The Customs House was awarded just over £21,000 of National Lottery funding. This money was to run a project about the history of theatres in South Shields. The Customs House celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2019 making this project perfectly timed.
The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) awarded The Learning and Participation team this money to work with three South Tyneside schools . Their project partner schools are Seaview Primary, Dunn Street Primary and Harton Primary.
To start children completed a heritage walk through the town. Following their walk they learnt more about the local history archives including what sort of things The Word looks after and how to use them to find out about the past.
Back at school a team of heritage ambassadors researched an aspect of theatre history. This research helped the heritage ambassadors create unique animations.
The project finished with a sharing event at The Customs House. The partner schools saw all three animations on the big screen and found out even more about the history of theatres.