I hope details of the following successful funding bid will be of interest to the list:

Ambitious archive project to preserve Peterborough’s history receives boost from Heritage Lottery Fund & Arts Council England

An exciting joint project run by Eastern Angles, the East of England’s leading touring theatre company, and Vivacity’s Peterborough Archive Service has been given the go-ahead following a successful funding bid.

Having secured two grants; £160,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund plus £60,000 through Arts Council England’s ‘Grants for the Arts’ scheme, the two organisations are to embark on an ambitious three-year programme of theatre and archive work entitled Forty Years On.

The Eastern Angles/Peterborough Archive Service project will explore, archive and creatively interpret forty years of Peterborough history from 1968.

Over 100 Peterborough-based volunteers will be given the opportunity to take part in the Forty Years On project. As well as cataloguing and conserving the archives of the Peterborough Development Corporation, participants will be trained to collect over 150 oral histories from residents who moved to Peterborough during the city’s 40-year period of rapid expansion. Testimonials will also be gathered from Peterborough’s established immigrant groups and more recent arrivers from Eastern Europe.

The archives will form the basis of a fascinating documentary-style play created by Eastern Angles, exploring the background to the planning and creation of Peterborough’s new townships. This play will be performed in five venues across Peterborough during Autumn 2012.

In the following year the interviews and further research will be turned into a community play featuring up to a 100 community-performers culminating in a massive production in late 2013. The project will finish in Spring 2014 with a completed and fully accessible archive and website with special features for school curriculum projects.

Anna Sexton, Peterborough Archives Service, said:
“We are delighted that one of Peterborough’s most important modern archive collections is getting the attention that it deserves.  We are excited about working alongside a large team of volunteers who will be helping us to enrich and promote the modern heritage of the City for the benefit of many generations to come”

Added information:

Eastern Angles is the regional touring theatre company for East Anglia. It has a reputation for producing high-quality, new writing with a regional flavour. Based at the Sir John Mills Theatre in Ipswich, the company has been touring professional theatre productions into the towns and villages of East Anglia for 29 years. Eastern Angles have also staged productions at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and at London’s Bush Theatre www.easternangles.co.uk 

Peterborough Archive Service is based in the Central Library and is managed by Vivacity Culture and Leisure Trust on behalf of Peterborough City Council.  The service’s core provision is to provide information about, and access to its archives and local studies collections.  These collections range from 13th century charters to recent historic records including the Peterborough Development Corporation material. The service has a growing reputation as a centre for family history research and also runs a wide range of local history events, activities and projects based on its archive collections.  

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