Norman Cross, just outside Peterborough, is recognised as the world’s first purpose-built prisoner of war camp. Built in the late 1790s during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the camp held thousands of prisoners from across Europe and became a place of confinement, craft, trade, cultural exchange and loss.

Although internationally significant, the physical site is not immediately easy to read. Much of its history lies beneath the landscape, in surviving earthworks, buried archaeology, museum collections, documentary records and the stories connected to the people who lived, worked and died there.

One to One Development Trust worked to bring this complex history into public view.

The project combines film, 3D digital interpretation and detailed digital scans of original artefacts to help audiences understand the scale, structure and significance of the former camp. Through a two specially produced short films, interactive digital content and visual interpretation, the work makes the story of Norman Cross more accessible to visitors, local communities, heritage audiences and future supporters.

The interpretation needed to balance several important responsibilities. Norman Cross is a place of international historical importance, but it is also a sensitive site connected to imprisonment, displacement and the deaths of prisoners who remain buried nearby. The work therefore needed to be clear and engaging, while also being respectful of the site’s deeper human history.

Our role was to help make an under-recognised heritage site visible, understandable and meaningful. The films and digital interpretation supported the public launch of Norman Cross as a place people can visit, learn about and begin to understand in greater depth.

Norman Cross is a powerful example of how film and digital interpretation can help reveal a heritage site where much of the story is hidden, fragile or difficult to imagine from the landscape alone.

The project helped make the site’s history and significance more visible, supporting Nene Park Trust’s work to open up public access, develop visitor understanding and build wider awareness of an important part of Peterborough’s heritage.

By combining film, 3D modelling and artefact-based interpretation, the work gives audiences different ways into the story: through place, objects, people, memory and imagination.

The project also demonstrates how carefully produced digital heritage content can support the early stages of a larger public-facing heritage ambition. It helped communicate progress, build interest and give visitors, partners and funders a clearer sense of the site’s potential as Norman Cross begins a new chapter in public life.