THE story of a Windrush family - who used their passion and drive to become central figures in their adopted community - is being told through an augmented reality trail around Newport this August.

Centred around Newport’s Kingsway Centre and the streets of the city on August 13 and 14, residents are invited to experience Newport like never before, through augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and an immersive map of the city.

The trail, accessed through mobile devices, invites visitors to not only hear the story of the Freckletons - who arrived in Pill in the 1950s, and drew local crowds to their home-based church and meeting place – but also witnessed them decamp to a bigger congregational space with tambourines soon joined by guitars, banjos, and drum kits.

Narrated in English by Adeola Dewis and in Welsh by Tonya Smith, the story is among hundreds told through ground-breaking multimedia technologies through StoryTrails this summer.

The trails, created using film from BBC, British Film Institute and local archives, present a window into the past.

Visitors can borrow devices from the civic centre and follow guided augmented reality trails across the two-day event, or follow the route independently by downloading the StoryTrails app onto their own devices.

Inside the Kingsway Centre, immersive maps will reveal stories of local people and familiar landmarks, such as Tredegar House, the Transporter Bridge, and Gilligan’s Island.

Created by George McDonagh by 3D scanning the people and buildings that build up a picture of the life and heritage of each location, the 15-minute films play on a loop throughout the day and a further 20 stories can be viewed on iPads in the library.

Mr McDonagh, alongside Mohamad Miah who created the AR trails in Newport, are two of 50 emerging creatives from around the UK selected to take part in the development of StoryTrails and benefit from expert training and mentoring opportunities from StoryFutures Academy, the National Centre for Immersive Storytelling, the team behind StoryTrails.

Mr Miah said: “It’s taken months of work to get to this point and we can’t believe we finally get to share it with everyone. It’s truly been a project by Newport, for Newport, created in Newport.

"We’ve unearthed incredible stories of powerful local characters that deserve to be told. We’ve worked closely with BFI and BBC archives to help tell those stories and we’re using new technologies like AR to bring them to life in a way that makes them accessible to all. If you don’t have a smart phone you can borrow one on the day.”

Time travel continues inside the Kingsway Centre across the live event days, when visitors enter digitally created worlds using a virtual reality (VR) headset, to hear stories from the 1980s, 1990s, and what earlier generations thought life would be like today.

All the stories featured on the VR headsets are available at every stop on the StoryTrails UK tour.

Historian and television presenter David Olusoga, familiar to viewers of the BBC’s A House Through Time, narrates a further AR experience that invites visitors to turn a dial on a virtual giant radio and travel back in time.

StoryTrails, part of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, is the UK’s largest immersive storytelling experience, taking place at 15 locations around the UK this summer. This innovative project is led by StoryFutures Academy, the National Centre for Immersive Storytelling.