AN east Durham village's efforts to record its mining past have won funding from the National Lottery.

The Awards for All grants programme has given the Wheatley Hill Heritage Society £5,000 towards the cost of a model depicting the village in 1919, just after the First World War.

The society has created the Parish Heritage Centre in a refurbished chapel and is filling it with artefacts from the heyday of the village's mining past, including pay slips, mining tools and cooking utensils.

The 8ft by 4ft three-dimensional model includes details such as the pithead and railway sidings.

The colliery closed in 1968 and the village population has fallen from 7,000 to 3,500.

However, 80 homes built recently are helping bring new blood into the community.

Society treasurer Gordon Tempest is hoping Prime Minister Tony Blair, the constituency MP, will officially open the centre's first exhibition.

"I am sure if he is able to, he will do it. Tony Blair has always responded positively when approached in similar circumstances in the past."

"This was once a thriving village.

"There is still a sense of pride here, even though many of the shops that served the community have now gone and the village has lost its recreational amenities, including the cinemas, theatres and dance hall."

Pat Lowes, of Awards for All, said: "We are very pleased to have been able to support this heritage project.

"It celebrates the history of a fine village in the heart of the County Durham coalfield, and I am sure the exhibition centre will be of wide interest to both local people and visitors alike.

"We would welcome more applications for funding from heritage organisations of this kind."