The Approach
Oram’s research demonstrated the diverse ways in which ideas about same-sex love are presented in sites including Sissinghurst (Kent), Shibden Hall (West Yorkshire) and Plas Newydd (the home of the "Ladies of Llangollen" in Wales). Oram recommends that curators and custodians of historic houses challenge the privileged position of heterosexuality in our society by revealing the evidence of queer lives in their properties.
The government agency responsible for the historic environment, Historic England (English Heritage until 2015 when that body was separated from its property management arm) has increasingly sought to promote “under-represented heritage” in its work since the 2000s. Oram disseminated her research to its regional staff groups and served as a panel member on its wide-ranging 2012 consultancy on Under-Represented Heritage.
In 2015 Oram won a highly competitive bidding process for Stages 1 and 2 of Historic England’s LGBT Heritage project, subsequently named “Pride of Place: England’s LGBTQ Heritage”. She led a team of between 4 and 10 people between 2015 and 2016 whose purpose was to advise Historic England on new and amended listings of historic sites to reflect their LGBTQ histories, to engage the public in a crowd-sourced map to reveal new queer sites, to write a 35-page online exhibition, new guidance for designation and archive practice, and teachers’ resources. This was the largest social history project on under-represented heritage commissioned by Historic England to that date.