Community grants in 2025

In 2025, the North Pennines National Landscape team have awarded over £26,000 in grants to community organisations that are carrying out their own projects to explore the lead and silver mining heritage of the North Pennines, and lots of exciting projects have been taking place.

Rocks and riches of the North Pennines

A community-driven geology course was provided free to members of the public throughout August and September 2025. The course consisted of three talks and four field trips, including trips to Epiacum and Nenthead Mines. All participants felt that they had learnt about both the geology and the mining heritage of the North Pennines.

Allen Valleys local history group

The group created a landscaped seating area around the historic ‘Isaac’s Well’ in Allendale, providing a focal point for the start of the long-distance walk, Isaac’s Tea Trail, as well as seating to be enjoyed by locals and tourists to the village. The grant covered reinstating the cobbled ground around the well, installation of a paved path made from locally-sourced sandstone, updating the metal interpretation sign about the mining heritage and legacy of Isaac Holden, and installing safety bollards, seating and flower planters.

Isaac Holden was a nineteenth century lead miner from West Allendale. He was from a mining family and in the 1820s was employed as a boy on the lead-washing floor. He subsequently worked as a lead miner, and then as an itinerant tea-seller visiting mining and farming families around East and West Allendale. In later life, he became something of a local celebrity and philanthropist by raising funds for local initiatives from the supply of fresh water for local people to a clothing fund.

North Pennines textile group

Community arts sessions in summer 2025 with artist-in-residence, Jenny Brook, brought local women together to explore textiles and heritage. The project follows on from these workshops and the community grant will allow further exploration of the mining heritage of the North Pennines and research into women’s role in lead mining, their homes and the clothing that they and their families wore with a focus on the fabric types and styles, and the heritage crafts that they used to create clothing and items for their homes. Read more here.

Way of Hope steering group

This group is developing a new walking route, The Way of Hope, which celebrates the religious and mining heritage of Weardale. Those who are part of the group, representatives of local churches, Weardale Visitor Network, Weardale Railway (The Auckland Project), Weardale Museum, Durham County Council footpath officers, Stanhope Parish Council, Weardale Area Action Partnership, with support from the North Pennines National Landscape team, aim to encourage visitors to Weardale so that they can appreciate the landscape and history and to engage in spiritual renewal. Visitors can stay longer and make more use of the hospitality venues, building on the popularity of the Northern Saints Trails. Methodism and lead mining are intrinsically linked in the North Pennines, and especially in Weardale where John Wesley, the founder of Wesleyan Methodism visited. The grant funding will be used to repair and reinstate an eighteenth century Grade II listed stone guidepost which stood on the roadside verge and was damaged by road traffic.

Weardale Together

Weardale Together is a grassroots community organisation that brings people together through creative, social and wellbeing activities. It supports people of all ages and aims to reduce isolation and strengthen community connections. The organisation runs the Root & Branch Community Café, youth club sessions, arts and heritage events, and seasonal celebrations, delivered in collaboration with local artists, volunteers and residents. Weardale Together is organising a clog dancing project, which includes a series of clog dancing workshops open to all ages and abilities. It is also creating a short film that will explore Weardale’s mining heritage through a newly-choreographed clog dance performance. The project brings together the traditional folk arts of clog dancing and music that once thrived in local mining communities, filmed within key sites of mining heritage significance across Weardale. Find out more here.

The community grants are part of the Land of Lead and Silver project and there is further funding available for 2026. Find out more and how to apply here.

The project is led by the North Pennines National Landscape and funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to National Lottery players, and Historic England.