WORK completed by a York digital design agency has won national acclaim after the visitor experience it created was named a winner in the UK heritage award.

The Battle of Bannockburn experience in Scotland, which digitally recreates the historic battle for visitors, won the Innovation category at the Museums and Heritage Awards for Excellence in London, triumphing over competition from Stonehenge and the Science Museum.

The entry was a joint submission from the National Trust for Scotland, and York-based Bright White, which created the attraction.

Having opened in February last year, the Battle of Bannockburn experience is the first heritage centre in the world using Hollywood-calibre motion capture to immerse visitors in a realistic and historically accurate 3D medieval battle.

Judges said it showed a ‘new way forward for this kind of interpretation’.

The panel, added: "With subject matter which is notoriously difficult to interpret, the technology used here has brought the battle ground to life, successfully managing to be both fun and educational.”

Adam Stanning, director at Bright White, which employs a team of four in Swinegate, and designed the visitor centre, said: "The project was put out to a European tender about five years ago, so it was a coup for us to win it in such a competitive environment.

"We'd been working on it four about four years. It's been a long project, and quite a tricky one as the Trust wanted to build an interpretation centre, but there isn't a single thing that exists from the battle that took part 700 years ago.

"The challenge for us was to tell the story and interpret it but without any tangible objects to show.

"We tried to think of a way to engage with people and tell that story so it became an entirely digital visitor centre, the first of its kind.

"It was a big team that worked on it, and every single person was pushing the boundaries both architecturally and interpretation wise. To have that work recognised in this way is really exciting."