Tours can’t just work for curators, just guides, or just visitors. Let’s delight all three.

The unique experience of each live tour, gives it both its strength and potential downfall.

When a tour guide tailors the information and delivery of a tour it is done so visitors connect with the guide, and through them to the stories they are sharing.

When curatorial and interpretation colleagues provide tour guides with reams of history or information it is done so as to help give that all important content and accuracy.

What both situations are lacking are each other. And a methodology to get the best out of them.

To get the best of both worlds, we have created a process that allows for both curatorial and interpretational rigour alongside allowing the tour guide’s personality, individuality and expertise to flourish, and we call this process ‘The Anchors’. The Anchors created in Part 1 of our tour training, are the foundation that the rest of the tour is built on through the subsequent 3 parts.

Elements of the anchors arose when we worked on the highlights tour at Bletchley Park, they became fundamental to the Somerset House Tour and are in use at the moment with the National Trust for Scotland.

Anchors are what help you find, define, structure and tell the story of your tour (through the stories told at each stop). Every tour guide can use the same anchors (to have an interpretation integrity) but find their own way to share the tour and make it work for their audiences.

So what are these anchors?

Anchors initially help to define the subject, theme and purpose of a tour and tie it directly to the stops or route through which the story is told. These first anchors can follow or be stimulated by your current interpretation strategy so that your tour aligns and is part of it. They can be defined by your curators, interpretation or you can work with your tour guides to find these starting point anchors.

These anchors tether guides to the core content with an agreed and shared understanding of what the tour is about and why. Whilst giving them the freedom as they create and go on to deliver the tour to bring their passion, knowledge and unique take on the tour subject.

We are currently working with the National Trust for Scotland and our examples come from one of the tours we are helping to build at House of Dun, Montrose, Angus.

Anchors come in two types: there is a set for the tour as a whole, and another for each of the stops. It’s worth starting with the Anchor for the whole tour first – as a discussion around the table. Then start to walk the tour and work out the Anchors for each stop at each stop.

Anchors for the tour:

1: Tour subject – ‘This tour tells the story of how the family, house and landscape each had an influence on each other.’

-       We need to have clarity on what this tour is about. Sounds daft, but think back on tours you have been on, was the theme always clear? And was every stop serving that subject?

2: Tour Angle – ‘I had never considered whether a house was to look at from outside or to look outside from within. I will bear that in mind when visiting others.’

-       The Angle is more than the theme or topic, it’s what your audience leaves with (which is why its most useful to write as if said/thought by a visitor). Throughout the tour will have changed them: their thoughts, feelings, insights, understandings, opinions etc.  (‘I will always look at the ceilings when entering stately homes as I can now interpret them.)

3: Tour Stops –

-       The order of the stops needs to make sense both in the most practical route to take, but also in the story being told: is there a useful chronology? We can’t see or stop at everything so which stops in what order do we need?

That all seems obvious enough, so we now need a set of Anchors for each stop. Here’s an example of Stop 1 at the House of Dun:

1: Location/Object – ‘In front of the house entrance and the sequoias.”

-       where are we and what are we standing near to. Straight forward – but don’t confuse Location/Object with Subject…

2: Subject – ‘Erskine, the 13th Laird and the architect William Adam shared a vision: Look Out.’

-       Just as with the Tour itself, each stop needs a subject to make sure the guides preparing it have an idea of what is being covered here, and therefore what ISN’T being covered here too!

3: Angle – ‘I understand why this house was built here, by Erskine, as a result of a pioneering shared vision with his architect, with a desire to show off the unique beauty of the Montrose Basin.”

-       Each stop story’s angle is a wonderful editing tool: if potential content doesn’t serve the Angle, it gets cut and either said at another stop, on a different tour, or not at all. Stating as if said or thought by a visitor helps to keep the tour for your visitors.

4: 3 Layers

-       Stories, like life, play out over a number of threads and scales simultaneously. We’ve found the most useful three to look at are the Individual Experience, the Group Experience and the Largest Context. And each of these can be stated in the Anchors, to help build the detail and ensure we are creating connections between small stories and the bigger historical context.

The Individual allows us to get to know people, and connect to history, heritage and culture on a human level. Who were these people? What were their desires and experiences? Have one or two, maybe three, but not too many or we can’t get to meet them properly.

“David Erskine, an important Edinburgh lawyer, has the means and desire to build the House of Dun to cement his status and delight his guests. The Earl of Mar his uncle, who had great taste and vision, introduces him to William Adam, the foremost architect of his time.

The Group in traditional folktales would have been the village or the tribe or court. A collection of people with a commonality of experience. When creating a tour, an object such as a painting could have been the individual, and then the related group would be the art movement that painting is part of.

“The Neoclassical style of architecture, with its rigorous adherence to symmetry and elements taken from Greek and Roman architecture, allowed the House of Dun to reflect the fashions and ideals of Edinburgh. But it wasn’t there to be seen in awe inspiring glimpses on approach through the Angus landscape, but rather to house stunning rooms that echoed elements of the gorgeous views of the area both natural and created, seen from the windows”

The Greatest Context allows us to see how our story relates to history in its broadest sense. Sometimes historical events influence the story taking place sometimes our story creates history. 

“The 1700s was a time of advance: Empire, wealth, trade and colonisation, science, exploration and philosophy made this an affluent age for Scotland, Erskine was part of this time and House of Dun a result.”

5: Site specificity

-       A tour is the story a place or a collection can tell about itself. Therefore what is at the stop that we will look at.

The sequoia line of trees, the perspective view to the elder path.

The symmetry of the architecture (neoclassical definition) E.g. Pillars, windows…

Entrance of house at back not front.

The location of house within the Basin.

6: Obvious Story –

-       a sequence of simple sentences within a narrative structure. This pulls together much of what we have already but held together as a story for the stop, so the content is connected and takes us somewhere.

Beginning: A Neoclassical house was built by a successful lawyer within his family’s estate.

Middle: The house has a (practical and aesthetic) relationship with the landscape of the Montrose Basin.

End: The house is adapted by different family members over time, and each one is influenced by the house and landscape differently.

Once you have created these Anchors – with curatorial/interpretation colleagues, tour guides or both – you have a clear layout of how each stop works with the others to tell the story you want to tell and that your site, museum or collection is best able to tell as a tour.

Tour guides can take them and use the parameters they offer, to guide their research, so it is precise and not as lengthy as it could be.

As you build the tour content and delivery with the tour guides the Anchors serve the purpose of giving a control. If something seems wrong or not firm or there is disagreement then you go back to the Anchors to find the answer or resolve the issue. The Anchors can evolve over the process, for the better, but this needs to be done with agreement from all.

As the guides build and deliver their content the Anchors guide them so they can hit all the right notes but are free to do so in a way that best suits their personality, expertise and enthusiasms alongside responding to their visitors’ needs and interests.

Where or how can you see these Anchors being useful to you?

Take the Anchors to better understand what you have in your tours already, allow them to guide how you start the process of creating a tour.

Or bring us in so we can use the Anchors (and a lot more besides) to build your tours with you.