Cullercoats: Past, Present and Futures
This project allowed the young people of Cullercoats to collect information about the rich social, cultural and environmental heritage of Cullercoats.
Project Leaders: Susan Gebbels and Dr Jane Delany
Contact: susan.gebbels@ncl.ac.uk
Sponsors: Heritage Lottery Fund
Disappearing heritage
Cullercoats was once a well-defined fishing village. It is still referred to as a village by older residents. It has a rich cultural and social heritage. It is located in an extremely attractive environment – Cullercoats Bay. Regrettably, however, the Cullercoats community, like so many others, is rapidly losing its identity. This is due to social mobility, building development, boundary loss and changing perceptions and attitudes of local people. The village is in danger of being lost as an urban hinterland, between Tynemouth and Whitley Bay.
Pilot project
A pilot project saw three classes of Year 5 and 6 students from Cullercoats Primary learn about their heritage. Although they were highly motivated, they had poor knowledge of their cultural, social and environmental past. Unfortunately, most aspects of Cullercoats’ heritage are poorly-documented. For example, almost nothing is written about the once thriving fishing community. The knowledge and way of life of fishermen and their families appears lost. With the decline of the industry (there remains only a tiny remnant of it today), deaths of older fishermen and children of fishing families turning to other kinds of employment and/or moving away, such knowledge could go forever. There was an urgent need to collect information about this, and other aspects, of our heritage. We need to collect it for the benefit of the whole of the Cullercoats community. Who better to do this than the young people of Cullercoats?
What we plan to do
The aims of the project are to:
- raise awareness of, and encourage pride in, our rich heritage
- collect and collate information about Cullercoats, much of which is in danger of being lost
- encourage closer bonds within the Cullercoats village community
The approach will be for the young people of Cullercoats, working in collaboration with The Watch-House group, The RNLI and The Dove Marine Laboratory to collect information about the rich social, cultural and environmental heritage of Cullercoats. The gathered information will be disseminated to the remainder of the Cullercoats community.
What we aim to produce
We aim to produce two high-quality guides. One will be on Cullercoats Flora and Fauna and the other on our maritime heritage. The emphasis in both cases will be on producing information that is scientifically and historically accurate but which considers aspects through the eyes of young people.
There will be an open day/exhibition in Cullercoats Primary School’s hall which will include displays of old photographs, drawings, documents, paintings, poetry, traditional items of clothing and artifacts from the fishing and coal mining industries, as well as information about modern Cullercoats. Coffee mornings will be held in the Watch House with displays depicting Cullercoats in the past and today.
There will be a twice-yearly Newsletter produced by children of Cullercoats Primary School which will be distributed to the local community.
Workshops about maritime history
As a result of running a series of workshops with the school children, we realised that the young people of Cullercoats had very little knowledge about the village in which they live, especially the culture, history and natural heritage of the area. To address this problem, we spent several terms working with the children to raise their awareness of Cullercoats' maritime history. The lifeboats, local families, smugglers stories and daring rescues at sea were just some of the topics they investigated both through classroom based study, interviews with local residents and field trips. At the end of the project they produced their own booklet about the area's history.
Another aspect of the study was to educate the children about the natural environment of Cullercoats. We worked with more than 130 pupils teaching them about the flora and fauna within the bay. The pupils were divided into four groups, and each was given a specific topic to investigate. These included: the hidden plants and animals of Cullercoats Bay; feeding and food webs; classification of marine animals and a study into local fishing methods. Their work was made into a glossy 24 page booklet of which each child has a copy. They were sent to all the libraries in North Tyneside and several have been sent abroad to schools that are part of the International Comenius Project of which Cullercoats is a Primary member.
It is hoped young people now have the confidence to share their newly found knowledge with the members of their families and friends and become valuable contributors to the community.
Find out more
To find out more about this project, email mast.outreach@ncl.ac.uk