"I've had a keen interest in heritage and culture from a young age which is why I chose to study the historic built environment at university.
I've been lucky enough to forge a career in this sector; working for multiple local authorities and charities and now as a freelance consultant. Whatever project I'm working on, my ultimate aim is to preserve our heritage for the next generation."
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About Lowri
Freelance Experience
After many years of employment, Lowri launched her own consultancy in 2016. Freelance projects include stakeholder interview design and implementation for an Arts Council of Wales capital funding review; a feasibility study, community consultation, project brief and ongoing fundraising work for St Winefride’s Church owned by Aberystwyth Town Council; a feasibility study and community consultation at Kidwelly Old Town Hall for Kidwelly Town Council; and fundraising and project management for an £8million restoration and extension project at the grade I Gladstone’s Library in Flintshire.
Lowri is also an associate for Counterculture working on the stakeholder and public consultation for the Neath Port Talbot Cultural Strategy, and on the stakeholder and community consultation for the Cyfarthfa Inception Project. Other associate projects for Wavehill include the Catalyst Cymru Research Project where she wrote a questionnaire circulated to over 2,500 heritage organisations across Wales, undertook a number of bilingual key stakeholder interviews and workshop, and co-wrote the final report; and she conducted a workshop in Welsh to support a bid for World Heritage Site status for the Slate Landscape of North West Wales. Lowri was involved with the baseline evaluation report for the Hafod-Morfa Copperworks Project in Swansea; the evaluation of the Anglesey LEADER project, the Ports Past and Present project, the Wales Flexible Funding programme; and impact review of National Theatre Wales.
Prior to part-time employment with them in late 2019, from 2016 Lowri worked as Grants and Fundraising Consultant for the Strata Florida Trust, helping them with the sourcing and securing of funding for various aspects of their project. She also organised the first Strata Florida Archaeology Field School for The Prince's Foundation and Allchurches Trust at Strata Florida which was attended by people from all over the world. Working with a social inclusion partner, the school promotes well-being and rehabilitation through heritage-based activities. The school is open to all ages and skill levels, including people suffering from mental and physical health issues, and aims to be the most inclusive field school in the UK.
Until March 2017, Lowri was part-time Joint Executive Director of Adfer Ban a Chwm (ABC) Building Preservation Trust. ABC’s aim was to restore derelict vernacular buildings to provide a community use for local people in rural Wales. She was in charge of running all aspects of the Trust, from budget management to staff recruitment; from liaising with Social Housing Landlords (Bro Myrddin HA) to local community engagement and presentations whilst reporting to Trustees.
In 2014 Lowri completed a complex freelance event management contract at Erddig, a National Trust property in North East Wales. Her brief was to organise a large scale after dark Christmas lighting event that would appeal to all ages and draw in visitors in their thousands. By breaking this brief down into parts; the light show, additional attractions, live entertainment, catering, retail, staff and volunteer management, health and safety, marketing and publicity and final evaluation report; she was able to address each element in turn. This event was delivered on time and proved a regional success with Wales wide media coverage and great reviews from visitors.
Please visit the Projects & Clients page for further contract information.
"As a small charity we do not have the internal capacity to tackle large fundraising proposals, we therefore looked for external assistance and Lowri was recommended by the National Trust, one of our Partners. Lowri has recently completed a complex funding proposal for European funding in a sector of which she had not previous worked. Working to an extremely tight deadline she assimilated the necessary information, built a quick rapport with the staff and external agents and produced an excellent proposal. Lowri built a solid and compelling bid and we would have no hesitation in employing her again."
Peter Watson, Executive Director, The Deer Initiative
Employed Experience
Until early 2021, Lowri was the part-time Operational Director of the Strata Florida Trust, leading and overseeing all development and operations of the Trust and its sub-projects, including the National Lottery Heritage Fund and World Monuments Fund supported grade II Ty Pair restoration project, creating the Arddangosfa Mynachlog Fawr Exhibition space; the LEADER funded Camau Bach project which helped educate and engage the local community with the site; and the organisation and planning of the annual archaeology field school.
