ABSTRACT
Bolsover, a 17th-century castle in Derbyshire, England, managed by English Heritage and built on the site where a 12th-century medieval castle once stood, has recently incorporated reenactment into its programming as a method of engaging wider public interest and drawing more visitors. As Bolsover demonstrates, cultural heritage sites perform the reenactment that was already part of their history. Heritage is both reenacted and preserved through the rearrangement of paper, printed words, and images of historically significant sites and personages. The relationship between architecture, land, and text is central to the life of heritage in cultural history and enshrined in the homophone monument/muniment, the stone memorial and the documentary archive in ancient houses. Tracing heritage to its antiquarian roots shows that it was a medium for imaginative creativity from its outset. Heritage can also be located in embodied practices, such as storytelling, rituals, performances, and festivals.
