30 New Projects Explore England’s Rural and Coastal Working-Class Heritage

'Gentle Waters' is a project unpacking the working-class history of rural lidos. The project explores how swimming has been an accessible working-class leisure and healing activity, thinking about the pool as a site for wellbeing and social history, capturing people's feelings and experiences of open-air swimming and the larger events and activities involving pools, such as cold-water dips and New Year swims. 
 
Artist Amelia Hawk will co-create a series of exploratory workshops with the local community, where free workshops will be hosted in and around the pool whilst capturing oral histories and historic photographs.  

The resulting project will see a permanent artwork made for the pool, alongside contributions to local archives, and a final celebratory event bringing together all the materials uncovered and produced through the project whilst opening up the pool for free creative swimming for wellbeing.

'Hexham: Prisons and People' focuses on Hexham Old Gaol (England's oldest prison), Moot Hall, and the House of Correction, which together form England's oldest prison system. Despite their historical significance, these buildings are often overlooked locally and beyond. The project aims to highlight their importance through diverse and engaging storytelling, exploring themes of justice, heroism, human rights, nationhood, poverty, and disability in Hexham.

Hexham Old Gaol and Moot Hall date back to the 1300s, serving as a prison and courtroom respectively, with the House of Correction added in the early 1800s. The project seeks to bring these buildings to the forefront, engaging a wide range of communities to create outcomes inspired by their history and the stories of working-class people who encountered the local judicial system.

Led by Museums Northumberland and supported by established and new partners, the project will foster meaningful engagement, developing creative ideas to celebrate, increase access to, and raise awareness of these significant buildings and Hexham's hidden heritage.

The 'Atchin Tan Heritage Project', led by Pride of Romany, aims to preserve and celebrate the rich cultural heritage and history of the British Romany community who have lived in the area since the 16th century, focusing on the historic significance of Sound Common in Nantwich, Cheshire.

Pride of Romany will collaborate with Romany historians, community elders and local residents, capturing their diverse histories, folklore and stories. By bringing together shared experiences of the community, the project celebrates the stories of the British Romany people and their contributions to the local area.

The stories shared throughout the project will be summarised with an informative booklet, alongside the installation of a commemorative plaque on Sound Common and the creation of a documentary to celebrate the history and legacy of Romany culture. The project will culminate in a gala event showcasing the documentary, strengthening the understanding between communities and preserving Romany heritage for future generations.

'Under Our Umbrella' brings together children from 2 of Merseyside's communities most in need of opportunities, Bootle and Litherland, connecting them to their shared coastal heritage through the historic Liverpool Overhead Railway.

Opened in 1893, the Liverpool Overhead Railway is known locally as the Dockers' Umbrella for providing shelter to port workers during heavy rain. Operating along the Liverpool Docks, the railway facilitated global trade and connected lives and communities along the docklands.

This project will transform the communities' shared coastal heritage into a Virtual Reality train journey through the past, collaborating with local historians and academics to research the railway's history and the communities it connected. This reconstruction will be staged inside the last remaining Overhead Railway Carriage at the Museum of Liverpool, celebrating Liverpool's working-class heritage.

Jaywick Martello Tower was built in 1809 to defend against Napoleonic invasion.

For the past 20 years, this historic building has been an important local arts and community centre at the heart of the Jaywick Sands community.

The story of Jaywick Tower will be brought to life through intergenerational storytelling, art and spoken word workshops and performances, sharing stories of the past and capturing stories for the future. Local voices, particularly young people, will be at the heart of the project, creating a sense of community and collective achievement.

An exhibition of the work created will be displayed at Jaywick Martello Tower this summer, with workshops and events for the community involved.

In 1920, a 9-acre holiday camp opened in the village of Hemsby in Norfolk. Purchased by the Pontins brand in 1971, the camp had 512 chalets at its peak and could accommodate up to 2,440 guests over 22 acres. The Pontins Holiday Park welcomed holidaymakers every year until its closure in 2009.

With coastal erosion taking more of the beach every year, it is important to document Hemsby's heritage as a holiday resort. An audio documentary entitled 'The Holiday Makers' will be created, telling the stories of Hemsby's employees and visitors over the decades. Interviews with past guests and workers will be combined with narration by current residents and local people.

This personal approach will highlight the significance of the coastal village in British history and preserve many important stories and oral histories.

A group of Deaf people from Margate will explore the history of the Royal School for Deaf Children to produce oral histories and a documentary film with 104 Projects. The school was England's first public institution for Deaf children. It was founded in 1792 in London and later moved to Margate. The school closed in 2015, and the site is set to be redeveloped.

Participants from local Deaf organisations will investigate the school's history and interview former students who now live locally to illuminate what educational provision was like for working-class Deaf people. Experts will guide the group to learn research, oral history and filmmaking skills to celebrate voices from the Deaf community before the school's physical presence disappears for good. The project team plans to premiere the film made at the Margate Film Festival in November and deposit the oral histories in Kent Archives.

'Shrovetide; Past, Present & Place' will use the annual ritual of 'Shrovetide Football' to explore the heritage of the rural communities of Atherstone, Warwickshire, and Ashbourne, Derbyshire. GRAIN Projects is an arts organisation dedicated to facilitating and delivering ambitious, engaging and high-quality co-created photography projects in the Midlands. Working collaboratively with artists and communities, utilising photography to create positive change and ensuring that people from every walk of life can express themselves, GRAIN will use this project to explore identities, histories, stories and place.

The Shrovetide football games that take place annually in Atherstone and Ashbourne in their streets and public spaces have medieval origins. Increasingly, the matches are seen as eccentric rituals. In Ashbourne, the town plays the game for 16 hours, and the goals are three miles apart. This project will work with the communities of the market towns through workshops and activities led by artists to explore these centuries-old rituals central to local identity.

Exploring what the football matches mean to post-agriculture and post-industrial identity, gender and belonging through photography and oral histories working in partnership with local social clubs, sports clubs (including Women's Football Clubs), schools and community groups. The final output will be an exhibition, co-created and curated with participants, that will tour 2 local libraries and become part of public archives.

The Brockweir Inn Community Benefit Society is bringing the historic Brockweir Inn into community ownership following its closure in 2019. The Inn, which has been a pub since at least 1793, is the last of 17 pubs in the village. Brockweir was once a buzzing port and centre for shipbuilding on the river Wye. Approached as much by water as by road, it was an isolated community with an independent character and a reputation for being a 'city of refuge' for those operating outside the law.

Led by the community, the project will explore the colourful past of Brockweir through digital and archive resources. Groups of all ages and backgrounds will work with a community curator, artists and an engagement officer through a series of workshops to identify the stories that are important to them and how they can be told. A community exhibition will be displayed during a week-long celebration of the history of Brockweir at the School Rooms and Mackenzie Hall, and artwork from the project will be on permanent display in the refurbished Brockweir Inn so that the story of the village can be shared with residents and visitors to the area in the future.

Crossing Lives' is a social history and photography project that explores the lives of the toll booth workers who have been at the heart of the Tamar Bridge since its construction. Fotonow, a Plymouth-based social enterprise exploring visual culture, will collaborate with the Bridging the Tamar Visitor and Learning Centre to spotlight the unsung toll staff who have maintained the crossing and collected payments for generations.

The project will produce a series of powerful images while the community helps capture oral histories, working with current and former toll booth workers to share their personal experiences. These stories and pictures will be showcased along the bridge in a large-scale public exhibition. This project will preserve these stories for future generations, using the bridge as a metaphor for connecting Devon and Cornwall while celebrating the working-class individuals who keep it moving.