Whilst working as Grants Consultant for the National Trust in Wales, she gained experience and knowledge of many different methods of fundraising for cultural heritage and natural environment sector projects. These include applications to charitable trusts, fundraising appeals, private and corporate donations, commemorative giving, direct mail, event fundraising, online giving, text giving, raffles, legacies and gift aid. She contributed to property business plans which in turn informed the National Trust Wales Business Plan that outlined the objectives of the whole region.
Lowri has many years’ experience managing heritage building projects having been a Townscape Heritage Project Manager in three different towns. The Townscape Heritage scheme helped communities’ regenerate deprived towns by improving their built historic environment through offering grants to property owners. She managed all relevant project spend ensuring that the multi-million pound budgets were being used to their maximum potential and spent in full within given deadlines. The projects Lowri was involved with positively impacted the local economies whilst improving tourism potential and engagement of local people with their cultural built heritage. These roles required a great deal of face to face on site negotiations and consultations with property owners. The project not only included the building restoration work, but also the creation of an annual programme of conservation training for building contractors. Six different courses were arranged including the repair and conservation of traditional windows, traditional shop front design and repair, repair of lead work, traditional and ecological paints, an introduction to lime and traditional stone repairs. They proved very popular with local contractors wanting to gain experience of traditional building skills.
Whilst working for Bridgend County Borough Council, Lowri undertook the County’s Buildings at Risk survey. This involved visiting all 359 listed buildings in the County, undertaking a visual condition assessment and the submission of a final survey report to Cadw. This survey was added to those submitted from all other local authorities across Wales to form a country wide survey.
When working as Street Scene Manager for Ceredigion County Council, Lowri actively engaged, communicated and canvassed the views of the local community ensuring that funds were spent on creating a street scene that residents enjoy. She was instrumental in introducing a cross-boundary approach to environmental improvement schemes, ensuring that internal and external funding streams (e.g. Tidy Towns, Objective 1, SRA and Housing Renewal) were combined to ensure cost effective sustainable schemes that had maximum impact with community and stakeholder involvement. In addition, she directly line managed a team of 8 staff who ran the day-to-day duties of the county's harbours and car parks.
On a daily basis Lowri promotes a ‘regular contact’ policy with all relevant parties, including clients, funders, staff and volunteers, in order to ensure efficiency and a high quality sustainable end project. She uses a variety of consultation, interpretation and information methods including the preparation and presentation of monitoring reports and strategic documents; the writing of information packs, leaflets, press releases and exhibition boards; presentations at public meetings; social media posts and face-to-face meetings.
"Lowri was professional and knowledgeable in working with the community and stakeholders. She provided support throughout the process to provide a comprehensive viability report to help further the process of bringing a building precious to the community of Cydweli back to life. "
Sue Woodward, Old Town Hall project lead, Kidwelly Ten Towns Initiative
Academic & Professional Qualifications
Lowri obtained an MSc in the Conservation of Historic Buildings from the University of Bath in 2008. This was preceded by a BSc (Hons) in Archaeology from the University of Leicester in 2001. Whenever possible, during both her degrees she chose to concentrate her assignments on the Welsh historic environment. Examples of work include John Nash’s use of the gothic revival upon estate cottages looking at the case study of the National Trust owned Abermydyr Cottage, Llanerchaeron Estate; the role of the traditional shop-front in the street scape and the economic and social value of investing in its repair and re-instatement; a conservation statement on Bethania Chapel, Maesteg; an assessment of Clom and its use as a historic building material in Wales; a report with drawings on classical doorways in Aberaeron; and an introduction to the history of the South Wales Valleys industrial terraced house with the case for a conservation based approach to its repair.
In July 2008 Lowri successfully completed the Prince 2: Projects in Controlled Environment advanced project management course and strives to use the principles and processes learnt in the way she works.
Lowri is a full member of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising and has a sound understanding of their codes of practice and the invaluable support that they can offer organisations wishing to fundraise in a successful and productive manner. In July 2016 she completed their Certificate in Fundraising making her a certified fundraiser. The course is a professional qualification that gives a solid grounding in the theoretical concepts and principles behind fundraising. It examines the role of fundraising within the sector and the role it plays in society. She chose to focus her studies on fundraising for the heritage sector. Lowri is also a member of SPAB, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings.
