Your Historic Place lens

The Your Historic Place lens is designed to be used with the Place Standard Tool. It can help to spark and support conversations which explore the connections between people, place, and our historic environment.

See the Your Historic Place lens:

The Place Standard tool is a way of assessing places. Whether the place is well-established, undergoing change, or is still being planned, the tool can help you.

The Place Standard tool provides a simple framework to structure conversations about place, based around 14 questions. The tool provides prompts for discussions, allowing you to consider all the elements of a place in a methodical way. The tool pinpoints the assets of a place as well as areas where a place could improve.

The Your Historic Place lens uses the same themes as the Place Standard Tool. The lens introduces each theme with a short exploration of its connections to the historic environment. It then gives additional conversation prompts. These can be used to inspire discussion and help participants think about their historic place.

It will help you to think about your area’s buildings, places, and spaces. How do the historic elements of your area shape the place it is today? And how can they help it be a successful place for the future?

Anyone is welcome to use the lens. The Place Standard Tool and its lenses are often used in the context of placemaking projects, community planning and spatial planning. But there are no limitations to where it could be used, and we welcome innovative approaches. If you think it could be useful, in whatever context, then we encourage you to give it a go and then let us know what you thought. 

A pilot version of the Your Historic Place lens is currently available. Historic Environment Scotland have developed it, in conjunction with the Place Standard Team.

We want to make sure the lens works as well as it can, for everyone who might want to use it. We think the best way to do that is to test it on real life projects, and learn from those who have trialled it. That will help us shape a final version which is informed by a wider range of views and experiences.

We’d like to know what you think of the lens. Your feedback will help us refine and develop the final version. We’re also looking for case studies, so that we can share how the lens has been used in practice.