Almond Valley Heritage Centre

The Project

Almond Valley Heritage Centre cares for significant natural, built and cultural heritage while offering engaging play, learning and discovery experiences for families and communities. Now in its fourth decade, it’s focused on access, inclusion and sustainability, ensuring it’s here to be enjoyed for generations to come.

This project forms part of a wider programme of digital transformation for the organisation, enhancing how visitors engage with the attraction, while providing the insight needed to support long-term sustainability and viability as a charity.

Following a period of reflection in 2024, led by newly in-post Director Jen Howard Coombes, the organisation recognised that while its on-site experience had evolved, with expanded adventure areas, education, creative programme and year-round events – its brand and digital presence had not kept pace.

Our Approach

The Brand

Together, we set out to:

• Put heritage at the heart of the visitor experience – from the 230-year-old working water mill to Scotland’s first shale oil discovery.
• Welcome a diverse range of audiences, from local families who return year after year, to those visiting for the first time.
• Build a brand that feels fun, creative and playful, with a nod to Almond Valley’s historical and preservation roles.

The result: a refreshed brand identity that’s full of energy; rooted in history; and bursting with imagination. It’s one in a mill-ion.

Our Approach

The Website

Tourism and visitor attraction projects are always a favourite with the Creatomatic team. That’s why we joined ASVA back in 2023 and, since then, we’ve helped launch new websites for some of the country’s most recognisable attractions, many of which are ASVA members.

Challenges and Pain Points

When we first spoke with Jen and the team at Almond Valley, a few clear challenges were clear.

• Their website no longer reflected the visitor experience today: Almond Valley is a place where play, heritage, the farm, and the water wheel all connect, but the website didn’t bring those elements together in a clear, joined-up way that tells the full story.
  
• Hard to manage and update content in-house: The existing site was around 4–5 years old, hadn’t been actively managed, and was difficult for the team to keep up to date.
  
• Not supporting the core goal: increasing footfall and ticket sales: The structure made it harder for visitors to quickly find essentials like opening times, what’s on, and the little details needed when  planning a great day out. In other words, it made it harder for people to come and visit.
  
• Tone and messaging out of step: The copy leaned too tongue-in-cheek and just didn’t quite fit  with Almond Valley’s voice and positioning.
  
• Heritage story underplayed: Their origin story and heritage are central to what makes Almond Valley special, but this content wasn’t given the prominence it deserved.
  
• No meaningful tracking or insight: With limited analytics in place, the team had no clear view of website performance, visitor journeys, or booking behaviour.

What they said

Jen Howard Coombes, Director (Almond Valley Heritage Centre) said:

“A shared vision, brought to life

To help us take a huge step forward, we partnered with Creatomatic to deliver a new website and refreshed brand identity… and we’ve been delighted with the journey.

From the outset, they understood the essence of Almond Valley: what makes people return, what makes families feel at home, and what makes this place special. That insight is reflected throughout the design.

This was a genuinely collaborative process. Our workforce came together to help shape our direction of travel, ensuring the new brand is rooted in shared values, lived experience, and inspired by those deeply connected to the site.

That’s why the refreshed brand already feels so familiar – it’s not something imposed on Almond Valley, but something grown from within it.”