How can historic houses and heritage sites better reflect and interpret LGBTQ+ histories? Join us for the launch of How to Queer Your Historic House, a free downloadable resource designed to help heritage professionals uncover and integrate queer narratives into historic spaces.
Created by researcher and heritage practitioner Indigo Dunphy-Smith, this practical, budget-friendly guide is designed for curators, visitor services staff, educators, and volunteers working across heritage sites. Drawing on years of hands-on experience in historic houses, Indigo provides a framework for rethinking object interpretation, challenging biases, and linking contextual LGBTQ+ stories into the property’s narrative—even at sites with no direct queer history. The guide offers tools to explore broader social and cultural contexts, drawing meaningful links between historic spaces, collections and queer experiences of the past to tell a more complete story of a historic house.
This event will include:
📖 An introduction to the resource – key themes, methodologies, and how to apply them in heritage settings
💬 A discussion on the challenges of integrating queer histories and strategies for overcoming obstacles
🔍 A practical guide exploring examples and how to implement queer storytelling at your site
🏛 A special look at the pilot project – How to Queer Your Historic House will be trialed at Osterley Park and House (National Trust), offering a first-hand insight into its practical application, the challenges that may arise, and the possibilities for adapting the research to ongoing projects.
❓ Audience Q&A
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📅 Date: Tuesday, 20 May 2025
⏰ Time: 10:00-12:00 (UK time)
📍 Location: Online (the recording will be made available on the QHCN website)
🎟 Tickets: Free – Registration required
Whether your site has documented LGBTQ+ connections or none at all, this session will help you reframe narratives, uncover hidden histories, and engage visitors with richer, more inclusive storytelling.
This event will be recorded and it will be available at: https://queerhcn.org/resources/
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About Indigo Dunphy-Smith
Indigo (she/her) is a researcher and writer based in Edinburgh, focusing on queer storytelling through museum and gallery collections. From castles to convict barracks, she has worked in the heritage sector for over ten years across Australia and Scotland. She specialises in research and public programmes that make space for marginalised stories in traditional places. Indigo has delivered conference papers and workshops about how to uncover queer links in historic houses and appeared on the podcast Bad Gays. She is currently the co-chair of the National Trust for Scotland’s LGBTQ network and supports organisations in queering heritage spaces.
Indigo's website: https://a-queer-was-here.com/
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Image credit: (c) National Trust for Scotland, Engraving of Jupiter Disguised as Diana Seducing Callisto, after Angelica Kauffmann, c. 1766-1781, NTS
