A new joint venture between Tenby Museum and Tenby Town Council was launched in Tenby today (Friday, January 27) with access to the town’s history, now at your fingertips through smartphones.

Historic Benchmarks will see 10 QR codes attached to benches in various locations throughout the seaside town. These act as descriptive historic snapshots of the town, as seen from the benches, and the history of the area is illustrated through objects from Tenby Museum’s collection, which form part of the descriptions.

Tenby QR codes
Mark Lewis from Tenby Museum, is seen with the town’s Mayor Cllr Sam Skyrme-Blackhall, and Tenby’s community engagement officer Anne Draper around the new benchmarks on South Parade alongside the town’s historic benchmarks. (Pic. Gareth Davies Photpgraphy)

The codes are bilingual (with the translation and Welsh voiceover done by the team at Menter Iaith). Mark Lewis, who this week announced that he was leaving his role as Curator for the Museum and Art Gallery, researched and wrote the texts and also did the English voiceover, as well as creating the podcasts for the QR codes.

Mark said: “This was a really interesting and enjoyable project to work on. I am happy to see this as my swansong at the Museum, having been there for 29 years. Many thanks to Tenby Town Council for their support with this project.”

The project was funded by the Federation of Museums and Art Galleries of Wales with match funding from Tenby Town Council.