A PROJECT to help preserve some of the region’s most ‘at-risk’ industrial heritage will be officially launched next week.

The North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Partnership has been awarded a grant of £79,200 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) to assess several old mining sites that have been designated Scheduled Monuments by Historic England.

The project, OREsome North Pennines will be launched at St John’s Chapel Town Hall in Weardale, County Durham, on Saturday, October 8, from 2pm to 4pm.

Peter Jackson, chair of Nenthead Mines Conservation Society, ecologist Dr Janet Simkin and Brian Young, honorary research fellow in the Department of Earth Sciences at Durham University, will give presentations at the event, and the public are welcome to attend to find out more about the project.

Sites with heritage protection status should be handed on to future generations in the same state that they were found, but many sites have suffered weather damage that will eventually lead to the loss of their special features.

With the help of volunteers, the project aims to look at the botany, geology and archaeology of the sites – something which has never been done in unison before.

Sarah Tooze, OREsome North Pennines project officer, said: “We want to look at these sites with fresh eyes; to understand their importance not only for their industrial heritage, but also the plants that grow there, and the rocks that gave rise to the lead mining industry.”

To book a place at the launch event or if you are interested in volunteering, contact Ms Tooze on 01388-528801 or sarah@northpenninesaonb.org.uk