Top Row, L – R Digital Arts Box CIC, Phoenix Amateur Photographers
Bottom Row L – R Loose at The Studio, Gateway Community Ltd
Community groups in Halton have teamed up for the first time to access Heritage Grants funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund through the Celebrating Halton’s Heritage project.
Celebrating Halton’s Heritage is part of Halton Boroughs Year of Culture and grants have been made available to encourage local community groups to work with heritage partners to explore aspects of Halton’s trading past.
The successful applicants in this first round of funding are Phoenix Amateur Photographers, Loose at The Studio, Digital Art Box CIC and Gateway Community Limited.
Their projects will bring to life Halton’s trades, telling stories from the past in innovative new ways and it is an opportunity for the groups and their partners to learn from each other.
Phoenix Amateur Photographers will be working with Sankey Canal Restoration Society (SCARS) to document, in photographic form, the trades of Halton’s waterways.
Loose will be working with Widnes Historical Society to research and record the former use of The Studio building in Widnes as a clothing factory and produce a booklet detailing what they find.
Digital Art Box CIC will be working in partnership with Halton Libraries, Catalyst Museum and the local community and are going to use media from local archives and the medium of stop-motion animation to bring historical stories about trades in Halton to life.
This will be uploaded to Halton Heritage Partnership’s website and will be available for download and to stream for free online.
Gateway Community Limited will be working with Halton Libraries to tell the story of Soap, and how it changed the Borough, in new ways to bring the story to a new audience.
They will create a touring exhibition which will also go on display at their training centre where the images will become a permanent feature. They will also produce a video which will be shared through social media.
These projects will be delivered by August next year and will culminate in a celebration event at the St Marie’s Heritage HQ on Lugsdale Road in September 2022. This will be an opportunity to showcase what has been achieved.
Halton Borough Council’s Executive Board Member for Community and Culture, Paul Nolan, said “The awarding of National Lottery Heritage Fund through the Celebrating Halton’s Heritage project is a great step forward n bringing community groups and heritage specialists together to ensure that our great industrial and cultural past is not forgotten.”
