Staff at Chester University have been working on a new project which brings the past to life through immersive 3D environments.

Dr Helen Southall has been working alongside Katherine Wilson, professor of later medieval European history, and local Virtual Reality (VR) creator Martin Moss of DextraVisual.

So far, the team has been able to create detailed VR reconstructions of sites in 14th century Chester - including a reconstruction of St John's Church.

These were included in an exhibition which ran at the Grosvenor Museum and Chester Cathedral in 2022, and were later adapted for use in VR headsets and tested with members of the public.

Having taught courses on user experience design, Helen is aiming to make the VR experience more accessible for a wider range of historical attractions.

It is especially geared towards smaller and less-funded locations, which normally would not have spare resources to allocate on expensive VR testing. 

"Smaller regional museums and sites often have important collections of historic relics and records, and staff who are highly expert on the relevant historical topics," said Helen Southall, senior lecturer in the school of computer and engineering sciences.

"However, they may lack the funds and technical resources to specify or produce enjoyable VR experiences."

With increasing public demand for computer game-quality animations to be used in historical attractions, Katherine and Helen chose to focus on how small regional museums and historical sites could make effective use of VR technology.

Now, Helen and Katherine, alongside Dr Lee Beever, an expert on computer games design, are working with PhD student Jess Vining, who is researching the topic of 'Touching Heritage: Providing Access to Cultural Heritage'.

Jess is working with historical artefacts provided by Dr Elizabeth Montgomery, of Chester's Grosvenor Museum, looking at how they can best be digitised and made accessible.

Katherine said: "It is fantastic to see the way the important subject of History based on historical research can be brought to life for the public through these new technologies.

"We are especially delighted to further shed light on the rich medieval history of Chester."