Dunston Community Centre has been awarded a grant by Historic England to fund a new project aimed at helping young people connect with the region’s industrial past by exploring the history of Dunston Staiths.
The grant of £7,000 will finance the project, called The Staiths and Me, which will create songs, films and photographs to celebrate the people who once worked there. These young creatives will help add to the Staiths' status as a visitor attraction, while exploring hidden stories linked to the huge timber structure on the River Tyne. As an added incentive to take part, five prizes of £100 will be awarded to groups who come up with the most interesting or unusual depiction of the Staiths’ story.
Dunston Staiths was the product of a now-vanished Tyneside way of life. The 520m (1,709ft)-long structure, believed to be the largest of its kind in Northern Europe, played a crucial role in the transportation of millions of tons of North East coal from the River Tyne.
