIEF

How do you transform the visitor experience across a property with tight budgets, a short timeline, and a large volunteer community resistant to change?

After delivering the same programme for 10 years, Stourhead needed to evolve its visitor experience to drive increased visits and income, while deepening engagement for a wider variety of audiences - particularly young families.

‘Genius’ was an experience design project that delivered a series of new experience infrastructure components, a scaled-up family programme, and newly developed volunteer roles - all within a tight £375,000 budget and just one year for delivery.

The work required coordinating major change across all departments by building strong working relationships and a water-tight delivery plan.

Interpretation on the walls of the visitor welcome building at Stourhead in Wiltshire.

A wooden crate containing panels depicting classical paintings.

CAMILLA’S APPROACH

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

I led regular cross-departmental project meetings, managed the project plan and risk register, and held the working relationship with designers to develop each component.

NAVIGATING CHANGE

I developed a stakeholder management plan running change workshops and town hall presentations so staff and volunteers could input ideas and champion the project.

CONSERVATION RISK

I collaborated with landscape advisors, historic curators, and rural surveyors to ensure operational risks were considered - such as commissioning a bat survey to protect local habitats during construction.

FAMILY PROGRAMMING

I worked with the visitor experience team to develop a new programme targeting families, and with curators and research volunteers to ensure all interpretation was fact-checked.